Maria Ale Andrade V and Clark Buys began by presenting Tearfund’s Abundant Community Theology (ACT). They talked about cultivating an abundant community mindset over that of a scarcity mindset: this prioritizes relationship over individual identity, a shared home over competitive market, generosity over greed, and better distribution over more production solutions.

Prof. Must Dube followed this presentation with a critical reflection on ACT. She highlighted the importance of contextual theology with concern for the communities included and excluded within our conversation. She raised the need for decolonized theology and mentioned that ‘…a spirit of inclusion does not mean a spirit of equality’. She also emphasised the importance of lament with God and God’s creation for ‘…naming oppression, calling for change and justice for earth’. She ended by reminding us that the good news extends to all creation and underscored the transformative nature of salvation.

Dave Bookless offered an overview of creation care theology trends. He first began by highlighting how early creation care theology existed among Desert Fathers, Coptic Christians, Celtic Christians, and even early evangelicals. He discussed how a great reversal took place when a fear of science, liberal theology and ‘social gospel’ concerns emerged. Integral Mission was rediscovered through the aid of theologians such as René Padilla, Samuel Escobar, and John Stott. Currently, we are witnessing a rise of eco-theologies, including liberation theologies, interfaith theologies and post-colonial and indigenous theologies. Finally, he named a few future trends including:

a) rethinking ‘stewardship’
b) questioning ‘anthropocentrism’
c) cultivating theologies of lament, loss and hope
d) exploring intersectionality of ecotheology among other issues like gender, decolonization, and so on.

A link to the recording of this webinar will be shared in the next Pollinator.

Paper: Abundant Community Theology – Buys & Andrade V. (2023). Abundant Community Theology: A Case Study in Decolonial Theological Research. Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 5(1), Summer2023.

Video: Tearfund – Enough for All

Professor Bouma-Prediger spoke on

• how end times theology has been a problem in earthkeeping
• what the Bible teaches about the future of the earth
• how we should respond

He was later joined by Dave Bookless, Jasmine Kwong, Samuel Chiu and Prarthini Selveindran to address ‘end times’ questions—both in terms of thought and practice.

Here’s the link to the webinar: End Times and the Environment

Micah Global, which is where everything happens having to do with Integral Mission, holds a major consultation every three years. This year the gathering was online, but in Africa, and theme was Kashmiri, a Kiswahili word meaning “to flourish”. All of the conference materials are available on the Micah website here. (Go to “Listen to African Voices” for the Plenary sessions.)

Here is the conference description:

Every three years, Micah Global members from around the world gather for a consultation that is hosted in turn by one of our regions. This year, Africa was our host. The theme of the consultation is KUSHAMIRI, which is the beautiful Kiswahili word for ‘flourish’. We gathered to reflect on how we as individuals, organisations and congregations flourish so that we may be catalysts for the flourishing of the communities we serve. And explored how this is a flourishing for all seasons, and in difficult situations.

The flourishing we seek as a network is described in the invitation and the promise of Jesus Christ to his followers: “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). It is this active abiding, us in Christ and Christ in us, that we continue to pursue.  We also continue to reflect on the fruit which such abiding produces, in our lives and in the communities where we are located. Considering flourishing from a biblical perspective, we are reminded also of the text in Revelation 22:2 where the tree of life has twelve kinds of fruit and produces fruit every month. And the leaves of this tree are for the healing of the nations. As the Body of Christ, participating in God’s mission of holistic redemption, we are the instrument of current flourishing and the foretaste of future flourishing through our abiding and fruitfulness in Christ.

May this word KUSHAMIRI | FLOURISH take root in our hearts and minds as we hear the invitation and the promise from the Lord to flourish and be agents of flourishing in our communities. 

Nigerian professor Grace Pam addressed the topic of creation care and flourishing:

The long-awaited book John Stott on Creation Care is available now, and was officially launched in London on 19 November by co-author/editor Laura Meitzner Yoder of Wheaton College. (FYI, I have my first copy of the book, and several more on order as Christmas gifts). I really can’t overemphasize how important this volume will be as a reference tool for all of us, and perhaps even as an eye-opener for our pastors and other friends who love John Stott but don’t realize how important creation care was for him.

Order it here in the US. Or here in the UK or elsewhere. Proceeds will go to support A Rocha projects around the world, a cause which Stott would have heartily endorsed.

And please, spend an hour with Laura to hear her thoughts both on John Stott and on what it means to learn how to love our future neighbours (and our present ones, too.) If you’d like to send her a note, you can do so through The Pollinator here. We’ll send it along to her.

For those who might have wanted to participate in Creation at the Crossroads 2 but were not able to do so, plenary session videos are now available.

This convening focused on training in sharing our stories and the presentations were excellent. Some of us might find them useful in our own training programs. (Descriptions below only cover the main presentations; other material is also includeded):

• Day 1 (Master Story Teller Ambrose Carroll, Creating a personal narrative – Trishna Gurung, Focusing on different audiences – Ani Fete Crews): Video Part 1, Video Part 2
• Day 2 (Master Story Teller Jo Swinney, Media training – Paige Knappenberger & Marlene Peralta): Video
• Day 3 (Master Story Teller Kyle Meyaard-Schaap, Reaching Christian Media – Mark Galli, Developing an Organizational Campaign – Jan Vertefeuille): Video

We’re always on the lookout for materials that can be used in a church or Sunday School/small group setting to help people navigate Creation Care generally as well as subtopics like climate change. We’ve just learned about this series from Tearfund:

Christianity and Climate Change: Do you want to take a closer look at the climate crisis and how Christians are called to respond? Christianity and climate change is a nine-part film series featuring Katharine Hayhoe, the internationally renowned Christian climate scientist. In each episode, she responds to climate questions from key church leaders and members in Scotland. You can also find discussion questions and further actions to go with each film in our leader’s guide.  

Here’s a list of the topics:

• Film one: What the Bible says about the natural world ‘What is your understanding from the Bible of how God views the natural world?’
• Film two: Climate change is a poverty issue ‘How is climate change affecting the developing world where organisations like Tearfund work?’
• Film three: How to persuade others to care about climate change ‘Do you have any advice on how we help fellow Christians understand the importance of working to end climate change?’
• Film four: What we can do as a church ‘What advice would you give churches that want to do something together to combat the effects of climate change?’
• Film five: Speaking to other Christians about climate change ‘What are the ways in which we can engage in the climate change debate and gently point people to Jesus?’
• Film six: Grateful for fossil fuels but time to move on ‘How do you engage with Christians who may take a very different view than you do regarding climate change?’
• Film seven: Climate change is a threat multiplier ‘How do we ensure that care for creation and climate change remain not only on the agenda, but high up the agenda?’
• Film eight: There can be a better future ‘What are some key changes you hope happen after lockdown procedures ease up in terms of climate change-related behaviour?’
• Film nine: It is not too late ‘Given the trajectory in our use of greenhouse gases and the global rise in temperature, is it already too late to react?

And here is the first episode. Discussion questions are included on the main page here.

• Lausanne Global Classroom Creation Care series (12 short videos with clips from a global range of speakers including Ed, myself, Katharine Hayhoe and many others) https://www.lausanne.org/lausanne-global-classroom/creation-care-episode
• Discussion / bible study resources produced by A Rocha and linked to the Lausanne Global Classroom series: https://atyourservice.arocha.org/en/lausanne-global-classroom-creation-care-study-guide/
• Video (25 minute lecture) by myself on the bible and biodiversity conservation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p07-77d07e8&feature=emb_logo (NB the final session of the discussion / bible study above relates to this
• ‘All of Life’ Series of 4x 15-20 minute professionally filmed videos on the Christian basis for creation care and implications for churches: https://atyourservice.arocha.org/en/all-of-life/

Enjoy it here, and download to share with your own church family during this Season of Creation:

Since that time, Peter has been recovering and moving into a volunteer role at A Rocha. Here he shares some of his thoughts on the tragedy, the healing power of creation, and (he hopes) the eventual return of joy. Thank you for listening, and for continuing to pray for Peter and the other Harris and Naylor family members.. Six months is nothing after an experience such as he is going through.