The Safer World for All campaign aims to focus our nation on the urgent need to protect our environment and create fairer systems that include the world’s poorest nations. Tearfund’s Sam Fagan reflects on a new theological paper penned by Tim Costello, Executive Director of Micah Australia, to underpin the campaign.
The Safer World for All policy report outlines the intensifying global crisis that our world is facing – dangerous weather, increased wars and soaring inequality – and why Australia must invest more in international development, climate action and economic reform to prevent the world slipping towards crisis points that threaten our common progress, stability and prosperity. The campaign aims to coordinate the advocacy responses of Australian Christian agencies, churches and supporters to call upon the government for three specific asks:
1. Increase investment in Australian Aid
2. Support a fairer global economy
3. Ensure a safer climate future
Importantly, the Australian International Development Policy states: “We reaffirm our commitment to the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as the globally agreed framework for international development.” The campaign is asking the Australian government to embrace and implement what it has already committed to, yet current projections see more than half the goals severely off track.
“A Safer World for All” is a bold and prophetic title that centres on the word “safer”. Of all the descriptors that could have been used to frame the desired outcome, this was the word chosen. But what is safety?
Pause and consider how you would describe that experience to someone who had no concept of the word. It is a loaded term that could be interpreted in many ways depending on the context. As a baseline, in the Hebrew Bible, the word for safety is beh’takh, which denotes both the fact (security) and the feeling (trust).
These are helpful lenses to consider what may or may not be safe in our current global context. Security in relation to human rights, economies, health care, climate and sustainability, politics and governance. Trust in relation to cultural and social relationships, decision-makers, institutions, the environment and, importantly, the agency and capacity to trust oneself or feel safe in one’s body.
The introduction to Tim Costello’s theological paper grounds a Christian response in the Genesis account of creation. The world comes into being through the advocacy of God. In the creation, according to Genesis chapter 1, God speaks eight times and things come into existence. It is this example of advocacy we may follow: that as image bearers of God, we are created with capacity and potential to do like God.
Advocacy is a creative act that opens up space that was not there before. It is speaking up and speaking out in the name of the God of Jesus. Thus, a broad mission statement is described: “It is an advocacy campaign to separate the light from the darkness – and to celebrate the light.” This is priority and imperative given the harsh reality of poverty and the more than 700 million people living in extreme poverty.
However, we must also consider, what becomes of the darkness? Where does it go? Are the people and places associated with darkness also suffering on some level – spiritually, mentally, emotionally?
What does the Christian tradition teach about a loving response and how might this be a difficult but necessary part of the reconciliation process?
Costello then emphasises that “Christian faith always begins as an ethical vision from the point of view of the suffering of a vulnerable victim – that is what the cross of Christ means! And in the resurrection of Jesus there is a new creation launched. A reconciliation of the world with creator God has been initiated.” This lens of the vulnerable victim brings into question the vision of Christianity in Australia.
How does this affirm or challenge the Church and discipleship experience of Christians in Australia? Do we have the same ethical vision for our churches that Jesus had for his ministry?
Informing a Jesus-like response is “our disposition to God that is not of self-importance and necessity but gratitude and praise”. Such humility and honest self-awareness seems key to what flows from one’s life.
What would a disposition of gratitude and praise look like in your life? What does gratitude and praise look like in poverty?
Costello reminds us that “for Christians, caring for our environment and the vulnerable ... is a natural and indispensable part of Christian discipleship.”
What is natural about it? Why is it indispensable?
Furthermore, as image bearers of God we understand that all people have inherent dignity, and importantly, all people are not God, but simply image bearers. This nuance is critical for the human experience, particularly in the western world, where many embody a narcissism that limits their connection to God, self and others.
Soren Kierkegaard said: “the door to happiness turns outwards”. This idea is used in the paper to critique the consumerist society we live in and implore a self sacrificing and outward-focused lifestyle.
However, I have found that the happiness I contribute to others is in direct relation to the happiness I foster in myself. This is an important acknowledgement and calls for practices and communities of self-reflection and contemplation, that help develop one’s vision of imago dei and then build their capacity to more fully and authentically express themselves in the world.
Are our religious activities contemplative? Do they help bring clarity and connection to the call of God for one’s life and the vision of the Kingdom of God?
If the contribution to a safer world for all is to be long-term and sustainable, it must incorporate ways to deepen the faith experience for all people. Such is a whole of life response, which Costello identifies, as the campaign is not just directed at government but at how our own lifestyles can “remember the poor”.
What habits or daily practices help you remember the poor?
There is an apparent disconnect in our churches and in our lives which is highlighted: “The fruit of the gospel has been the flowering of institutions that protect the equality of all people, property rights, free speech and religious freedoms. But those gains are like cut flowers disconnected from the soil and vine.”
In that context, what does tending the soil and reconnecting flowers to the vine look like for Christians in Australia?
Finally, the paper concludes with a challenge and our invitation through Jesus and the gospel: “This means that we are to live eschatologically (out of the power of the new age) rather than reducing our faith to simply moralising.”
This is a call to transcend the arguments and opinions that divide us, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, imagine and live prophetically in ways that bear witness to the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom of love.
What can you imagine for your family; for your community; for Australia; for the world? How do you live eschatologically in these contexts?
Threats to our world are intensifying – dangerous weather, increased wars and soaring inequality – but decisions made by this generation can put the world back on track. Add your voice and show political leaders that Australian Christians want to see action to build a Safer World for All.
