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Sometimes it seems as though caring for the earth and promoting issues such as sustainability is simply a peripheral interest of a few in the church. Yet, the command to care for the earth is deeply Biblical and even rooted in our Constitution. As future pastors and church leaders we ought to remember these important mandates:
God calls the Church in the power of the Holy Spirit to participate in God’s work of creation and preservation. God has given humankind awesome power and perilous responsibility to rule and tame the earth, to sustain and reshape it, to replenish and renew it.
In worship Christians rejoice and give thanks to God, who gives and sustains the created universe, the earth, all life, and all goods. They acknowledge God’s command to be stewards. They confess their own failures in caring for creation and life. They rejoice in the promise of the redemption and renewal of the creation in Jesus Christ, proclaimed in the Word and sealed in the Sacraments. They commit themselves to live as God’s stewards until the day when God will make all things new.
As stewards of God’s creation who hold the earth in trust, the people of God are called to:
- use the earth’s resources responsibly without plundering, polluting, or destroying,
- develop technological methods and processes that work together with the earth’s environment to preserve and enhance life,
- produce and consume in ways that make available to all people what is sufficient for life,
- work for responsible attitudes and practices in procreation and reproduction,
- use and shape earth’s goods to create beauty, order, health, and peace in ways that reflect God’s love for all creatures.
In gratitude for the gifts of creation, the faithful bring material goods to God in worship as a means of expressing praise, as a symbol of their self-offering, and as a token of their commitment to share earth’s goods. (Book of Order, W-7.5001-7.5003)
One of the major issues facing people who care about the earth is sustainability: how do we live on the earth and sustain ourselves without taxing natural resources or wiping them out entirely?
The Sustainability Institute is focused on just this issue and has a great website dedicated to exploring issues of sustainability and ways to improve how we live with the earth. You might check out some of their projects or make use of some of their resources or make a donation. Whatever you do, it’s a site worth bookmarking, if only for future reference/use.
Date: Monday, February 05, 2007
Time: 7:30 PM — 9:30 PM
Speaker/Performer: Peter G. Brown
Location: Agnes Scott College; Evans Hall, Terrace level, rooms ABC
Agnes Scott Ethics Lecture Series:
“Is Nature Ours? Ethics, Economics and the Environment”
Do humans own the earth or do we just act as though we do?
What is the cost of perceiving the rest of nature merely as
a resource? Peter Brown, professor in the departments of
geography and natural resource science at the McGill
University School of Environment, will argue that humans
don’t own the Earth and that the belief that we do is a
significant cause of the environmental degradation that is
overtaking us and many other species. He will suggest a more
promising future lies in Albert Schweitzer’s idea of
reverence for life.
Free, no ticket required.
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