Doom,Gloom and Empty Tombs: Climate Change and Fear

Abstract

Anthropogenic climate change represents a deep and credible threat to human society in a variety of ways. The particular shape of this threat is historically novel and commonly associated with experiences of fear mixed with both guilt and impotence. What is the moral significance of this fear in a faithful Christian response to anthropogenic climate change? How is the Christian ethicist to locate fears of climate change? How can such fears become constructive for, rather than destructive of, ethical thought? Taking Hans Urs von Balthasar’s short text, The Christian and Anxiety, as a dialogue partner, this paper will explore healthy and unhealthy modes of alarm in the face of an increasingly disrupted climate. Balthasar argues that Christ’s own anxiety during his passion liberates believers from certain kinds of fear, and then opens the creative possibility of entering into the fears of one’s neighbour as an expression of love.