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Calvin B. DeWitt

Evangelical Contributions to Earth Stewardship: Laudato Si’--- & Stewardship as Con- Servicce --- Earth Stewardship as Con-Service.

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Calvin B. DeWitt

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  1. Evangelical Contributions to Earth Stewardship: Laudato Si’--- & Stewardship as Con-Servicce ---Earth Stewardship as Con-Service Ecologists and Faith & Justice Communities:A Journey from Antagonism to Earth Stewardship Partnerships for the Next Century August 12, 2015 y Calvin B. DeWitt

  2. My University of Wisconsin Assignment: To Address the Problem of the Fragmentationof the Disciplines

  3. The Long-StandingStewardship Tradition • Emerged in Antiquity • Ancients recognized the ordered cosmos and responded by working to sustain habitability • Developed in Classical Thought • e. g. Roman period: Varro, Columella &Pliny • Expressed by Early Church Fathers

  4. The Long-StandingStewardship Tradition • Flickered & extinguished in the industrial revolution… • Re-emerging in recent decades • in faith, civic, & scientific communities • Re-kindled on June 18, 2015 Laudato Si’ from Pope Francis

  5. Posted by the Ecological Society of America from its Past-President, President, and President Elect -- Jill Baron, David Inouye, and Monical Turner

  6. ESA Past-President, President, and President Elect:Jill Baron, David Inouye, and Monica Turner • “The Ecological Society of America commends Pope Francis for his insightful encyclical on the environment. Addressed to everyone on this planet, the letter issued on 18 June 2015 is an eloquent plea for responsible Earth stewardship. • “We hope his leadership will lead to serious dialogue among – and action by –the world’s religious, political and scientific leaders on the environmental challenges facing this and future generations of humanity.” -- -June 29, 2015 ---

  7. Timmermanssays the Christian Reformed Church affirms that the gospel must always be both proclaimed in word and demonstrated in deed, and thata central component of this task includes taking seriously God’s command in Genesis 2:15to serve and to protect the rest of the created order and to exercise responsible stewardship

  8. The Stewardship Commission • Genesis 2:15 gives the Stewardship Commission to avad the Garden and to shamar it. avadshamar Choose ye this day whom you shall avad… (Joshua 24:15) (Numbers 6:24): The Lord bless you and shamar you… 0

  9. The Stewardship CommissionGenesis 2:15…to avad and shamar from garden to globe: • “This implies a relationship of mutual responsibility between human beings & nature.” • “Each community can take from the bounty of the earth whatever it needs for subsistence, • but it also has the duty to protect the earth & to ensure its fruitfulness for coming generations.” ---Laudato Si’ – Pope Francis

  10. The Con-Service Principle (“mutual responsibility between human beings & nature”) Con-Service We must return creation’s service to us with service of our own. ‘avadGenesis 2:15

  11. The Earthkeeping Principle • Earthkeeping. • As the Lord keeps and sustains us • so we must keep and sustain • (safeguard) • the creation. • shamar • Genesis 2:15

  12. Stewardship shapes and reshapes human behavior in the direction of maintaining individual, community, and biospheric sustainability. • Stewardship is practiced in behalf of • future generations, • the biosphere and its component systems, • the processes and persons that sustain the biosphere • [for “people of faith”] in behalf of their Creator

  13. Context for Stewardship in Our Day • Our civilization is emerging from some two centuries of neglect of the stewardship tradition. • This long lapse means that we cannot simply pick up the tradition where we left it at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. • Instead we need to size up where we are in the stream of time and identify the major happenings in our world to help inform and shape our understanding and substance of dynamic stewardship for our time. • Among the most significant developments during these past two hundred years have been those of • (A) understanding the biosphere and its climate system • (B) understanding human impacts on the earth, and • (C) understanding of worldwide transitions in human communities.

  14. Vocation as “Integral Ecology” Requires that we now hear “both the cry of the earth & & the cry of the poor.” ---Laudato Si’ - Pope Francis

  15. For the 2.5 billion people around the world whose livelihood is in farming--- stewardship of land held in trust over the generations largely remains the cultural and ethical norm. ---DeWitt, Unsustainable Agriculture & Land Use, and ”Food is Gold” New York Times, 2008.

  16. William Blake - “Biospheric Economy” ….I view, wheel without wheel, with cogs tyrannic Moving by compulsion each other, not as those in Eden, which, Wheel within wheel, in freedom revolve in harmony & peace.

  17. Earth Stewardship: Science for Action to Sustain the Human-Earth SystemF. Stuart Chapin, III, Mary E. Power, Steward T. A. Pickett, Amy Freitag, Julie A. Reynolds, Robert B. Jackson, David M. Lodge, Clifford Duke, Scott L. Collins, Alison G. Power, and Ann Bartuska –--Ecosphere 2011 • As Earth Stewardship advances, • it should broaden the scope of ecology & integrate it with other sources of knowledge & understanding • to stimulate new interactions & collaborations that add to basic research & better guide the actions needed to shape a sustainable future.

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