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Event Details

Let there be life? – Christian Activism, Social Justice and the Future of the Earth

This conference was inspired by the 2010 annual theme for the World Student Christian Federation chosen by the General Assembly of “environmental justice and climate change.” This conference will bring together both faith and advocacy perspectives to train student leaders how to work in their communities to defend all forms of life.

In the WSCF, we often speak of being in “solidarity” with our fellow human beings in other parts of the world, when we hear of the violence, dehumanization, or natural disaster they have faced. This expression reflects the deep level of compassion we find central to the message of Christianity and the work of Christ, working for the liberation and dignity of all people. This conference will challenge us to express our solidarity with all living things.

This conference will explore, through speakers, workshops and small-group discussion, the struggles we face in our communities to preserve the environment, from the quality of the water we drink and air we breathe to the richness and diversity of species and their habitats.

In addition to the vulnerability of the whole world to the risks of climate change, capacity for adaptability is not evenly distributed within a society: as it is people on the economic margins in those societies that bear the greatest cost of climate change. Not only will less wealthy human communities, and particularly those in high risk areas, be especially vulnerable as a result of the impacts of future anthropogenic climate change but also the larger life community of the earth.These effects on the larger life community are yet other reasons that we can speak of the ecological crisis as a moral crisis.

With a holistic understanding of the ecological crisis, ecofeminist liberation theologian, Ivone Gebera, connects the suffering of people living in poverty with the suffering of the Earth community. In a similar fashion, the importance of the vision of the future that Arthur Walker-Jones has discerned as operative in the Psalms endorses that “social justice is interrelated with the well-being of Earth.”

In the spirit of liberation theologians who called to our attention the need for a preferential option for people living in poverty, in order to overcome social injustice, and given the current effects of the climate crisis, we might also now speak of the need for a preferential option for the earth made poorer by human abuse.

Towards that aim, this conference seeks to educate students of the spectre of global ecological crisis and of the intricate connections of climate change and poverty, which in turn helps the students to approach the ecological issues in a holistic manner. In addition, the conference also aims at inspiring and equipping students with tools that would be helpful in working on local ecological and social issues through their respective local Student Christian Movement units.

For more info, visit http://www.wscfna.org/ecojustice.html