Climate change presents a crisis of faith, writes Bruce Hamill.
The People's Climate March on Sunday is not just about whether ''the people'' or our corporate overlords will get to determine our future (or lack thereof).
It is also a matter of faith.
With unprecedented clarity, Naomi Klein in her 2014 book This Changes Everything articulates a moment of truth: ''... our economic and planetary systems are now at war. Or more accurately, our economy is at war with the many forms of life on Earth, including human life. What the climate needs to avoid collapse is a contraction in humanity's use of resources; what our economic model demands to avoid collapse is unfettered expansion. Only one of these sets of rules can be changed, and it's not the laws of nature.''
The principal reason we have completely failed to address this crisis is a matter of bad timing.
At precisely the time when scientists diagnosed our climate crisis, politicians and economists and other such ''high priests'' of deregulated capitalism reached a position of global ascendancy and have maintained this ever since.
As I read her, Ms Klein is diagnosing a crisis of faith.
A particular faith tradition and way of life dominated our world in the 20th century and went global during the last quarter of that century.
Ms Klein calls it ''market fundamentalism''.
This faith tradition puts its trust in the saving power of deregulated markets.
Such markets will produce economic growth and this in turn, its propagandists tell us, brings ''prosperity'' for all.
The moment of truth which ''changes everything'' is the realisation that this faith doesn't merely destroy human community; it also destroys the future of life on this planet.
Practical solutions are possible but they are hopeless without a change of faith and thus of culture.
My own faith tradition arose out of a ''this changes everything'' moment.
It occurred some time in the first century when a group of Palestinian peasants were living within an empire dominated by the faith of Rome - essentially a ''global'' faith in the saving power of the threat and use of violence.
For these peasants, the moment of truth came with the realisation that the real power undergirding the universe was not violence (dominating through the fear of death) but love and its corresponding willingness to suffer for the welfare of the other.
In the choice by Jesus of Nazareth to undergo crucifixion, they experienced the clash between the ''kingdom of God'' and the dominant socio-political and spiritual forces of their time.
In his resurrection, they saw the vindication of his way and hope for the material world.
God is love, they said, and so, in the end, by the Spirit's grace, we will be also.
So they lived in small communities and began to subvert the empire.
Initially, they quietly persevered with some success and then the empire began to subvert them, but that's a long story.
Two faiths.
Two stories.
Two possible lifestyles.
The choice to live in the life of God is a choice made by those who experience the love of God binding them both to one another and to the planet, our ecosystem.
The universe is held together by love, as is this planet and its human community.
As Pope Francis has been reminding us, the call to love our weakest neighbour is also the call to love our latest victim - the magnificent creation we so egocentrically call our ''environment''.
This changes everything.
• The Rev Dr Bruce Hamill is a minister with Dunedin's Coastal Unity Presbyterian Church.
