If the end is coming, should I still plant these trees? 
What exactly is meant by “the end” – and do science and faith have anything to say to each other when their conceptions of “the end” are so radically different?  …or are they?  Does anybody really believe that the world is heading toward catastrophe?

Monotheistic religions are unique in their apocalyptic expectations of a cataclysmic end to this present world as we know it. Scientific acceptance of the evidence of global warming, climate change, and the subsequent expectations of environmental disasters potentially affecting multiple millions of the world’s population has lent some renewed credibility to these religious expectations.  Is there any possible connection between the pessimistic outlook of these religions and the growing global anxiety over the disastrous predictions of climate scientists?  Might there be a spiritual dimension to the pace of global warming and the tension of governments and populations looking ahead at the possibility of environmental disasters, refugee movements, food and water shortages, and the creeping fear of an undefined and insecure global future?

Christianity is unique even amongst monotheistic religions in positing not just an end but a new beginning; not the beginning of a spiritual existence in an ethereal “heaven”, but the beginning of a “new earth”, renewed and transformed, yet completely grounded in this physical, historical earth –  in a restored relationship with a “new heaven”.  Most world religions have a view of an afterlife which bears a recognizable connection to one’s personal identity and to the circumstances of the physical life which precedes it.  With its doctrine of resurrection, Christian theology extends this concept to a physical continuity, not merely on an individual level, but on a worldwide scale, encompassing not only the natural world, but potentially, human cultures and societies.  Christian eschatology, despite its apocalyptic descriptions, is not as pessimistic about the future as is portrayed in popular media. In fact, as climatologists’ predictions become ever more dire, and science is despairing of solutions in time to avoid catastrophe, Christian environmentalism has taken on a new face of optimism and activism.  Who would have guessed?

Martin Luther is said to have remarked that if he had set out to plant a tree in the morning, and he knew Christ was coming in the afternoon, he would still plant the tree.  This paper will explore the continuity and discontinuity between our present earth and the “New Earth” of Christian eschatology; the present age and the “age to come”.