Like There's No Tomorrow

Christians often find it difficult to talk or preach or engage with the possibility of climate catastrophe and an uninhabitable earth, for the questions are enormous. Faith in God needs to engage with the reality of the tragic loss of creation through anthropogenic impact.

If we're living in the end times, then how should we live? Wracked with grief, anxiety and guilt, with foreboding deep as death? How is it possible to live hopefully, even as we face realistically the inevitability of the radical impact of an unpredictable climate, rising sea levels, the collapse of biodiversity? How do we remain faithful to God and loving to our neighbour, particularly if our neighbours are exiles and immigrants because their homes are no longer inhabitable? What do we tell our children and grandchildren, so they don't grow up completely overwhelmed by anxiety, such that mental illness levels continue to soar?

Frances Ward attempts to think through some of these questions; to continue to have faith, hope, and love in response to God. It is a Christian response to eco-anxiety, a theological and contemplative reflection to sustain a fierce hope that hopes against hope. It is a deep lament that provokes a fierce hope to enable humanity to live life to the full, like there's no tomorrow.

The questions raised by the possibility of climate catastrophe and an uninhabitable earth are enormous, and Christians often find it difficult to address them. Yet people of faith do need to engage with the reality of the tragic loss of creation and the fact that this has been caused by humans.

How should we live in the end times? How can we live with hope, even in the face of the inevitability of the radical impact of a climate catastrophe, the collapse of biodiversity and rising sea levels?

Frances Ward reflects on these questions and shows how it might be possible to continue to respond to God in faith, hope and love. Her theological and contemplative reflection enables us to sustain hope that hopes against hope and thus to be able to respond to eco-anxiety. Her deep lament provokes a fierce hope to enable humanity to live life to the full, like there’s no tomorrow.