Jamaica will play host to an international consultation on ‘CARING FOR CREATION’, October 29 – November 3, 2012. The consultation is a follow-up to the 2010 Third Lausanne Congress held in Cape Town, South Africa and is being hosted in Jamaica by the Caribbean Graduate School of Theology (CGST) in partnership with the Lausanne Movement, the World Evangelical Alliance, Tear Fund (UK), and World Vision International.
Participants from twenty-five (25) countries from Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and North America, will be attending. Ed Brown, consultation coordinator and author of the book “Our Father’s World: Mobilizing the Church to Care for Creation”, says the program focuses on the role of the church in responding to the global ecological crisis. Three themes are emphasized, ‘God’s World’, ‘God’s Word’ and ‘God’s People’. One of the expected outcomes, Brown says, is the development of a global movement for caring for creation through local churches.
Among the lead presenters will be Sir John Houghton, former co-chair of the Nobel Peace Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) scientific assessment working group and lead editor of the first three IPCC reports. Houghton is professor-emeritus of atmospheric physics at the University of Oxford and a former Chief Executive Officer at the UK Meteorological Office.
Other presenters include Robert White, professor of Geophysics at Cambridge University and member of the Royal Geographical Society, Dr. Jonathan Moo of Whitworth University (USA), co-author with Robert White of ‘Radical Hope in an Age of Despair: the Gospel and the Future of Life on Earth’, and Dr. Barry Wade of Jamaica, well-known local environmentalist and author of the book, ‘Ministry at the Margins’.
President of the Caribbean Graduate School of Theology, Dr. Las Newman, says the Graduate School is pleased to welcome this distinguished group of scholars and Christian environmental practitioners. The global ecological crisis, he says, is one of the most important issues of our time and the church has a very important role to play in creating and designing effective responses, including reshaping values and attitudes that impact upon this crisis.
He expressed the hope that the outcomes of the consultation will help policy-makers, ordinary citizens, and the church as a global institution to develop effective strategies for creation care as a means to greater environmental sustainability.
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