In September 2025, Christian Climate Action, published a challenge to the Church to Stop Crucifying Creation!  This is the first of four Advent reflections arising from this visionary document. By Thalia Carr.

In the first week of Advent, Christians are reminded to wake up, but are we like teenagers, rolling over, wanting another five minutes in bed without facing up to reality?

Our 21st century world is a frightening and unpredictable place. The threats are enormous: economic crises, the rise of fascism, AI and social media which manipulate our perception of reality, escalating international tensions, wars and genocide and the oppression of refugees. Underlying all of these is the biggest threat of all, the climate crisis – which is leading to the profound degradation of all life on earth and could even see the extinction of the human race. 

Who wouldn’t want to stay asleep?

After calling for radical acts of love, Paul, in his letter to the Romans, reminds them of the time they are living in

“The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. ¹² The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armour of light.” Romans 13:11-12

The temptation to sleep is strong, we want to stay in our dream. Our dreams tell us that we can go on living as we always have, that there will always be food on the supermarket shelves, that our houses will not flood, that scarcity of resources will not cause wars to break out, that our rulers will never reject democracy, that great swathes of the world will not become unlivable. 

What would it mean if we were to wake up? Would it be to exchange a pleasant dream for a nightmare? I don’t think so. Nightmares are out of control, they leave you in a state of panic, sweating and helpless.

But if we wake up , we can enjoy moving and working together as a radical, loving community – it’s time to wake up. 

This is the time to wake up and act together. To do what Jesus did. To do what is honest and right. He spoke out about hypocrisy. He pointed to inequality. He went towards suffering. He had time for the sick, the children, the bereaved, the outcasts. 

Right now, the Church needs to respond to the Climate and Nature Crisis. This crisis is nothing less than blasphemy: taking God’s gift of the Earth, full of life and wonder, and treating it as nothing more than a common resource to be plundered for our satisfaction and profit. Governments and corporations are knowingly, even deliberately, causing greenhouse gases to rise, draining the rivers, polluting the air and cutting down the forests, all of which threatens our lives and the lives of our brothers and sisters across the globe and steals our children’s futures. 

They do this in the name of ‘reducing the tax burden on hard working people’ or ‘cutting red tape’. Surely this is what Jesus was talking about when he said, “you cannot serve God and money” Matt 6 :24

Governments are supposed to serve the people. This means looking after the home – the earth – we all live in; not destroying it, leaving us in cold homes, struggling to eat well and stay healthy and saying ‘we’re doing this to grow the economy.’

This is outrageous and the church needs to see that and act.

The Church needs to put protecting the planet before financial benefit and stop turning a blind eye when it sees governments, corporations and sometimes, yes, the church itself continuing with business as usual as if there were no emergency at all.

The Church needs to expose the vested interests which fuel the Climate and Nature Crisis and determinedly resist the perpetration of this evil. 

This is not a call to necessarily add something extra to what you and your church are doing.

This call is to wake up and face the truth, the truth of what our government, the media, the places we shop and even maybe our church, are doing. 

People who are living in a war zone don’t pretend it’s not a war zone. Priests still preach the gospel message of love but they do that in the context of war. They preach knowing their church members live with fear of attacks. They call on people to take care of each other. The church acts in practical ways. The war they are living through shapes how they think and how they act. 

Thankfully, we are not in a war zone in the UK but we need to wake up to the fact that we are in a climate emergency and we need to be Christians in that context. 

Of course, once we are awake, we will also see what needs to be done and then we will need to act accordingly.

Read Stop Crucifying Creation and join Christian Climate Action to find out more at an open meeting on Wednesday 28^th January 2026.