When Time Is Short: Finding Our Way in the Anthropocene

by Timothy Beal

With faith, hope, and compassion, acclaimed religion scholar Timothy Beal shows us how to navigate the inevitabilities of the climate crisis and the very real—and very near—possibility of human extinction

What if it’s too late to save ourselves from climate crisis? When Time Is Short is a meditation for what may be a finite human future that asks how we got here to help us imagine a different relationship to the natural world.

Modern capitalism, as it emerged, drew heavily upon the Christian belief in human exceptionalism and dominion over the planet, and these ideas still undergird our largely secular society. They justified the pillaging and eradication of indigenous communities and plundering the Earth’s resources in pursuit of capital and lands.

But these aren’t the only models available to us—and they aren’t even the only models to be found in biblical tradition. Beal re-reads key texts to anchor us in other ways of being—in humbler conceptions of humans as earth creatures, bound in ecological interdependence with the world, subjected to its larger reality. Acknowledging that any real hope must first face and grieve the realities of climate crisis, Beal makes space for us to imagine new possibilities and rediscover ancient ones. What matters most when time becomes short, he reminds us, is always what matters most.

Genres: Nonfiction, Theology, Ecology, Philosophy, Spirituality, Environment, Religion

168 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 12, 2022

About the author

Timothy Beal is Distinguished University Professor, Florence Harkness Professor of Religion, and Director of h.lab at Case Western Reserve University. He has published sixteen books, including When Time Is Short: Finding Our Way in the Anthropocene (Beacon Press, 2022) and The Book of Revelation: A Biography (Princeton University Press, 2018), for which he won a Public Scholar Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has also written popular essays on religion and culture for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and The Christian Century, among others.

Tim was born in Hood River, Oregon and grew up near Anchorage, Alaska. He now commutes between Cleveland, Ohio, where he works, and Denver, Colorado, where he lives with his wife, Clover Reuter Beal, a Presbyterian minister. They have two grown kids, Sophie and Seth.

Reviews

[Mark Schlatter · Rating 2 out of 5]

This wasn't the book I was hoping for.

Beal has written a meditation on how we can respond religiously to the death of humanity as a species (with the assumption that it is now too late to avert apocalyptic climate change), and I was really interested in how you could faithfully approach that starkness. And there's a lot of good insights in the book: the idea of palliative care for a species, some detailed rereadings of the Genesis creation stories, and the concept of the land being an active player in Jewish scriptures (e.g., treating a phrase like "the land cried out" as more than figurative).

But, to get to these, you need to get through the first half of the (admittedly short) book, wherein Beal takes time to assess the current religious beliefs that got humanity to this point. The explication of how the biblical concepts of "subduing" and "dominion" have been warped to serve capitalism was detailed, but nothing unexpected. Then there's a chapter on the Singularity and transhumanism (neither of which I find appealing) and yet one more chapter on how humans see themselves as gods, albeit flawed ones. None of these preliminaries seemed essential to me, and I kept on waiting for Beal to get to the point.

The other problem I had with the book was the nature of the prose, which at times read too smugly academic and far too full of question-filled passages (I mean, sentence after sentence that were questions).

I think there's some helpful approaches in here, but I was frustrated by the amount of prose surrounding those approaches.

[David Garnett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book. This book is a religious understanding of our environmental crisis written by a Presbyterian pastor and college professor. He argues that our current crisis stems from our collective denial of death, as well as a misunderstanding of the creation story in Genesis, which has caused us to try to dominate nature instead of live in harmony with it. He believes that we ought to assume at this point that we have waited too long to try to address the crisis, which will enable us to take a palliative care approach to life, getting us to come to terms with our death, express anger and grief over what we have done to ourselves, and change our behavior in more hopeful ways that we would have done earlier if we had not been in such denial of our death.

[Bridgette · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Time is Short is a very well-written, thought out book written about the end of time. The idea of the human species not existing anymore is something most people really do not think about daily, including Christians. That is the driving topic of this novel. It guides the reader to face the reality of climate change and the ecosystem of today not existing in the future. It covers how to deal with the grief and loss and how to keep carrying on through the difficult times.

[Sandee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a thoughtful and insightful book. I don't often re-read books but this one will be re-read, highlighted, and underlined.
P.S. I've always been uncomfortable with the idea of American "exceptionalism" because I believe it is harmful as well as total BS.

[Joni · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about our sooner than expected extinction. It's long on explaining our problems, but short on answers to solving them. It was depressing, but it gave lots of food for thought.

[Mariel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m grateful to be in Tim Beal’s Religion & Ecology course this semester. I feel I’ve grown a lot in just the past three months because of it and through many interesting, inspiring, and oddly comforting conversations about our finite futures.

[Kelly Brill · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most terrifying books I've read in a long time...up there with The Handmaid's Tale and The Parable of the Sower...but this one is non-fiction. Beal tells the truth - we are probably near the end of the human era. It's probably the case that climate change cannot be slowed enough to prevent the gradual end of our species. And it's partly the fault of Christian theologians and philosophers like Francis Bacon and John Locke who seized upon one tiny snippet of scripture ("be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion"), misinterpreted it, used it to their advantage and then merged it with capitalism...voila, a wholesale blessing to understand creation as a stockpile of expendable, ultimately nonrenewable resources. Beal calls it human exceptionalism - "our apparent inability to imagine our own potential extinction has kept us from making the kinds of radical economic, political, and social changes that would have been necessary to give ourselves a fighting chance at longer-term survival as a species."

Beal calls for us to wake up from our denial and develop "an alternative, palliative understanding that is compatible with the reality of human finitude, the lived truth of creation, and a finite future for our species." "What matters most when time becomes short is always what matters most."

Using the metaphor of palliative care, he asks, "If time becomes short, what is most important to you?" "Palliative hope...is about how to live when you know that death is inevitable..." He offers these three "design cues" which I found helpful:

1. "Tease unnecessary suffering out of the system" (stop accelerating exploitation and extraction)

2. "Tend to dignity by way of the senses, by way of the body". This is aesthetics in the broadest sense - our senses help us access what makes us feel human and connected. Stop anesthetizing ourselves through consumption.

3. "Set our sights on well-being" - "caring becomes a creative, generative, even playful act" - focus on the creative furtherance of well-being, making life better and fuller.

As time becomes short, what really matters for our communities and our world? Get better at practicing neighborliness (yes, there's a lot of Brueggemann in this book!) "We need new stories..we need to fund our imaginations with alternate ways of seeing and being in the world that can help us break through the denial, allow us to grieve what has been lost and will be lost, and help us find hope even as time becomes short."

This book was hard to read, so terrifying that I woke up in the night thinking about it. But it's a spiritual wake-up call. And still I pray we might be able to "science the shit out of this."

[Don Mitchell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a critique of modern American Christian perspectives on nature and our place in the world. It's a bit weak on science. The language is fairly academic with unnecessarily complicated sentences (like mine).

I highly recommend this book to people struggling with what it means to have faith which seemingly conflicts with science. The book starts with the premise that humans are a short-term species on this planet and in the universe. It then examines how that conflicts with pervasive religious understanding and why that religious understanding comes from corrupted readings of Genesis, Psalms, and other biblical texts. Timothy Beal does a gorgeous job or translating and interpreting these texts and connecting them with similar texts in many other traditions and many other traditions ways of seeing the world.

The book critiques those seeking immortality whether physical or spiritual. It speaks to how we've turned ourselves and our species into gods, but gods with anuses. That is, gods who are deeply physical and muddy but believe ourselves as immortal and above everything else. He speaks richly of creation being a prefiguring of the Jewish Golem tradition: making a creature of mud and breathing life into it.

[Addison Saviers · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very interesting read to say the least. Beal is an accomplished biblical scholar who pivoted and wrote this book for the more general masses, which is commendable. Yet, he fails to understand the intersectionality between climate and ecological justice with environmental racism, and negates including Womanist, Ecowomanist, Indigenous, and scholars who are already doing the work he describes. The first two chapters I found very engaging and compelling, but wasn’t impressed with the remainder of the book itself.

[Patrick Henry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Early in to "When Time is Short", the author recounts a car trip and hearing his 4-year-old daughter looking out at a playground, sigh and say, "Soon, all this will be gone". She has probably heard those words from her dad.

This is the "Anthropocene" age, the era when human activity has been so dominant as to affect the life and health of our planet. Given the harm done it can be made unlivable for humans, even the globe's death cannot be ruled out. In fact, the author suggests an attitude of palliative care easing the pain as the end comes near.

The author explores several interesting themes. The two creation narratives of Genesis. One that was interpreted by religious figures and some philosophers as making humans exceptional and endorsing the no bounds exploitation of the finite earth. There is nothing mankind cannot accomplish in so much as they have become in practice gods themselves.

The second reveals the Almighty fashioning Adam from mud and breathing spirit within him. This being a symbol of mankind not being a god and there is no escape of the eventual return of all living things to the dust from where they came. The lesson: humility and humus.

Not long ago, I saw an editorial cartoon drawing of a bee who looked troubled. Reflecting on the lack of interest in the stark decline of the bee populations, the cut-line: "If I go, I am taking you with me". Beal posits a future where the human despoiler of nature is overcome in the end. Nature will go on, with humans or not. If humans make this earth unlivable they will die out. Nature goes on, and in millions more years will emerge some creature to take our place.

This book was unnecessarily academic in the writing style, and I found it difficult to get into it. But in the end I am glad I did.

[Karen Dakin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Timothy Beal is a Distinguished University Professor and Florence Harkness Professor of Religion at Case Western Reserve University. He has chosen a challenging but very important topic for his most recent book. This very thought provoking, timely and scholarly work recognizes that we are now living in the “Anthropocene,” the time period when the human race has influenced the causes of change, both ecological and geological, including climate change, as much as nonhuman sources have. Prof. Beal has provided Biblical references to help understand how mankind has embraced the Christian belief in human exceptionalism and dominion over the Earth, which has led to devastating abuse of our environment This belief denied recognition of the economic interdependence of all citizens of the world. Prof. Beal also makes Biblical references regarding the need for grief before one can move from despair to hope, as reported in the scriptural traditions of Judaism and Christianity. Professor Beal opposes the dominionist philosophy and supports the subsistentialist, indigenous practices that recognize “the intimate relationship between the human and the humus, the earth creature and the earth.” He honors the prophetic voices of Greta Thurnberg and others who provide new insights as to how we can transition from denial to a palliative approach to living, when time is short.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was terrified to read this book, and I should have been. Beal is asking no less than that we face the possibility of the end of our species through catastrophic climate change—and, in order to face that, he argues that we'll need to deconstruct our myths of human exceptionalism and open ourselves to grief. It's a lot to ask—but, as the soundness of his arguments convinces me, we probably don't have a choice. As he ends the book, "What matters most when time becomes short is always what matters most."

[Jacci · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was excited to read this book. I don't argue with the author's thesis that the world (or humanity) is on hospice, but he spent a lot of time talking about different historical views about how we got here or are headed, and very little about what to do next. I need some practical steps. I'll keep reading other books on this topic but this one left me feeling at loose ends about how religion can help other than to realize we are all going to die and we should get used to that idea. I need more.

[Sandy Sopko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author Timothy Beal, a religion scholar, predicts an "endgame" for the religion of the Anthropocene, a religion that promotes faith in dominion and human exceptionalism, a religion of all denominations. Food for thought.

[Jani · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought the early chapters were repetitive and kind of a slog. I really enjoyed it once he got into how to read the biblical scriptures differently that doesn't wind up supporting the idea of human exceptionalism.

[Jessie Light-Wells · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. Strangely and beautifully hopefully, even as Beal contemplates the complete and inevitable end of humanity. I am so grateful for this nuanced approach to the existential and theological questions of this time.

[C Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant, courageous, useful. Pair with Active Hope by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone

[Jennifer Hester · Rating 4 out of 5]

The accompanying playlist is great.

[Rebecca E Mentzer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am glad I read this with my Book Group or I probably would not have finished it. The author starts with an urgency but didn't give me a "to do" list I was hoping for.