A Node in the Web of the Emerging Church

Emergent Village Earthkeeping: “A Conservation Conversation”

Posted Aug 24, 11:07 PM | 11 comments | by Tony Jones | Link

From, Don Wallace and Angela Kantola (Wallace)

Commitment to God’s world is one of the four values the Emergent Village community holds in common. As part of this commitment, we respect the earth and all it contains as God’s beloved creation, and so we join God in seeking its good, its healing, and its blessing. We’d like to facilitate some conversation, networking, and support for one another to help us in this common desire to cherish, nurture, and heal creation.

How did the Western church come to a place where we fail to honor creation? Consumerism and materialism have led us far from the command to serve and protect the planet that was given at the beginning of history. We’ve inherited a culture which reflects the modern notion of dominion handed down from Rene Descartes that we “may render ourselves the lords and possessors of nature” (Discourse on Method, 6, 1637). In contrast, the Scriptures say “the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it” (Psalm 24:1a) and “the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants” (Leviticus 25:23b).

Equally tragic was the ambition of Sir Francis Bacon to “separate the works of God from the Word of God,” which reflects the sacred/secular dualism that influences us to this day. In response to this error, we affirm that “through him (the Word) all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (John 1:3), and that “in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17b). “God’s signature is on the whole of nature. All creatures are love letters from God to us.”

We’ve begun a list of earthkeeping resources to help us on our journey. Also, an earthkeeping day is in the planning as part of a future Emergent Village gathering. Please let us know if you’d like to be involved.

You can contact Don Wallace and Angela Kantola (Wallace), at emergent.earthkeeping@gmail.com

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Welcome to the Reader's Forum

1Monte Asbury 08/25/2006 12:25 AM

Thank you, this was helpful and concise. I quoted you on my blog, http://www.masbury.wordpress.com

2Makeesha 08/25/2006 02:08 AM

Incredibly well said. I have linked this statement and your resource pdf to our ministry site as I could not have said it better :)

3Susan 08/26/2006 03:58 AM

Great to see more conversation on this issue. I have also given you the thumbs up at my infant blog – An Environment of Change
http://ecosteward.wordpress.com/

4Don and Angela 08/30/2006 01:43 AM

The Good Life on God’s Good Earth to explore how Christians can bring healing to the earth, a Sept. 29-30 conference at Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) in Winnipeg

This looks worthwhile:
http://www.cmu.ca/news/good_earth_conf.html

5Jim 09/07/2006 04:01 AM

Let’s not forget though that the world is fading away and will be destroyed. I think our focus should be more on the eternal, rather than the temporary.

6Don and Angela 09/07/2006 04:13 AM

Jim,

”...this verse represents perhaps the most egregious mistranslation in the entire New Testament. The Greek verb in question here is heurethesetai, from heureskein, “to find,” and from which we get the English expression “eureka.” In other words, the text states that after a refiner’s fire of purification (v.7), the new earth will be found out, not burned up. The earth will be discovered, not destroyed. Thus, the text rightly rendered speaks of a basic continuity rather than discontinuity of this world with the next. Creation is not ephemeral and unimportant—some way station until the eschaton—but rather our home, now and always. Biblical eschatology affirms the redemption and restoration of creation.”

7Jimmy 09/07/2006 12:07 PM

That’s awesome – but absolute truth states that a new heaven and a new earth will be created and the old one will pass away. Not just one passage of scripture in the new testament.

Even if that quote is true, do you think that if we are to spend eternity on it, that even if we mess the environment up that God can’t repair it? In the end times there will be great disasters, the earth will be physically ruined. Either way, our main focus should be evangelism, absolute truth, right and wrong according to scripture and not our own personal convictions.

8Daniel 09/08/2006 12:04 AM

You know either side of this conversation has it’s points. I think that nature has it’s needs. This planet is something that we have been given by God. Why would we ever want to pollute or tarnish what we have been given dominion over. Are we not to be good stewards of what we have. I don’t think anyone in emergent villiage would say that evangelism is not important but they do call us to higher ways. Why not consider that we have a responsibility to keep the earth and keep it clean.

9Doug Bland 09/09/2006 06:40 AM

Christian ethicist Walter Wink has made the provocative statement that “anyone who needs scriptural guidance to decide that destroying the ecosystem is wrong is a moral idiot.”

Fortunately, for all of us moral idiots, we do have plenty of scriptural guidance: God placed us in the Garden and called us to “till and keep” the creation.

Furthermore, “God so loved ‘the world’ (i.e., ‘the cosmos’—- not ‘the church’ or human beings’ but ‘the cosmos’—-the whole created order) that He gave us his only begotten Son…that all might have life!

Why should God give us a new heaven and new earth when we’ve taken such poor care of the one God gave us to bein with?

10James 09/10/2006 12:11 PM

God is the tree and the wind; the seasons and the turning of the Earth; the wild creatures roaming the hills; and our own hearts reaching out in earnest attempts to comprehend His majesty.

Yes, the Earth and Cosmos will change as they always have. Newness is an eternal constant, as with every sunrise. Yet it’s solely God’s prerogative to issue such change—in His own way and in His own time. To the extent we impatiently inflict change ourselves, we only impede His Work.