Goroka Declaration on Christians and the Environment
An inter-church commitment to care for the
environment in Papua New Guinea - undergirded by the
Evangelical Alliance of PNG
We Christian leaders who have met in Goroka
for a week (May 25-30, 2003) of consultation on the
theology of the environment declare that from now on we
are making a serious commitment to promoting care of the
environment in PNG through education, advocacy,
motivation and practical support. We will preach the
message in our churches and provide a variety of
relevant written materials.
As followers of
Jesus Christ, committed to the full authority of the
Scriptures, we confess we have not always taken an
active and positive role in the solution of our
ecological problems. We are aware that many environment
conservation initiatives are being undertaken by
individuals and organisations, both government and non
government, and we acknowledge and applaud these
efforts. We believe it is now time for the churches to
play their part more strongly than in the past, and
therefore we commit ourselves to acting strongly and
wisely to this end, giving full consideration to our
special cultural and physical context.
We declare that:
• Because we worship and honour the
Creator, we seek to cherish and care for the
creation. • Because we have been ignorant we have
failed in our stewardship of creation; therefore we
repent of the way we have allowed the destruction of the
Creator's work. • Because, in Christ, God has
healed our alienation from God and extended to us the
first fruits of the reconciliation of all things, we
commit ourselves to working in the power of the Holy
Spirit to share the Good News of Christ in word and
deed, to work for the reconciliation of all people in
Christ, and to extend Christ's healing to suffering
creation. • Because we are called to be stewards of
God's creation as commanded in Genesis 1:28 and 2:15, we
commit ourselves to action that is caring, informed and
constructive.
Many concerned people,
convinced that environmental problems are more spiritual
than technological, are exploring the world's ideologies
and religions in search of non-Christian spiritual
resources for the healing of the earth. As followers of
Jesus Christ, we believe that the Bible calls us to
respond in four ways:
• First, God calls us
to confess and repent of attitudes which devalue
creation, and which twist or ignore biblical revelation
to support our misuse of it. Forgetting that 'the earth
is the Lord's', we have often simply used creation and
forgotten our responsibility to care for it. •
Second, our actions and attitudes towards the earth need
to proceed from the centre of our faith, and be rooted
in the fullness of God's revelation in Christ and the
Scriptures. We resist both ideologies which would
presume the Gospel has nothing to do with the care of
non-human creation and also ideologies which would
reduce the Gospel to nothing more than the care of that
creation. • Third, we seek carefully to learn all
that the Bible tells us about the Creator, creation, and
the human task. In our life and words we declare that
full good news for all creation which is still waiting
'with eager longing for the revealing of the children of
God' (Rom. 8:19). • Fourth, we seek to understand
what creation reveals about God's divinity, sustaining
presence, and everlasting power, and what creation
teaches us of its God-given order and the principles by
which it works.
We believe that in Christ
there is hope, not only for men, women and children, but
also for the rest of creation which is suffering from
the consequences of human sin.
• Therefore we
call upon all Christians to reaffirm that all creation
is God's; that God created it good; and that God is
renewing it in Christ. • We encourage deeper
reflection on the substantial biblical and theological
teaching which speaks of God's work of redemption in
terms of the renewal and completion of God's purpose in
creation. • We seek a deeper reflection on the
wonders of God's creation and the principles by which
creation works. We also urge a careful consideration of
how our corporate and individual actions respect and
comply with God's ordinances for creation. • We
encourage Christians to incorporate the extravagant
creativity of God into their lives by increasing the
nurturing role of beauty and the arts in their personal,
ecclesiastical, and social patterns. • We urge
individual Christians and churches to be centres of
creation's care and renewal, both delighting in creation
as God's gift, and enjoying it as God's provision, in
ways which sustain and heal the damaged fabric of the
creation which God has entrusted to us. • We recall
Jesus' words that our lives do not consist in the
abundance of our possessions, and therefore we urge
followers of Jesus to resist the allure of wastefulness
and over-consumption by making personal lifestyle
choices that express humility, forbearance,
self-restraint and frugality. • We call on
Christians to work for godly, just, and sustainable
economies which reflect God's sovereign economy and
enable men, women and children to flourish along with
all the diversity of creation. We recognize that poverty
forces people to degrade creation in order to survive;
therefore we support the development of just, free
economies which empower the poor and create abundance
without diminishing creation's bounty. • We commit
ourselves to work for responsible public policies which
embody the principles of biblical stewardship of
creation. • We invite Christians - individuals,
congregations and organizations - to join with us in
this Christian declaration on the environment, becoming
a covenant people in an ever-widening circle of biblical
care for creation. • We call upon Christians to
listen to and work with all those who are concerned
about the healing of creation, with an eagerness both to
learn from them and also to share with them our
conviction that the God whom all people sense in
creation (Acts 17:27) is known fully only in the Word
made flesh in Christ the living God, who made and
sustains all things. • We make this declaration
knowing that until Christ returns to reconcile all
things, we are called to be faithful stewards of God's
good garden, our earthly home.
signed:
Belden Kepi, Research & Conservation
Foundation Pastor Boisen Asi , Christian Revival
Crusade Bishop Clarence Kapali, United Church
Highlands Region Bishop Denys Ririka , Anglican
Church of PNG Major Dinunu Nenewa, The Salvation
Army Pastor George Manman, Christian Outreach
Centre Pastor Gireva Gireva, Christian Life Centre
(Pinewood Ch.) Pastor Martin Wayne, Baptist Union
of PNG Pastor Mathew Tapus, Christian Apostolic
Fellowhip Captain Patrick Wascu, The Salvation
Army Pastor Simon Agateva, Open Bible Church Pastor
Simil Hondolwa, Tiliba (Good News) Christian Church Rev.
Siulangi Kavora, United Church Goroka Rev. Taiya
Zawia, St John's Lutheran Church, Gka Pastor Tamat
Irarue, Lihona Village Representative (CLC) Pastor
Wilson Reré, Foursquare Church David Kima, EAPNG,
General Secretary
30 May 2003 Link
here
to download the full text of
Christians Caring for the Environment, designed
for PNG church leaders and others. This is a 2.65MB
document.
Impacts of the programme
Link
here to read a July 2007 story about pastors
in Goroka organising cleanup campaigns throughout
their town - as a direct follow-on from the EAPNG
work.
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