Professor Alistair Macintosh spoke to the 8th ECEN Assembly about the reality and dangers of human-induced climate change. Of the 100 most recent scientific papers all confirm the trajectory of Global warming. Scientists now generally agree without urgent action we are on track for a 3 degree rise by 2080. Macintosh argued we have been colonized by the powers that drive climate change. Modern marketing drives consumption in excess of what is needed for dignified living. Macintosh took hold of the insights of Walter Wink – we must name, unmask and engage the Powers. We have to see the interiority of the present outer structures. So we have to engage…
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ECEN at IBTS
IBTS is playing host to the European Christian Environmental Network (ECEN) this week as they hold their 8th Assembly. ECEN is a network which IBTS has been involved in for several years. Now it is our delight to welcome people here. There are about 75 delegates from most parts of Europe. Reflecting on the theme “Our Daily Bread: Living in a Time of Climate Change,” the Assembly has opted for a vegetarian diet – itself an unusual feature in central Europe, where meat is the main part of any diet and cooked vegetables, certainly, are an after thought. (In fact, when you go to a restaurant in Prague, you may…
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The True Challenge of Climate Change
This is the theme of the 7th Assembly of the European Christian Environmental Network (ECEN), currently taking place in a lovely Villa Sacro Cuore near Milano. I’m taking part as a representative of IBTS. There are nearly 100 participants from different churches and organisations in Europe, though most of them are from the ‘West’. Thus for me the most pressing part of the challenge of our theology of creation care remains this: how our talk about ecological theology can, and should, be rendered in the language meaningful to an Eastern European believer. I’m thinking particularly of some of our students, coming from Central Asia, who are glad to have 12…