Page:The Second Christ, Saint Francis of Assisi and Ecological Consciousness.pdf/1

Page 1 of 9Original Research

Author:

Hendrik Viviers

Affiliation:

Department of Religion

University of Johannesburg

Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa

Correspondence to:

Hendrik Viviers

Email:

hviviers@uj.ac.za

Postal address:

PO Box 524, Auckland Park 2006, South Africa

Dates:

Received: 30 Oct. 2013

Accepted: 14 Jan. 2014

Published: 06 May 2014

How to cite this article:

Viviers, H., 2014, ‘The Second Christ, Saint Francis of Assisi and ecological consciousness’, Verbum et Ecclesia 35(1), Art. #1310, 9 pages. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/ve.v35i1.1310

Copyright:

© 2014. The Authors.

Licensee: AOSIS OpenJournals.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License.

Even though the life stories of Jesus and the so-called second Christ, Francis of Assisi, incline to the fantastical, their value for a modern ecological consciousness is defendable. Behind Francis’ personification of nature and his mystical experiences of nature lie an intuitive sense of interconnectedness and interdependence, of being fully part of the natural web of life (confirmed by empirical science). The same is true of the immanence of Jesus. Religious figures like Francis and Jesus can provide a sound moral attitude towards caring for the natural world, but attitudes need to be informed by scientific knowledge to act ecologically correct. A partnership between attitudes and knowledge hopefully contains good news for a sustainable ‘green’ planet.

Intradisciplinary and/or  interdisciplinary  implications: Ecological hermeneutics (part of liberation theology or hermeneutics) challenges traditional theologies’ often anthropocentric bias in the intra-disciplinary arena. It respects the interconnectedness or interdependence of human and non-human life, including the non-organic, empirically substantiated by natural science. This shared realisation allows for a fruitful inter-disciplinary discourse with science to address the global ecological crisis.

Introduction

Stories are part and parcel of being human. Somewhere in our evolutionary history, we have developed narrative minds. Narrative appeals to us effortlessly whilst doing something like mathematics or physics requires hard and often tiresome effort. We are fond of creating stories and are somehow addicted to them, not always consciously aware of their shaping effects on our lives. Armstrong (1973:157) articulates this point eloquently: ‘Human nature … craves picturesque and personal anecdotes to illustrate the lives of great men and momentous turning points of history.’ He adds that the value of even larger-than-life stories ‘… although mythical, have had historical and moral value …’

Stories fluctuate between fact and fiction, and we should not be misled that only ‘factually true’ (irrespective of the difficulty of determining bare ‘facts’, especially those that lie embedded in past history) stories have meaning. Fiction, poetry and metaphor all have shaping effects on their human receivers as they carry societal values (Exum 1996:120, fn. 55). In what follows, the focus will be on the life stories of two eminent icons from Christianity. The focus will mostly be on the well-known medieval Saint Francis of Assisi and to a lesser extent on the inspiring model that he strived to emulate, Jesus. Both will be considered for their contribution to, or potential for, a modern ecological consciousness, keeping in mind that they were not ‘ecologists’ and lived in an era not characterised by an ecological crisis. Can the life stories of religious icons of centuries ago have any bearing on the ‘greening’ of our modern, scientifically informed world?

Francis, in his lifelong zeal after his conversion to follow Jesus almost literally, is for this reason sometimes aptly referred to as the Second Christ (Hooper & Palmer 1992:77). So much so did he remind the people of his time (end of the 12th and beginning the 13th century CE) of Jesus that he similarly became idealised by his close followers. His reaching out to the poor and lesser ones of society and adopting a similar lifestyle, preaching and telling stories as he pilgrimaged around, as well as anecdotes of his miracles of changing water into wine, increasing a wine harvest, drawing water from a rock, having power over animals (see below) and so on (Sorrell 1988:47), all recalled his life model Jesus. He was especially remembered for his close relationship with nature, speaking to natural elements (water, fire, air, earth, plants, animals, etc.) as if they were family. He also easily went into ecstasy when overwhelmed by the beauty of God’s creation. Can someone like this be inspiring for ecology today when, for instance, the thaumaturgical is seriously frowned upon in secular scientific circles? http://www.ve.org.zadoi:10.4102/ve.v35i1.1310