'There is no inconsistency between creation and salvation': in defence of Creationtide

This was not a post I expected to be writing, not least because in the past I have been critical of Creationtide. My change of mind has been partly occasioned by reading some other critiques of the 'Season of Creation' and realizing that I fundamentally disagreed with the theological reasoning at work in those critiques.  I have also accepted that my previous view - a purist 'We have Rogationtide, Lammas, Harvest, and Ember Days, we don't need Creationtide' approach - has little relevance in a pastoral context in which, outside of Harvest, these observances have little practical significance.

This is not to say that there are not weaknesses with Creationtide.  Some of the teaching and ecclesiastical commentary for Creationtide lacks theological depth and appears to be little more than an echo of particular political concerns.  The liturgical provision has often been - to put it charitably - poor.  The collect, for example, provided by the Church of England for a Service of the Word in Creationtide is abysmal.  The 'Season of Creation' is also a rather unhelpful title, as these Sundays are not a season in any meaningful sense, but Sundays on which it is appropriate to reflect environmental themes through prayers, observances, and teaching: Creationtide is, therefore, a much more appropriate title. 

The ending of the season on 4th October, the commemoration of St Francis of Assisi, is also clumsy.  Leaving aside the fact that this relies on a somewhat pastiche view of Francis, it is also the case that this saint has no significant place in Anglican piety.  Much more significant and appropriate would be ending Creationtide at Harvest Thanksgiving and, indeed, the Church of England provides Harvest Thanksgiving material for Creationtide (albeit that this material is, again, poor, despite the rich tradition of Anglican celebration at Harvest).

With such provisos, below I offer five points in defence of Creationtide.

1. Creationtide coheres with the traditional understanding that while the Advent to Trinity cycle proclaims the Redeemer's work of salvation, the Sundays after Trinity focus upon the moral vision which flows from this.  As Sparrow stated, while Advent to Trinity sets "before us in an orderly manner the highest Mysteries of our Redemption by Christ", the Sundays of Trinitytide focus on our formation: 

to be charitable, heavenly-minded, repentant, merciful, humble, peaceable, religious, compassionate and thankful, to trust in God and abound with such spiritual qualities.

Henry Handley Norris, of the Hackney Phalanx, likewise contrasted for clergy in their preaching the Sundays of the Advent-Trinity Sunday cycle with those after Trinity:

Having in the former part of the year fully instructed his flock in the doctrines, let him in the latter part enforce upon them the duties of the Gospel.

Creationtide, in seeking to encourage a reverence for and stewardship of the created order as inherent to the Christian life and moral vision, reflects a well-established understanding of Trinitytide.

2. The suggestion that Creationtide is inappropriate because the liturgical year should have a Christological focus overlooks, in a rather heterodox fashion, the truth that Creation is necessarily Christological: "All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being" (John 1:3), "all things have been created through him and for him" (Colossians 1:16), "through whom also he created the worlds" (Hebrews 1:3). This is solemnly confessed by the Church in the Nicene Creed: "By whom all things were made".  This truth proclaimed by the Scriptures and confessed in the Creed was central to much patristic thought, most famously in Athanasius:

We will begin, then, with the creation of the world and with God its Maker, for the first fact that you must grasp is this: the renewal of creation has been wrought by the Self-same Word Who made it in the beginning.  There is thus no inconsistency between creation and salvation.

The idea of Creationtide, then, should be profoundly and deeply Christological, profoundly and deeply orthodox.  

3. Some critiques of Creationtide also articulate a hyper-Barthianism in which grace is opposed to nature. Creationtide, to such critics, is an unwarranted focus on creation, thus detracting from redemption.  Hooker, by contrast, reminds us that "grace hath use of nature" (III.8.6), that "righteous life presupposeth life" (I.10.2), that "when supernatural duties are necessarily exacted, natural are not rejected as needless" (I.12.1). Creationtide, in other words, reflects the Hookerian defence of the classical affirmation that grace is not in opposition to nature, a defence which has shaped Anglican theological thought and pastoral practice over centuries. John Hughes pointed to Hooker's "language of participation and deification" which has influenced "most Anglican authors", rejecting a "dualistic account of Christology, soteriology, anthropology and creation", in favour of an account in which "nature is always already oriented towards supernatural grace and where grace does not destroy nature but fulfils and perfects its":

a particular piety and sensibility which could be seen as characteristically Anglican: a sense of all creation being in God and God being in all creation, through Christ.

Creationtide can be an expression of this characteristically Anglican piety and sensibility.

4. We live in an era increasingly defined by a growing sense of ecological crisis, what the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Rome, and the Patriarch of Constantinople described in their recent joint statement as "the unprecedented threat of climate change and environmental degradation".  The Scriptural call - emphasised in the joint statement - to "choose life" necessarily addresses our obligations and duties as those called to be good stewards of the created order.  Creationtide can offer a focus for meaningful Christian teaching on the creation and the environment, ensuring that environmental concerns are rooted in a Christian vision of the created order and the human vocation rather than solely secular concerns.

5. Finally, Creationtide builds on the recognition of the environment traditionally present in the liturgical calendar: Rogationtide, Lammas, Harvest, the Ember Days of the Four Seasons.  This is reminder that Creationtide can legitimately be regarded as a development within the liturgical calendar rather than an alien imposition upon it.  The traditional observances involved petition for the land and for deliverance from environmental disaster; they embodied a call to stewardship of the created order; and they expressed our creaturely dependence on God's gracious provision in and through the created order. Rather than seeing Creationtide as being in competition with the traditional observances of Rogation, Lammas, Harvest, and the Ember Days, it could be a means of renewing these observances, of providing renewed impetus for recognising their meaning and value. Standing in continuity with such observances, Creationtide is no 'woke' agenda but a contemporary expression of a deeply traditional liturgical practices.