Rector's Letter

The Johannesburg Summit

Churches Together in Britain and Ireland is encouraging Christians to show their concern for the environment as a practical response to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, which begins on 26th August. But why should we as Christians be concerned? - Here are just a few reasons:

1. The God we love and worship created the world, our environment, and cares about it.

2. God cared enough to create a world that was good. Gen. 1-3.

3. God has put us over the rest of creation. A special responsibility. Gen. 1.

4. "Because of the Incarnation, I salute all remaining matter with reverence." St. John of Damascus.

5. Because God cared enough to send his Son to die not only for us but for the restoration of the whole of creation (Rom. 8:22-23).

6. God's mission in Jesus is to restore humanity to a proper relationship with Him and a proper relationship with all creation.

7. The Salvation wrought by Jesus is in community, not alone. We are saved not as individuals, not as a species but as part of the salvation of creation as a whole. We are all bound up together. "In Him we live and move and have our being." Acts 17:28 (RSV) Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, and everything in between. All creation, including us continue because God so chooses. God did not stop creating at the dawn of time. God Father, Son and Holy Spirit keeps on creating, sustaining the life of all that is.

8. Lack of concern for the environment is now affecting the well-being of all people on earth, with the weakest and most vulnerable most being hardest hit. Therefore environmental action is also social action.

9. Self preservation and self interest.

10. To show that important secular issues, such as the environment, are important to Christians and that we have something to add.

11. To show by our words and action that there is a creator God and that He cares.

Revd Nigel Tuffnell