It was forty years ago that Malcolm Macleod, a Presbyterian minister rural NSW, began introducing his colleagues and parishioners to the idea that land degradation was more than an economic issue. As he tried to explain, the issue was 'pastoral' in both the agricultural and the theological sense of the word.

Even farmers who practice scientific care of the soil, do so too frequently only from fear of diminishing financial returns. The careful fear of small souls who have seen the beauty of the living earth only as dirt which grows into money, who have never heard God speak from a bush ablaze with glory.

The real issue was one of outlook or perspective; of what we might want to call worldview or paradigm. The real issue was one of vision; of 'small souls' who looked at a 'living earth' but could only see 'dirt which grows into money'. And, as most of those 'small souls' were actually 'good Christians', many of them 'pillars of the church', it was an issue for the church; a pastoral issue.

That was forty years ago. But when, today, a leading conservationist such as Brian Roberts calls on the church to 'stop putting environmental degradation in the ecclesiastical "too hard" basket and make up its mind whether it has a responsibility toward our natural world', he is still asking the church whether it is willing to deal with the 'fundamental changes to our attitudes' that are necessary to secure ecological sustainability. Essentially the appeal to the church's pastoral concern has not changed. Only now the call has an impatient sound to it. For while Macleod was urging the church to lead the way, in many respects Roberts is urging the church to catch up.

On one hand, the church is being urged to catch up in its thinking and teaching. It is being urged to take notice of the shift in scientific and philosophical perspective from a 'mechanistic' to an 'ecological' model of reality: from thinking that a thing is only 'really understood' when it has been broken down into its smallest parts, to thinking that it is only 'really understood' in terms of its relationships to other members of a system; from thinking of 'man as the master' of nature, to thinking of 'humanity as a member' of the living universe. The church is being urged to see that the 'reinsertion of the human into the natural world' will make a difference to the way it thinks and speaks about Creation and Redemption. The church is being urged to acknowledge that as the 'ecological perspective' becomes the 'dominant paradigm of our time', it stands to reason that 'theology that is not done in conversation with this paradigm is not theology for our time.'

On the other hand, the church is being urged to catch up with certain changes which have begun to emerge in the institutions of human society. The implications of the 'ecological perspective' for these institutions are being explored under the banner of 'Green Politics'. Not only environmental responsibility, but also social responsibility, grassroots democracy, decentralization and post-patriarchal restructuring have emerged as basic principles to guide the reform of political, economic, and social institutions. These principles have applications to religious institutions too. So the church is also being urged to see that the shift towards an 'ecological perspective' has implications for its structures and procedures as well.

And when 'understanding how evervthing is connected and understanding your relationship with planet Earth in daily life' is being described as the 'spiritual content of Green politics', the church stands warned that its own smallness of soul has put it in danger of being the very last to recognise that 'Earth's crammed with heaven.'

At the eleventh hour the urgings have been noticed and the warning has received a response.

In its first Statement to the Nation, in 1977, the Uniting Church included the following affirmation:

We are concerned with the basic human rights of future generations and we will urge the wise use of energy, the protection of the environment and the replenishment of the earth's resources for their future use and enjoyment.

In its second Statement to the Nation, in 1988, the Assembly's expression of commitment to environmental responsibility was framed in rather different terms:

We affirm our belief that the natural world is God's creation; good in God's eyes, good in itself and good in sustaining human life. Recognising - the vulnerability of the life and resources of creation, we will work to promote the responsible management, use and occupation of the earth by human societies. We will seek to identify and challenge all structures and attitudes which perpetuate and compound the destruction of creation.

It would be hard to find a clearer example of the 'greening' which has begun to be a feature of Australian church life.

Somewhere in the decade that lay between the issuing of the two Statements which contained these affirmations a 'paradigm shift' had occurred. The Assembly had changed its perspective on the world. In 1977 the natural environment was valued according to its usefulness to human beings. The Assembly's concern for the environment was really just a subset of its concern with 'basic human rights'; part of a humanity-centred ethic. In 1988, however, the valuation of the natural environment proceeded in a new way. It was regarded first as theologically value-able ('good in God's eyes'), then as instrinsically value-able ('good in itself), and finally as instrumentally value-able ('good in sustaining human life'). In other words the Assembly had moved the basis of its commitment to environmental responsibility from a humanity-centred ethic to a life-centred ethic; which for Christians is, as Charles Birch has argued, the same as a God-centred ethic 'because God is concerned about all life and not human life alone.'

Of course the Uniting Church is not alone in showing such signs of 'greening'. In Victoria the Anglican Church has been developing a number of proposals, and supporting resources, on environmental responsibility. A Conservation Subcommittee of its Social Responsibilities Committee was established in 1984 to work on educational materials for Anglican use. Among other things, the Subcommittee has circulated an annotated bibliography on 'The Integrity of Creation' and, in 1987, publicised a series of proposals which it had developed for the observance of St Francis Day as an occasion for affirming and deepening Christian ecological awareness. Through the parent Committee a statement was issued calling for a special emphasis on 'care for the environment in the bicentennial year', pointing to the environmental impact of the white settlement of Australia, and linking this concern to the call for Aboriginal land rights.

At the same time a 'creation spirituality' movement has- been gaining strength within the Australian church; but especially within the Catholic Church. Last year in Sydney, for example, the Grail Community, an international Catholic women's organization, sponsored a well attended day conference on 'Care for the Earth'. And again, the annual retreat for year-eleven students -at the Monte Sant Angelo girls high school focussed on feminist and environmental issues, exploring the links between eco-feminism and Christian faith and lifestyle. Similarly, the visit to Australia this year by Matthew Fox, a pioneer of the current 'creation spirituality' movement, was made feasible and desirable on the strength of grassroots enthusiasm for the movement, especially among Catholic laity and religious. Also the Columban Fathers have made their College at North Turramurra a centre for the study and promotion of 'ecojustice' and 'creation spirituality'.

Meanwhile, the Orthodox offer encouragement as the churches of the Western tradition struggle to recover this 'cosmic dimension' of theology and spirituality which the Eastern tradition has preserved throughout the centuries. It is not unimportant in this context to remember that the Orthodox constitute the fourth largest Christian communion in Australia.

But although there are such signs of 'greening' within the Australian church, its institutions continue to prove quite resistant. For this reason initiatives which do not come under the auspices of any particular denomination are often more interesting than 'official' ventures, and can prove especially significant. Each month, for example, a group of about twenty people meets in a conference room of the NSW State Pollution Control Commission (SPCC) to discuss ecological theology and environmental ethics. The group consists of senior public servants and scientists working in the Commission. They belonged to different denominations&emdash;Catholic, Anglican, Uniting, Lutheran, Baptist &emdash; and represent theological positions ranging from liberal to fundamentalist. Yet, in spite of their differences, they have already gone further than any denominational agency of which I know in engaging theologically the issues of environmental management. Of course this is hardly unexpected: not only is Christianity their faith, but environmental management is their job as well. It is only a matter of time, I believe, before their joint effort begins to have effects in the institutions of the church.

Similarly, the decision of the Australian Student Christian Movement to take up the theme of ecological theology at its forthcoming National Conference is of some significance. A lay movement with a 'hands on' approach to theology, an emphasis on members' participation, and a commitment to direct action, the SCM provides its members with the kind of experience and skill with which to make a difference to the denominations to which they happen to belong. It is not unrealistic to anticipate that its gathering in Brisbane next January could be something of a watershed in the emergence of ecological consciousness and commitment in the Australian church.

One of the key elements in the rationale for the formation of the SPCC discussion group was the determination of its members to do their own theology. That is, they had become conscious of their own ability, and authority, to develop a theological perspective from within their particular occupational context; without reference or deference to the church's 'experts' or 'authorities'. Similarly, the SCM insists that the churches not interfere with its independence. At the Hong Kong consultation on 'The Ecumenical Task of the Asian Student Christian Movement', in 1982, the SCM called on the churches to 'recognize and respect' the fact that: 'The SCM is a lay movement. Its witness is located less in the inner structures of the churches' life, and more in that part of the world where its members live and work.'

The way in which groups such as these deliberately maintain a certain space between themselves and the established institutions of the church parallels one of the features of the Green movement.

In the course of their study of Die Grunen, Spretnak and Capra remarked that:

"Many, if not most, of the Greens we met consider themselves Christians but are not often involved with institutionalized religion.

Neither side of the conjunction should surprise. On one side, the spirituality inherent in Green philosophy finds a certain resonance with parts of the Christian tradition. There are, for example, correspondences between some aspects of Deep Ecology and the Francisan tradition, or between some aspects of eco-justice and recent ecumenical initiatives. The church could expect the support of the Green movement in attempting to emphasize and develop those parts of its tradition. But on the other side, the Green critique of patriarchy, hierarchy and the centralisation of power does not stop short of the institutions of Christianity. A religion which, by all appearances, is wedded to the idea of a male god and the deification of male-ness, to an essentially feudal model of authority, and to institutional structures which disfranchise the grassroots membership is repugnant to Greens.

So when a Rodolf Bahro pronounces, 'We need a new Benedictine order', the church needs to realise that although part of its tradition is being affirmed its basic institutions are being damned.

And the criticisms levelled at the church are not without substance. The Australian church provides more than enough evidence to support the charges. Within the Anglican institution, the efforts of the Movement for the Ordination of Women (MOW) have been consistently frustrated. Within the Catholic institution, the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) was simply dismissed by the bishops. Within the Uniting Church Institution, local Congregations and Presbyteries are frequently not consulted when decisions or actions, directly affecting them, are taken by Synod boards or Assembly commissions. Patriarchy, hierarchy and centralisation continue to be characteristic of the church.

Yet, at the same time, the fact that MOW exists at all, the fact that members and supporters of the CCJP immediately reorganised themselves as the Catholic Coalition for Justice and Peace, and the fact that a growing number of local Congregations and Presbyteries are beginning to assert their authority in the Uniting Church indicates that the established institutions of the church no longer have it all their own way. Indeed it indicates the advent of something very like 'greening' in church politics. The grassroots of the church, the laity and the local institutions, are taking matters into their own hands.

Of course the dramatic and best publicised, examples of these stirrings at the grassroots are the 'Basic Christian Communities' of Latin America and Asia. But such communities cannot be regarded as merely a 'third world' phenomenon; an aberration caused by poverty. They are now very much a feature of the church in Europe, North America and Australia. More to the point, the kind of principles on which Basic Christian Communities function are being embraced by congregations of all the mainline churches; principles very like those of Green politics &emdash; social responsibility, grassroots democracy, decentralisation and postpatriarchal restructuring. What Leonardo Boff saw among the poor of Latin America is now becoming evident among the middle class of Australia: the church is 'beginning to be born at the grassroots'. It has become necessaly to 'conceptualize the church more from the foundation up than from the steeple down'. It is in recognition of this developmnt, as much as the development of a commitment to the natural environment on the part of the church, that I took the words of J.M.C. Crum's Easter hymn as my title. For it is true, 'Now the green blade rises'.

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