Ecumenical and ecological perspectives on the "God of life".
Conradie, Ernst M.
This issue of The Ecumenical Review is one of the last ones to
appear before the 10th Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC),
to be held in Busan, Korea, in October and November 2013. The focus of
this volume is on the phrase "God of fife" in the assembly
theme, namely "God of life, lead us to justice and peace."
While several of the earlier assemblies had a Christological focus
in terms of the conference theme, the Canberra assembly (1991) had a
pneumatological orientation: "Come, Holy Spirit, renew your whole
creation." One may say that the two most recent assemblies had a
trinitarian orientation: The theme of the 50th anniversary in Harare
(1998) was "Turn to God--rejoice in hope," while the Porto
Allegro assembly (2006) focused on the prayer "God, in your mercy,
transform the world."
This theo-logical approach, continued at the Busan assembly,
follows the emergence of a "theology of life" in ecumenical
circles in the 1990s in order to integrate the concerns expressed in the
quest for a "Just, Participatory and Sustainable Society"
(Nairobi, 1975) and for "Justice, Peace and the Integrity of
Creation" (Vancouver, 1983). Such a theology of life is born from
grassroots experiences of the threats to life, that is, economic
injustices, violent conflict, and environmental destruction. A theology
of life is, therefore, shorthand for affirming the social agenda of the
ecumenical movement, inspiring a Christian praxis of resistance against
the powers of death that destroy communities of life for the sake of
political and economic power.
The issues of justice and peace are explicitly addressed in the
Busan assembly theme, while issues around environmental sustainability
are implicit in the notion of the "God of life." The editor of
The Ecumenical Review therefore invited contributions that would
specifically offer ecological perspectives on the notion of the
"God of life." The question is how the phrase is understood in
contemporary Christian ecotheology. This invites theological reflection
on two related aspects of the provocative Christian confession, namely
that all of life may be understood as belonging to the triune God and
that the triune God may be understood as the God of life.
The contributors to this volume come from a wide variety of
geographical contexts and confessional traditions, in most cases
characterized by mobility and transition. Robert Owusu Agyarko is a
Pentecostal theologian from Ghana who studied in South Africa. Sigurd
Bergmann is of German Lutheran origin living in Sweden and academically
based in Norway. Ernst Conradie is a tenth-generation Euro-South African
reformed theologian. Celia Deane-Drummond, a Roman Catholic theologian
and ethicist from England, is now based in the USA. Her co-author
Barbara Rossing is a New Testament scholar standing in the American
Lutheran tradition. Denis Edwards is a Roman Catholic theologian from
Australia. Lai Pan-Chiuchui is engaged in Christian-Confucian dialogue
in China. Sallie McFague, an American theologian currently based in
Vancouver, Canada, is well-known for her contributions to feminist and
ecotheology. Elina Vuola is a feminist scholar from Finland with
research networks in Latin America. Gayle Woloschak, a molecular
biologist from the Ukraine, is now professor at Northwestern
University's Feinberg School of Medicine and is associate director
of the Zygon Center for Religion and Science in Chicago is a molecular
biologies from the Ukrainian Orthodox tradition, now based in the USA.
George Zachariah belongs to the Mar Thoma Church in India and engages
with subaltern theological movements. Together, these contributions
reflect the diversity and hybridity of the ecumenical movement and the
vibrancy of contemporary developments in Christian ecotheology.
In addition to these contributions on a theology of life, Sue
Rakoczy, a South African Roman Catholic feminist theologian originally
from Poland, contributes a chronicle of the recent Christian Faith and
the Earth conference, held near Cape Town, 6-10 August 2012.
DOI: 10.1111/erev.12022
Ernst M. Conradie
Guest Editor
