“Everyone has an ecological story,” said Derrick Weston, director of theological education and formation at Creation Justice Ministries during a CBF General Assembly learning lab last week.
With a small group of assembly attendees, Weston discussed the important distinction between creation care and justice — and why churches should extend their sentiments for creation into acts of justice for God’s earth and creatures.
Derrick Weston
“There have been creation injustices,” he said, and these are interrelated with all other social justice issues, including racism and sexism, which are overwhelming world politics right now. “The things that lead us to subjugate other people will also lead us to subjugate our land.”
Caring about creation is biblical, he said. “Start at the beginning, then turn the page.”
In the creation narratives, he contrasted popular views that humans have a God-given right to use as much of the earth’s resources as we want. “God told us to have dominion. That’s like custodianship,” explaining that we are called to “protect and serve” creation as stewards of God’s justice on earth.
Exegeting the phrase from Romans 8, “the whole of creation has been groaning,” Weston also mused, “I’m imagining Paul on the way to Rome and seeing the deforestation” — and the many other creation injustices committed around him. “Paul saw creation under the weight of empire, and he wrote this. It feels relevant.”
Weston says there are six eco-justice principles churches can use to interpret Scripture in ways that give creation justice a biblical and theological grounding: Intrinsic worth, interconnectedness, voice, purpose, mutual custodianship and resistance.
These principles offer a lens through which congregations can understand Scripture as calling upon Christians to recognize creation injustices and in turn actively resist them by discovering ways local church communities can make a difference in the treatment of the land and other creatures of God.
Weston also noted churches ought to work with local scientists while doing this work, not only for the benefit of their congregations and communities but to come alongside them and act according to their findings, searching for ways to enact justice amid their work.
Moving forward, he offered six ways to create a culture of climate justice in their congregations:
- Context: Consider “your watershed” and what your community needs might be
- Clarity: Identify the work your congregation has the capacity and motivation to do
- Community: Find ways to engage a number of congregation and community members in your work
- Clergy: Be sure your pastors are supportive of this work because “it can’t be a marginalized part of the community of faith”
- Creativity: How will you address enormous-seeming problems in new and reasonable ways?
- Courage: Be vulnerable and brave as you share why climate justice is an important issue in your congregation, community and our world.