Prayers of gratitude and intercession

“The earth is the LORD’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it; for he has founded it on the seas, and established it on the rivers” (Psalm 24:1–2).

“Climate change”: these two words often generate anxiety concerning the future of not only humanity, but the entire planet.

The effects of climate change have undoubtedly become more evident. Scientific studies in the last 100 years show that if global temperatures increased beyond 1.5º Celsius, there will be negative impacts on ecosystems all over the world.

This small change causes rainfall patterns to shift, temperatures to change, and a higher risk of heatwaves, flooding, melting ice sheets and glaciers resulting in sea level rise.

Climate change poses a risk to human societies and natural ecosystems. A disruption in the ecosystem equilibrium is already measured in plant and animal species that are changing physiologically. With effects such as a decreased crop yield, climate change will cause higher rates of poverty.

While scientific evidence presents many negatives, the church can highlight positives. As a Christian, currently studying environmental science, I believe we can look to science for solutions and still exalt God for his greatness because he created the world and bestowed us with the desire to understand it. 

The engagement of the church is vital. Here, I offer action points using the acronym CHANGE.

Change

Many of us need to change our mindset, perspective and attitude about climate change. This is not a problem solely for politicians, scientists and experts. It is everyone’s problem, including the global church.

Although we hope for eternal life through Jesus Christ, while we walk on the earth we are its custodians. Genesis 2:15 says, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.” God instructed people to look after his creation.

How to…

The issue is not whether climate change is a true phenomenon or not, but how we as members of the global church are involved in adapting our communities to the changes. It is a global issue, one that should be tackled by joint effort rather than individually.

The global church, fostering a spirit of togetherness and community engagement can help bring people closer to Christ, and steer their communities in a positive direction.

Action and Awareness

As the church, we can be a place where people look for accurate information on what climate change is, who it impacts, and how to adapt and mitigate its effects.

The global church could help not only financially but also spiritually to understand the dynamic between developed and developing countries. Inhabitants of developing countries will suffer the impacts of climate change more than those of developed nations. As a global body, we could be a conduit for region-specific information.

Local congregations could promote conservation strategies that start at community level. The church could offer resources on improving efficiency in both energy and food systems, building green infrastructure and nurturing green spaces in urban and rural areas.

Nature

Take time to appreciate nature and see God’s greatness in it. Remember that as the climate changes, so will certain aspects of it.

God

We must keep God as the centre. Where scientific evidence disappoints us, God’s Word remains a true guide. Prayer is a powerful tool that connects us to God and each other.

Expect anything.

We are living in a world full of turmoil. Scientists rely on evidence and projections to predict future scenarios, but it can never be 100 percent accurate. However, as believers, our consolation resides in God as our peace in a time of chaos and uncertainty.

Our lives are rooted in Christ. Whatever happens, God is always with us. This is not an excuse to sit back and watch the chaos unfold, rather, it is a time to CHANGE. As the global church, we can embrace this opportunity to reach out to those who are lost.

—Makadunyiswe Ngulube is YABs Representative for Africa. She is a member of Mount Pleasant BIC Church Zimbabwe. She is studying environmental science at Saint Mary’s University, Nova Scotia, Canada.

 

 

Sources used (in English):

Global warming of 1.5ºC. An IPCC Special Report, https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/

D. Lobell, M. Burke, C. Tebaldi, M. Mastrandrea, W. Falcon, and R. Naylor. “Prioritizing climate change adaptation needs for food security in 2030” in Science (2008).

Terry L. Root, Jeff T. Price, Kimberly R. Hall, Stephen H. Schneider, Cynthia Rosenzweig, & J. Alan Pounds. “Fingerprints of global warming on wild animals and plants” in Nature (2003).

Is there a way to make a living without killing the environment?

For a country that sees thousands of deaths every year due to exacerbated effects of super-typhoons, this is a major question. Lives have been claimed and billions worth of infrastructure have been damaged due to intense floods and landslides brought by forest denudation, river siltation, excessive garbage pile-up and indiscriminate extractive industries.

Right now, the forest cover in the Philippines loses 262,500 hectares every year. Agricultural practices in the Philippines are mostly mono-cropping, slashing trees in exchange for cash crops which are heavily reliant on inorganic fertilizers and pesticides. People know the destruction they are wreaking on the environment but “is there an alternative?”

This is an issue that Peacebuilders Community Inc. (PBCI) encounters in most communities it works with. An outgrowth of the work of Mennonite Church Witness workers Dann and Joji Pantoja, PBCI started in 2006 in Mindanao, the southern part of the Philippines, which faces decades-long of armed conflict. Non-state armed groups are very active there fuelled by corruption, unequal wealth distribution, discrimination and historical injustices that started in the colonial conquest and continues until now.

As PBCI engages with the communities there, the people ask, “how can we talk about peace when our stomachs are hungry?” Thus the need to search for solutions to address the economic need of the people and at the same time taking care of the environment in accordance to the biblical definition of peace which is:

• Harmony with the Creator – spiritual transformation
• Harmony with the being – psychosocial transformation
• Harmony with others – socio-political transformation
• Harmony with the creation – economic-ecological transformation

One of the solutions that came out was coffee production. PBCI noticed that Christians, Muslims and lumads (Indigenous peoples in Mindanao) offer coffee to their visitors. Coffee then became an icon of peace because these three groups that are usually at odds with each other has this in common. Thus, Coffee for Peace Inc. was conceptualized in 2008.

Furthermore, coffee thrives best in a balanced ecology since coffee absorbs flavour from its environment. Coffee then, encourages reforestation and environmentally-friendly farming practices.

Using fair trade principles to create a just, sustainable value chain, PBCI trains the farmers on peace and reconciliation, coffee production and processing, fair trade, and social entrepreneurship.

In the central part of the Philippines, the community of Immanuel Christian Assembly of God Church (ICACG) in Pres. Roxas, Capiz experienced the wrath of Typhoon Haiyan in 2013. As a result, their sources of income and houses were terribly damaged. They needed to rehabilitate their economy and at the same time build up their own capacities so that they can immediately help when another disaster strikes. They also needed to address the forest denudation of their hills which are mostly planted with corn.

In February 2017, ICACG invited PBCI to train them. As of December, they have reforested the hills with 5,000 coffee trees which is expected to bear fruit in 2020. To help in their everyday needs, they intercropped various vegetables in their coffee farm without using inorganic fertilizers and pesticides. In the next five years, ICACG will reforest 25 more hectares with 25,000 coffee trees. They are being asked by four nearby barangays (villages) who have the same issues of poverty and intensive deforestation to teach them the principles of organic faming and the peace and reconciliation framework.

These communities are living testimonies that we do not have to kill our environment in order to live. We can be in harmony with the creation just as the Creator had commanded us to do.

—Twinkle A. Bautista is a missionary for peace and reconciliation in Kalinga, the Philippines, where she works with the Anabaptist-rooted Peacebuilders Community Inc.

This article first appeared in Courier/Correo/Courrier April 2018.

There is a saying that you don’t know what you have until you lose it. I would add “or until you see the real and present danger that you could lose it.”

Something similar happened to our natural resources. For a long time, we had accessible clean water, pure air to breathe and clean and beautiful surroundings. However, when our city began to grow, we started to see garbage lying around; air quality became poor; and we were told that the rivers and streams (where our increasingly scarce water comes from) were endangered by concessions the government granted to companies to mine gold at the headwaters.

We began to get worried.

Our responsibility for the environment

This led us to take looking after the natural environment seriously, and we joined forces with many people who have a deep love for nature, including those who don’t necessarily consider themselves Christian. Concretely, we believed that it was our responsibility to involve our church in the struggle against the grave environmental consequences of gold exploitation in the Cajamarca region.

This was how we began to participate in multiple “Carnival Marches” in favour of life, water and land sovereignty for our region.

In addition to the ecological and social implications, it had political repercussions because it led to public deliberation processes in which people could decide whether they wanted mining operations in their communities that affected their natural environment or not. These public processes contradict the laws that argue that our government owns the ground below our feet and as such can decide what to do with it without prior consultation and consent. These large protests and the negativity expressed by the communities during the consultations have led to the suspension and withdrawal of the mining company from Cajamarca for now, and we hope for ever.

Environmental consciousness in the church

At the same time, we came to understand that our church communities did not know much about the environment and certainly did not have an environmental consciousness. For this reason, we started a Sunday school series about the environment for adolescents, youth and adults which we call Eco-theology. A number of us shared about the topic in order to understand the reasons why God our Father and Creator of everything that exists calls us to take care of creation.

The topic has garnered a lot of interest in our community and we have begun to see clear commitments and initiatives on the part of our members. Some of these appear futile at an individual level, but when seen together, add up to have an effect.

For example, we realized that we should recycle, so we set up an ecological station at church where we separate our garbage to facilitate recycling. Our members began to collect the plastic lids from beverage containers which we put together and donate to “lids for healing”, an organization that uses the proceeds from recycling them to care for children with cancer.

Once we spoke about the negative impact of batteries and cell phone batteries, some members began to bring those to church too and now we need to get an adequate container to collect them and later take them to a depot that knows what to do with them.

Another woman from the church realized that we could project the order of service onto the wall rather than print it out and in this way save some trees.

As such, small acts like picking up garbage, walking, biking, not using disposable plates and other little things have become important to all of us.

 

“Climate Justice Now!” “People Power!” “Keep it in the ground!” echoed through the corridors as I walked through the Blue Zone – the place where 197 member-states of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) gathered in December 2015 to decide on the future of our climate. It was the first time that I attended these climate negotiations and it turned out to be a historic gathering at which the Paris Agreement (a worldwide agreement to protect the climate and the people living on this planet) was adopted.

It was also the first time that I came in contact with a large number of faith-based communities advocating for sustainable environments and climate resilience, standing alongside the most vulnerable communities and people. Admitted as official observers, the faith-based communities had the chance to not only do the hard advocacy groundwork of approaching negotiators on a one-on-one level, but were even given a slot to raise their voice to an audience of ministers and heads-of-states at the High Level Dialogue.

Climate change is not “fake news,” but a hard reality around the globe, most intensely felt by our brothers and sisters in the Global South. Environmental destruction and climate change, intensified through lifestyle in the Global North, are key contributors to poverty. Continuous pressure on our shared resources deprives the poorest and the most vulnerable of sustainable and dignified livelihoods; and this is not seldom the reason for conflict.

The current climate crisis and climate injustices clearly show that a sustainable environment, human dignity and improved community resilience of the most vulnerable are closely related and mutually dependent. As Mennonites and Christians in Germany, we therefore try to pursue a greater extent of sustainability in our actions so as to protect God’s creation for future generations and the livelihood of millions of people today.

On the smallest scale, this starts with some of our congregations having solar panels on their roofs to reduce the fossil fuel energy consumption.

It continues with some of our members refusing to own a car, because it is just not necessary in urban regions.

Many of our congregations are engaged in neighbourhood activities to strengthen the local communities and to support the less privileged.

All of these initiatives stem from the commitment to care for the wonderful creation that has been entrusted to us.

However, we need more of these issues on our churches’ agendas – 100 percent renewable energy, responsible consumption, theological education for sustainable development and local advocacy work. In addition, being active and involved in the ecumenical faith family can enlarge this local commitment and lift it to a global level. Through targeted advocacy work on the political scene and influencing policies and decision, we can care for God’s people that are not literally our neighbours, but members of God’s global family.

Coming back to the climate negotiations: As a worldwide ecumenical fellowship of churches, the World Council of Churches (WCC) has a prominent role among the faith-based communities at the climate negotiations. The AMG (our conference) and other Mennonite conferences who are members of the WCC joined the “Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace” in 2013, which resonated with Anabaptist values. In the climate context, this has been translated into the “Pilgrimage of Climate Justice and Peace”: raising awareness that climate justice must not be forgotten and that the weakest and most vulnerable of our global community have to be given a voice.

“We need the wisdom of creation,” said Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the WCC, during the service for climate justice at the latest climate negotiations: “a wisdom that sees reality and understands and recognizes the time in which we live. A wisdom that […] has the courage to act and to break new ground so that we can prepare for the future together.”

Our love for God and God’s people compels us to raise our voices, to stand together with the vulnerable, to be politically active and to strive for a climate-just world. Therefore, we join our ecumenical forces and pray as we continue to walk on this pilgrimage: “God of Life, lead us to justice and peace.”

–Rebecca Froese is a member of AMG – Arbeitsgemeinschaft Mennonitischer Gemeinden in Deutschland, a Mennonite member church in Germany. 

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This article first appeared in Courier/Correo/Courrier April 2018.

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update 2021

Creation Care Task Force

MWC provides an opportunity to respond faithfully to the climate crisis, and other ecological crises, in diverse ways within one communion, which is itself profoundly fitting in relation to this crisis. This task-force will formulate a plan for the MWC response, and initiate activities aimed at increasing awareness and action.

Learn more about the task force

 

At the beginning of this third millennium, humanity confronts serious ecological problems that threaten human life and all of creation. The consequences of global warming are perceptible in every country of the world: polluted air and water, serious flooding, extreme heat, etc.

In Africa, principally in sub-Saharan countries, populations are exposed to many diseases as a result of the deterioration of creation and conditions of life. Other parts of creation, both wild and domestic, such as fish and animals, birds, trees and rivers have not been spared. They are victims of human greed and foolishness. Yet, even as the Lord protects us, we must protect God’s creation by taking care of the earth and its inhabitants. This is the will of the creator.

The Bible and creation care

The Bible is not silent when it comes to the responsibility of human beings with regard to creation. It is so rich in lessons in this area that some have come to consider the Word of God as an ecological book, a manual that helps Christians live correctly on this earth, a manual that indicates “how to live on the earth in order not to be disoriented when arriving in heaven” (Dewitt).

Old Testament foundation

The Old Testament contains several passages that teach us about our responsibility toward creation. Nevertheless, the most eloquent passage is Genesis 2:15: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.” This verse lays the biblical foundation for the protection of creation. It underlines the cultural mandate of the mission of God entrusted to human beings in the garden of Eden. This dual missionary mandate consists of tilling it and keeping it.

Tilling it – àvàd 

Etymologically, this word originates from the root word àvàd meaning till, serve, work. Throughout the Old Testament, àvàd has two meanings that come down to the same thing: honour and glorify God.

In the first case, it is a question of offering an act of worship to God, to accomplish certain services of adoration. Secondly, it relates to the manual labour of humans to meet their own needs or the needs of the master in the case of servants. It is also a service provided to kings (Exodus 20:9; 30:16; Leviticus 25:39; Deuteronomy 28:23; Psalm 128:2; 24:1–2; Acts 20:35; 1 Corinthians 16:58; 2 Thessalonians 3:8–9, 11).

From this perspective, the human person is not created to do nothing. Labour is a necessary part of human nature, something that develops intelligence, ingenuity and the forces of energy and will, as well as those of the body (Rochedieu). The human person is first called to work, because it is the condition sine qua non for all development. A human being continues the work of God through labour, because God wants the person to prosper. The apostle Paul even says “anyone unwilling to work should not eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10).

One should underline that in the beginning, manual labour was neither a curse nor the consequence of sin. It is a divine institution. Labour comes from God, because God worked and continues to work.

The term àvàd, understood as a service to offer, brings us back to our responsibility to worship God. We know that true worship consists of putting oneself in the service of others for good (Isaiah 58:6–7; James 1:27); to till the soil means to obey the will of God. On this subject, Bible commentator Rochedieu says, “there is a close analogy between tilling, worship and culture. Putting the mission to good use results necessarily in service offered to God for God’s glory and honour and for the well-being and integrity of all creatures, asking God for bread while at the same time working to obtain it.”

Keeping it – shamar

This verb means to keep, survey, watch over, protect, conserve, hold onto, conserve the memory, observe, notice, hold. This verb is used 126 times in the Pentateuch, 128 times in the Prophets, and 165 times elsewhere in Scripture. In the Genesis 2:15 passage, shamar takes on the sense of survey, preserve, care for. 

From this perspective, the task of human beings is to protect the garden from an enemy of a completely different nature who aspires to become its master and will appear without delay. This task given to Adam with regard to the garden foresees the task of humanity with regard to the earth.

The word shamar refers as much to shepherds watching over their flock as it does to the farmer who tends a garden as in Gen. 1:28 and 2:15. “Humanity was made responsible” (Roop).

“The mission entrusted to us by God is not accomplished in the exploitation and destruction of flora and fauna,” writes ethics professor Jochem Douma. “On the contrary, the business of humans is not just about manipulating and deforming things according to their pleasure in order to enrich themselves, but about administering a function determined by God. It follows that humans must behave with other members of creation taking into account the characteristics attributed to each by God.”

As administrators of great things, humans cannot presume to be owners. The world is God’s creation and not that of human beings. Humans are the managers of a creation that remains the property of God. Creation must be managed according to the norms of divine justice and not according to human desire for power.

In our time, creation has been damaged on such a large scale that it cannot leave those of us who call ourselves disciples of Jesus Christ indifferent, because the survival of humanity today and generations to come depends on us.

New Testament foundation

Several New Testament passages speak of the cosmic dimension of the gospel. We will limit ourselves to examining the texts in Paul’s epistles to the Colossians (1:15–23) and Romans (8:18–22).

Colossians 1:15–23 clearly affirms that in Christ, everything (panta in Greek) exists because “all things have been created through him and for him.” It describes the relationship that exists between the Christ of creation and the Christ of the cross. Christ is the one in whom all things are reconciled and rediscover harmony. Paul boldly declares that the beneficiaries of this rediscovered harmony are not just humans, but all things. This is an established principle for the present and the future.

In Romans 8:18–22, Paul writes that all of creation suffers (humans and other creatures), and all await the redemption of the children of God. This suffering comes from human rebellion against the law of God. For God created a luxuriant and productive garden without weeds, a place of complete health and life, but sin brought sickness, death, thorns and thistles. Humans must work hard to make a living because this nourishing earth is cursed. In the span of two centuries (since the beginning of the industrial age), the human species has called into question the basic foundations of life.

Creation is suffering and groaning in labour pains as a result of human activity: the destruction of natural spaces and urbanization, the extinction of species, the deterioration of the soil, the transformation of natural resources, waste and dangerous products, pollution on a grand scale, the alteration of the planet’s equilibrium, human and cultural deterioration, global warming, the lack of sanitation in the large cities of developing countries, etc. These are serious illnesses that creation is suffering from.

The mandate that God entrusted to human beings is to till and keep the garden. However, in reality, human beings are only exploiting the earth without paying attention to the second part of the cultural mandate to care for the gift of God, knowing that the true owner of the cosmos is God who created all things for God’s glory. If God granted us the good deeds of creation to enjoy, we must take care not to threaten its potential.

If we act according to biblical teaching on this subject, we will live happily and offer a radiant future to coming generations.

The benefits of following biblical teaching on creation care

Biblical teaching on creation care has several benefits. It allows us to:

• Banish ignorance in the face of our responsibility when it comes to protecting creation. The more we are informed on the damage and destruction inflicted on our Lord’s earth, the more we are obligated to revisit our responsibility as managers and administrators of our planet and its inhabitants. We understand that God is the creator of the entire universe (Genesis 1:1), which bears eloquent testimony to God (Psalm 19). All of creation belongs to God (Deuteronomy 10:14; Psalm 24:1; 1 Corinthians 10:26), who loves creation and takes care of it, giving water and nourishment to all creatures (Psalm 104; Acts 14:17), even as God gave Christ Jesus (John 3:16). We are assured that the Lord blesses and keeps us (Psalm 104; Numbers 6:24–26).
• Grant a sabbatical rest, i.e., time for reestablishment and the enjoyment of the fruits of God’s creation (Exodus 20:23; Leviticus 25:26). Even as God provides for the needs of God’s creatures, we must also do so by permitting the rest of creation to be productive and multiply (Genesis 1:22; 9:1–7; 28:17), and not add “house upon house” (Isaiah 5:8).
• Participate in efforts to stop the rapid deterioration of creation that threatens the world. The consequences of this deterioration are dramatic for the humans as well as other species.
• Work toward sustainable development without compromising the development of future generations.

The costs of creation care

On a planetary scale, world governments are divided on questions linked to the protection of the environment. Capitalist countries and the most industrialized countries of the world are the biggest polluters. They do not speak the same language on the question of global warming, which is a genuine threat to the future of the world. Last year (2017), the United States, one of the most industrialized countries of the world, pulled out of the Paris climate accords.

The most industrialized states must set aside their egos and change their vision of the world to make way for the hope of changing the face of the world. It is then that the financial means can be mobilized to stop the damage to creation and its global consequences. Each state must be conscious of the serious ecological problems that threaten the very existence of creation.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the environmental situation is dramatic. Indeed, since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, thousands of armed refugees have devastated the fauna and flora in the eastern part of the country. Successive wars in this region have contributed to the destruction of the environment. Virunga and Garamba national parks have become hideouts for local and foreign armed groups that kill mountain gorillas, okapis, hippopotamuses, etc.

In cities like Kinshasa, the environmental situation is tragic: Kinshasa, once called ‚ÄòKin la belle’ [Kinshasa the beautiful] is now described by the people of Kinshasa themselves as ‚ÄòKin la poubelle’ [Kinshasa the trash can] (Nzuzi). Unsanitary conditions reign everywhere. Plastic bottles are thrown out in gutters, streams and rivers. Erosion has washed away parts of certain neighbourhoods in the city.

This lack of sanitation is at the root of deadly diseases such as typhoid, malaria, cholera, etc. Even as I write, a cholera epidemic is raging in one of the most populated and disadvantaged areas of Kinshasa named Camp Luka.

Faced with this situation, both the federal government and the provincial government of Kinshasa are powerless. According to the governor of the city, the provincial government lacks the financial and material means to ensure daily clean up. Efforts agreed to by the government and people of good will are a drop in the ocean.

Protecting creation demands significant financial resources and a change in people’s mentality.

The contribution of Mennonite churches to the protection of creation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

The damage done to creation in the DRC is closely tied to the cultures and food and economic needs of the populations of each province. For example, in the regions of Kasai and the southwestern part of Kwango, small scale diamond mining has completely modified the flora as well as water systems and certain species of animals have disappeared altogether.

In such an environment, Mennonite leaders raise the awareness of their members and local populations toward a change in mentality; to see creation in the light of biblical teaching.

Thanks to the Evangelism and Community Health program, pastors and even church members have been sensitized to work for their own development, but also for the protection of the environment and the struggle against unsanitary conditions. For example, we have asked all of the pastors in Kinshasa to clean up the immediate environment around their parishes, to install hygienic bathroom facilities and to plant trees in courtyards where space allows it. After visiting some of the different parishes, this work has already proven to be effective.

In addition, young Mennonites have joined with other young people to work against unsanitary conditions and erosion in Kinshasa. This work is being done with the means people have at their disposal: sacks, shovels, etc. Thanks to the efforts of our young people in past years, the Lonzo parishes in Camp Luka of Ngaliema district and the Mfila parish in the Delvaux neighbourhood of the same district were saved from erosion that threatened their very existence.

 

Read also

Churches together for climate justice

At peace with the land

Taking action for your neighbourhood

A countercultural lifestyle