Network of Earthkeeping Christian Communities in South Africa
NECCSA Update: December 2007
A monthly newsletter on Church and Environment in South Africa
1. "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son" John 3:16
Christmas is a yearly celebration that is integral to our lives, our culture, our society. It also resonates with our very being – our inner being – our beliefs, our spirits, our yearnings. It is an excellent reminder: of the importance of our families and the joy we experience in reunions. It is a reminder of God's great love for us, in the sending of his Son. Up till now we have – and by we I mean the Christian church – looked on God's salvation as referring to, and involving, humanity. We have been entirely "anthropocentric" in other terminology. But in John 3:16 we hear: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son" It does not say that God loved us people only, but the whole world.
In Psalm 98 it says::"Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; ….. let the sea roar and all that fills it; the world and those who live in it. Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills sing together for joy."
Two things are happening – we are discovering that Christianity is in fact talking about the whole of creation and God's salvation is for all that God has brought into being – not just us human beings. The second point is that as we are discovering or realizing this, we are at the same time destroying God's creation at an increasingly alarming rate. Jesus Christ, I believe, came to "Save the World" quite literally. We Christians have a daunting, awe inspiring and challenging task. But we know that God's favour will be upon us as we seek to do His will.
(Extracts from an advent sermon of Bishop Geoff Davies)
2. A Green Christmas
Western Cape
environmental columnist Elma Pollard is challenging us to have a Green
Christmas this year. Instead of increasing our carbon footprint by using
Christmas wrap and extra kilowatts to light up Christmas lights, she lists the
following Green Christmas ideas. Elma Pollard is a writing and life coach with
a passion for the earth. Her website is
www.greencoach.
Make it your gift to the earth this year to abandon your throwaway attitude.
Buy or make durable gifts, without disposable parts or batteries. Rechargeable batteries plus battery charger is preferable, but best is mains-operated devices.
Give a gift that can be experienced – a theatre ticket, a homemade dinner, a course of some kind.
Gift your time – share your skills – a driving, sewing, cooking, gardening or computer lesson.
Give vegetable or herb seeds or plants or fruit trees, or bird seeds.
Give books you've already read. Sitting on your shelf it simply hogs resources and gathers dust.
Gift vouchers for organic products … a hamper of organic foods from the Green Christmas Market (see below) or a box from the Ethical Co-op.
The best gifts don't need wrapping – holiday memories, time spent with family and friends.
Purchase recycled products – great treasures lurk at the charity shops and car-boot sales.
Ensure your gifts contain recycled content. Supporting markets for recycled products is as essential as recycling your waste. Look out for recycled glass tableware, stationery, photo frames.
Replace all your traditional incandescent Christmas lights with LED strings instead. It cuts the power required by 90%. Although they are more expensive to buy, they repay themselves in cost savings within 2 years. How much pollution is a string of lights worth?
Recycle as much as you can. Call your waste department to find out where you can drop your recyclables. See that everything is clean and flattened, apart from glass. Tell your neighbours when you are dropping waste, so you can take theirs too. Deliver en route to shopping to avoid extra driving.
Minimise the amount of packaging that you buy. You CAN get your fruit and vegetables loose, especially if you shop organically. Refuse excess packaging.
Buy food and drink packaged in materials that can be recycled in our area and buy bulk and concentrates to save on waste.
Avoid disposable plates, cups, serviettes, nappies and shopping bags.
Make or find recycled gift wrap. Tie with a string and avoid sticky tape, so the paper can be used again. Wrap presents in posters, decorated grocery store bags or pages from glossy magazines. Let the kids make gift bags from cereal boxes.
A cloth, serviette or scarf makes great re-usable gift wrap, or becomes part of the gift. Tie with raffia and re-use that too.
If you get new clothes, donate your old clothes to a charity or someone who can use it. In fact this is a good time to spring clean the kids' rooms and donate all unwanted toys to needy children as gifts.
Avoid over catering and throwing away food – donate left-overs to those in need, give to your animals or feed your compost heap.
Buy local, fair-trade and organic foods, cosmetics, cleaning products.
Make home-made gifts of organic jam, rusks, breads, biscuits, sweets, soaps, cosmetics.
Consider going paper-free with Christmas cards this year. Direct your friends to a family blog or email an electronic card. Recycle all the cards you receive.
Attach a `no junk mail' notice to your mailbox and step out of a system that wastes millions of trees per year.
Use a live, potted tree over each year, or do the African thing with a dry branch and local seeds, shells and creatures.
Sharing what you have with under-resourced folk feels to me much more in line with the Christmas spirit than taking more from the earth to give to our over-resourced friends. Maybe this is the perfect time to bring back some balance.
3. The Greening of the World's Religions
A new scholarly field of religion and ecology is said to be emerging, with implications for environmental policy as well as for understanding the complexity and variety of human attitudes toward nature.
Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, founders of the Forum on Religion and Ecology who teach religion and ecology at Yale University and are editors of the Harvard book series on World Religions and Ecology, have written a journal article on this subject entitled: The Greening of the World's Religions.For more information on the Forum on Religion and
Ecology go to http://www.religion
4. Call to Prayer: United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, 3-14 December
The Conference, hosted by the Government of Indonesia, brings together representatives of over 180 countries together with observers from intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, and the media. The two week period includes the sessions of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, its subsidiary bodies as well as the Meeting of the Parties of the Kyoto Protocol. A ministerial segment in the second week will conclude the Conference.
What is needed is a breakthrough in the form of a roadmap for a future international agreement on enhanced global action to fight climate change in the period after 2012, the year the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires. The main goal of the Bali Conference is threefold: to launch negotiations on a climate change deal for the post-2012 period, to set the agenda for these negotiations and to reach agreement on when these negotiations will have to be concluded.
For more information on the event go to
http://www.unfcc.
Notes:
You are welcome to distribute this
NECCSA Update electronically to any other interested person. You are also
welcome to send news to be included in the next NECCSA update to
econradie@uwc.
NECCSA's website address is
www.neccsa.org.
NECCSA's banking details are: First National Bank, Musgrave Rd Branch, Branch code: 221126, Cheque account number: 62035719064.
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Distributed by EM Conradie 4/12/2007