Panel: HOPE AND THE CLIMATE CRISIS - THEOLOGICAL, INTERDISCIPLINARY AND PRACTICAL PERSPECTIVES



715.4 - THE HAMARTIOCENE RATHER THAN THE ANTHROPOCENE: CHRISTIAN FAITH AND HOPELESSNESS IN THE FACE OF ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS

AUTHORS:
Sixta T. (Catholic Theological Faculty, Charles University ~ Prague ~ Czech Republic)
Text:
One of the most frequently discussed concepts in the humanities addressing the environmental crisis over the past 15 years has been the Anthropocene—the thesis that humanity has caused significant changes to the Earth's geological core. Alternative frameworks have emerged, such as the Capitalocene (Jason W. Moore), which aim to identify more specific culprits. In this paper, I aim to engage with this concept from the perspective of Christian theology. I propose understanding the environmental crisis through the lens of the Hamartiocene. The notion of sin (hamartia) allows us to engage with a remarkable moment in which many Christian thinkers, independently of one another (e.g., Clive Hamilton, Miguel A. De La Torre), have reflected on the potentially violent nature of hope and the necessity of embracing hopelessness. I will argue that a contemporary Christian theology of hope must integrate this moment of hopelessness. The Hamartiocene, however, as I aim to demonstrate, offers (unlike the Anthropocene) a way out of this crisis through a return to Christ's call for a change of mind (metanoia) and belief in the gospel. This approach may also lead to what I term, by analogy to Pope Francis's concept of the "ecumenism of blood," the "ecumenism of a dying planet." This vision calls for unity and solidarity among Christians and beyond, addressing the shared vulnerabilities of creation while bearing prophetic witness to redemption and reimagined hope.