Jo Swinney is a writer, speaker and editor. She joined A Rocha International as Head of Communications on June 1st, 2020.
COVID-19 has stopped us in our tracks. It is as though the whole globe has been put on a time out. We could fill the unnerving silence with bread-baking, Zoom meetings and Netflix bingeing. Or we could take this rare opportunity to reflect, reconsider and reboot.
When I read modern history at University in the 1980s, India’s ‘Green Revolution’ was held up as an example of progress: how technology can save and feed us all. Today things look rather different. There were heavy costs: social, economic, environmental. Can we feed the world without destroying communities, cultures and creation? What, if anything, does the Bible have to say about soil, farming and land-use? Rather a lot, it turns out!
I hope to begin a discussion about how we talk about… for now let’s call it ‘caring for creation’. ‘Stewardship’ isn’t a biblical word, and although ‘creation care’ is now generally accepted, like all terms, it has its limitations. Could we start a debate about how we can best describe our task and be intentional about our language?
Today’s environmental problems are so complex they often seen intractable. To tackle them, we need not only politics and economics, science and technology. We also need great wisdom to move towards a more sustainable and just world. But where can we find it?
