The Season of Creation is an annual celebration of prayer and action to care and protect Creation. The theme this year, “Web of Life: biodiversity as God’s blessings,” allows us to meditate on two essential components of creation: it comes from God and we play a part in it.
“God said, this is a sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations; I set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of a covenant between Me and the Earth” (Genesis 9:12-13).
The book of Genesis begins with God’s affirmation that all of creation is “very good’’ (Genesis 1:30). We are part of a complex, delicate and interdependent web of life which is valuable because it is created, sustained and redeemed by God.
Humanity is called to reflect on God’s image within the community of fellow creatures. In the New Testament, we learn that all things were created by Christ, giving particular value to each creature (Colossians 1:15-20). God’s ultimate purpose from creation to re-creation encompasses all that we call biodiversity.
The biblical witness is that the web of life – biodiversity, matters because human well-being depends on stable and thriving ecosystems and services: from clean water and food to oxygen, clothing and climate regulatory services, amongst other resources we use from nature. Biodiversity matters because God gives value to every creature that is created, yet today, human behaviour is destroying the fabric of God’s creation at an unprecedented rate.
Biodiversity matters because all of God’s creatures have value. The loss of biodiversity is an issue of justice because it is the poor and marginalized who directly depend on the health of ecosystems and are most severely affected by the collapse of the natural systems that sustain all life. Billions of people today face the loss of productive soils, clean water, forests, fish and coral reefs, and biodiversity loss is a major driver of human migration.
More information on Season of Creation 2019 is available here.
Blog by Arnold Ambundo, ACT Alliance, Climate Justice Project Coordinator.
