What Does It Mean to Characterize Human-Induced Climate Change as Sinful?

This article reviews some recent attempts, particularly by Neil Messer and Ernst Conradie, to clarify the distinctive role of Christian sin-talk in the context of contemporary anthropogenic climate change. It is argued that, whereas we can learn from these contributions given their theological depth and soteriological focus, a more full-fledged retrieval of Protestant hamartiology is needed to raise awareness of our moral complicity in the current climate crisis and prompt us to shun and fight deep-seated patterns of behavior that contribute to it. In particular, I argue that the doctrine of sin should be ‘freed’ from its 20th century binding to soteriology by restoring its classical connections with the divine law as the expression of God’s universal will on the one hand and with the process of human sanctification on the other. In doing so, I draw on Jean Delumeau's research on the 'culpabilizing' and civilizing roles of Christian discourse on sin during the Middle Ages as well as on the various roles of the divine law as discerned in the16th century Heidelberg Catechism.