The Warden is a novel by the Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope that tells the story of what happened to the alms house called Hiram’s Hospital within the fictional cathedral city of Barchester as the results of a campaign by the young journalist John Bold in a newspaper called The Jupiter (a fictional version of The Times).
Bold’s campaign suggests that the £800 a 12 months stipend paid to the Rev Septimus Harding, the Warden of the hospital, represents a misapplication of the funds of the hospital which, under the bequest of its founder, ought to be far more evenly divided between the Warden and the maintenance of the twelve inhabitants of the alms house.
Harding is a godly and conscientious man who takes good pastoral care of those that live within the alms house, but because of this of Bold’s campaign he eventually retires as its Warden and the funds of Hiram’s Hospital are duly reformed. However, this just isn’t to the good thing about those that live there. As Trollope writes at the tip of the novel:
‘And how fared the hospital…? Badly indeed. It is now some years since Mr Harding left it, and the warden’s house continues to be tenantless. Old Bell has died, and Billy Gazy; The one-eyed Spriggs has drunk himself to death, and three others of the twelve have been gathered into the churchyard mould. Six have gone and the six vacancies remain unfilled! Yes, six have died, with no kind friend to solace their last moments, with no wealthy neighbour to manage comforts and ease the stings of death. Mr Harding, indeed didn’t desert them, from him that they had such consolation as a dying man may receive from his Christian pastor; however it was the occasional kindness of a stranger which ministered to them, and never the constant presence of a master, and neighbour, and a friend.
‘Nor were those that remained higher off than those that died. Dissensions rose amongst them, and contests for pre-eminence; after which they began to know that somebody amongst them can be the last – some one wretched being can be alone there in that now comfortless hospital – the miserable relic of what once had been so good and so comfortable.’
As the OUP edition of The Warden notes, within the novel Trollope uses the precise case he describes ‘to light up the universal complexities of human motivation and behavior.’ In the novel John Bold is an excellent man and his campaign to reform the funds of Hiram’s Hospital is motivated by a real belief that the desires of its founder usually are not being properly honoured and that justice demands that steps are taken to rectify this example. However, the results of his single-minded adherence to this principle results in great unintended harm to the inhabitants of the alms house who think Mr Bold goes to make them wealthy, but who just find yourself miserable.
The reason I mention this novel is because I feel it points to a very important truth for all those engaged in Christian ethical pondering, which is that you must have in mind the potential consequences of what you might be proposing. Christians have to always ask the query ‘What will occur if…?’ and never support a specific plan of action until they’ve taken under consideration all of the foreseeable answers to that query.
The application of this truth seems to me to be highlighted by two issues that are outstanding in the mean time: the conflict in Gaza and the problem of climate change. In each cases not enough attention appears to be being given by Christians to the query ‘What will occur if….?’
In the case of the conflict in Gaza there’s a temptation for Christians to recommend a simplistic answer to what is occurring there. The standard Church of England position, for instance, appears to be summarised within the Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent call for ‘a right away ceasefire, for the discharge of hostages and for unimpeded humanitarian aid to succeed in the people of Gaza.’ At first sight it could seem to be obvious that this is strictly what Christians should need to occur. People in each Gaza and Israel are suffering. The steps suggested by the Archbishop would relieve this suffering. Therefore, they’re what should occur.
However, if we push the ‘What will occur if… ?’ query, we discover that things usually are not that straightforward. The problem is that every one the evidence we have now indicates that the priority for the leadership of Hamas is to survive the war and to extend their standing inside the Palestinian community, and the Arab world more generally, with a purpose to have a greater opportunity to pursue their goal of the destruction of Israel and its alternative by an Islamic state. Just as Mr Putin is fixated on in search of to destroy Ukraine, so the leadership of Hamas is fixated on destroying Israel.
This implies that their condition for releasing the hostages and for stopping the fighting (thus creating the needed conditions for unimpeded humanitarian aid) is, as they’ve repeatedly said, each the discharge of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and the entire and everlasting withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. The problem with the previous is that it will mean people who find themselves guilty of assorted serious offences, including acts of terrorism, will go free and have the option to commit their crimes again, and the issue with the latter is that it can enable Hamas to re-group, re-arm and resume its war against Israel, thus setting the scene for more conflict and more suffering in the long run.
Furthermore, there’s the broader problem that, just because the withdrawal of Western forces from Afghanistan in 2021 has led to increased jihadist activity around the globe on the idea that the Taliban showed that such activity may very well be successful, so there’s the danger that a perceived defeat of Israel and its Western backers by Hamas will again encourage more radical Islamic activity around the globe, thus causing more people to suffer and die.
The difficult query that needs to be asked, and which Christians have to work with others to seek out a solution to, is the way it is feasible to realize an end to the present fighting in Gaza, the discharge of the surviving hostages taken on 7 October and the return of the bodies of those that are dead, and immediate relief and long-term reconstruction to assist the civilian inhabitants Gaza, without having any of the negative consequences just outlined. Arguably what doesn’t help to realize these goals is the simplistic repetition of slogans that don’t help to reply this difficult query. Silence and prayer while the diplomats attempt to do their job can be a greater approach for Christians to adopt.
Turning to the problem of climate change, there’s a temptation for Christians to see each the issue and the answer in simplistic terms. The problem is seen when it comes to a disastrous climate crisis brought on by ‘anthropogenic global warming’ resulting from the discharge of greenhouse gases because the Industrial Revolution. The answer is seen when it comes to stopping releasing greenhouse gases (a move to ‘Net Zero’) with this being achieved by a change in people’s lifestyles and a move to renewable energy.
The temptation to see things in this manner must be rejected for 2 reasons.
First, regardless of the indisputable fact that we are sometimes told that ‘the science is settled’ with regard to climate change that is in actual fact not true. As Garth Paltridge puts it in his helpful paper on the topic:
‘While there’s actually a consensus amongst scientists that increasing carbon dioxide within the atmosphere will increase the common surface temperature of the world above what it will have been otherwise, there’s removed from a consensus that the rise in temperature shall be large enough to be significant. (Bear in mind also that ‘what the temperature would have been otherwise’ can also be subject to natural variability and is due to this fact very uncertain). There is even less of a consensus amongst scientists, environmentalists and economists that any rise of temperature would necessarily be detrimental.’
Secondly, there are major ‘What will occur if….?’ questions attached to the try to move to Net Zero which have yet to be answered satisfactorily. Three examples will serve for instance this.
First, a slogan that’s currently being bandied around is ‘Just stop oil’ , a slogan which is shorthand for a halt to grease and gas extraction and use. The problem is that there isn’t any satisfactory answer being recommend to the query of easy methods to avoid such a move having appalling consequences. Given that the world economy is currently heavily depending on oil and gas in all kinds of ways, essentially the most plausible scenario is that if the slogan was taken literally and oil and gas extraction and use was halted immediately, this might lead in very short order to economic collapse, social collapse, and consequent mass starvation.
Secondly, nobody has yet satisfactorily answered the query of how renewable energy can provide a reliable alternative to the usage of coal, oil and gas. At the moment the technology doesn’t appear to exist to make this occur. Furthermore, the creation of the technology needed to offer ‘clean green energy’ can itself have a damaging environmental impact, as within the case of the pollution brought on by mining the lithium needed for batteries.
Thirdly, it appears to be generally agreed that the move to Net Zero would involve a period of major economic transition and the query that has not yet been satisfactorily answered is how this transition will avoid the form of hardship related to other times of economic transition previously. We know, for example, that although the Industrial Revolution had long run economic advantages, on the time it caused enormous amounts of suffering, and the query is how we will avoid that pattern being repeated. A pledge to create well paid green jobs is a promise, not a proof.
Christians should be assiduous in asking these questions and other similar questions raised by the present climate debate.
What these two cases of the conflict in Gaza and climate change illustrate is that Christians should be individuals who press the hard questions. They mustn’t just associate with the mantras of surrounding society, but as an alternative use their God-given reason to assist encourage the hard pondering needed to construct a greater world in accordance with the need of God.
