Christian Faith and the Earth project

A brief history

In an open letter dated 31 January 2007 I extended an invitation to any interested person to participate in a collaborative project on “Christian Faith and the earth”. This followed on extended earlier discussions and the establishment of an international steering committee for the project. Since then, this invitation has been forwarded to colleagues all over the world.

The purpose of the project is to reflect on the content and the significance of the Christian faith in the light of ecological concerns. The project should be regarded as one dimension of a wider theological response to envi­ron­­men­t­al challenges. Although its focus is on Christian doctrine, theological reflection in this regard is often stimulated by and is enriched by ethical concerns, by engagement in earthkeeping and by Christian worship.

In April 2007 a first progress report on this project was widely distributed. This helped to crystallise a number of themes that would be addressed within the context of the project.

This was followed by a second progress report in August 2007. This helped to establish a number of working groups, each with a demarcated theme, a group moderator and an editor, as well as various members and other resource persons.

There are at the moment around 100 scholars from 6 continents working in the 12 established groups. It is envisaged that the project will culminate in a conference to be held in Cape Town, 6-10 August 2012.

The current phase of the project

The project has now been decentralised in the sense that the work done within the various groups actually constitute the project. This includes at least the following components:

a) Establishing channels of communication: The project seeks to establish a network between scholars all over the world who are working within this field. The task of the moderator in each group is to facilitate this, to invite people to introduce themselves, their context and their take on the particular topic and to make everyone feel at home.

b) Identifying challenges: The task of this project cannot be to rewrite every aspect of Christian doctrine. Instead, it is important to identify those aspects of the Christian faith that have been questioned as a result of emerging ecological sensitivi­ties. Each group therefore has to identify where such challenges have emerged with respect to the group’s theme.

c) Collection of previous work in the area: Over the last 30 years or so a wealth of literature has been produced on aspects of the Christian faith in the light of ecological concerns. In order to establish the state of the debate it is therefore important to collect such bibliographic material, including work done by members of the group.

d) Analysis and classification: On the basis of such bibliographical collection the task of assessing the current state of the debate can begin. On what issues can one identify some consensus? Can different approaches to the topic be identified? What forms the basis for differentiating such approaches – confessional, contextual, worldviews? What are the unresolved issues that require further reflection? Here the task is not so much to opt for one approach that may be dominant but to acknowledge conflicting positions and approaches where they exist.

e) Inviting position papers: Email discussions on these topics will soon dissipate without the hard work of contributing more substantial position papers on the topic. The project is built on the assumption that there will be numerous local, regional and international conferences where group members can offer such position papers on specific aspects of the topic. Such position papers can be distributed to other members of a working group via email.

f) Offering a sense of direction for further reflection: The aim of the project is not only to explore the state of the debate in current ecotheology but also to offer a sense of direction for further work and for earthkeeping praxis within Christian communities.

g) Consolidation: The task of the editors of the various working groups will be to produce a consolidated report on the proceedings of the group in which the theme is explored, where the current state of the debate is captured and where such a sense of direction for further reflection is offered.