Welcome to NCCI

Concept note

Ecumenical Institute of Youth on Ecological Concerns

a joint Program of

Commission on Youth-National Council of Churches in India

The National Organization of the New Apostolic Church

8 - 12 September 2010 Shantigiri Ashram-Alwaye, Kerala

Nature, in its original, un-tampered state, is perhaps the most impressive masterpiece of the Creator. It is noted not only for its amazing immensity, awe-inspiring majesty, captivating beauty and breath-taking variety, it was also remarkable as a self-sustaining, self-maintaining, self-repairing, balances and harmonious system. Many primitive peoples in practically all civilizations surrendered to this nature in worship, there were not giving vent to any irrational streak, rather were recognizing their insignificance before this awesome grandeur and might. But today unfortunately we are witnessing a deformed and distorted sight of Mother Nature, due to the centuries of misuse, abuse, exploitation fuelled by crass ignorance, gross insensitivity and deep selfishness of humans. Now we have a growing awareness that we are facing an ecological crisis. In the world history never has been so much talked about the problems of environment as that of our own times. Samuel Ryan puts it aptly as, “The earth system is being polluted and destroyed through wasteful, profligate, and predatory practices by modern profit-oriented scientific-technological culture, be it industrial, agricultural, or communicational. The Earth’s standing meaning and history as the Home of Life are under threat of death”.

It is said that disasters are natural, but our recent experiences reveals that most of the disasters are human-made. Irresponsible mining of minerals and stones, destroying the existing trees, water sources, and streams are examples of human atrocities on environment. Landslides have become common causing damage to life, livelihood and properties of human beings. Deforestation causes drought, flood, and soil erosion. Floods create breaches on river embankments forcing & flow into the agricultural land, damaging agricultural activities for some years. Destruction of mangrove forest on the coast fails to protect people from disasters like cyclone or tsunami. The cement industry, atomic reactors, thermal power plants, sponge iron and other industries, their waste materials and urban sewerage including garbage pollutes the ground water and the air, causing a number of health hazards. Genetic engineering and bio-technology is another exploitative activity geared to manipulate the entire life process of plants and animals. This is another disaster on natural environment, caused by ignoring and violating all the ethical norms of life on earth. Nature is now commoditized into real estate, mineral, property and resource. Today everyone in the modern world nature does not evoke awe and sacredness, but has value only if it can be exploited for quick profit.

Humans have been evolved from the earth and the earth is therefore our primary mother in Indian traditions. In the design of evolution nothing has been stated that there is a hierarchy in the universe. This places a serious responsibility on the human to be true to the consciousness that is given him. Enhancing the journey of the universe means that we move away from a linear and mechanical understanding of progress and market fundamentalism, and the false values of consumerism that tell us that one is human only in the measure that one can buy, sell and accumulate. By polluting and violating the biosphere the human is going against the unfolding of the universe and this violation is not only against humans but it is also against the non-humans.

What might seem like a straightforward response to climate change is adapting to it. As the IPCC notes in its assessment, ‘Societies and economies have been making adaptations to climate for centuries’. There are plenty of sensible steps that vulnerable nations and regions could take right now to reduce their risk of climate-change trauma. Just as energy efficiency makes sense for other reasons than climate protection, many forms of adaptation-such as moving inwards from coastlines-will help keep people and their property safer regardless of the extend of global warming. Yet there’s a tension between adaptation and mitigation: to some, the former implies a disregard of the latter, as if society were giving up on trying reducing greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions. ‘There is one way directly address climate change, and that’s reducing the GHG emissions that drive it’, writes David Roberts in the online magazine Grist. Others argue that the problem is so vast that neither adaptation nor mitigation alone can work – we need both i.e. adaptation and mitigation.

According to many theologians and social scientists points out that, Christian mis-interpretations of scripture bear a huge guilt of ecological degradation, because the Christianity not only interpreted a dualism of man and nature but also insisted that God’s will is to exploit nature for his personal necessities by humans.However this is due to the misconceptions, we have good examples in Christianity which speaks about eco-concerns, the sacraments and the liturgies have immense ecological significance, for example the liturgy of Palm Sunday; the prayers offered are not just for human beings bit for the whole creation.One may argue that the origin of the present global crisis does not stem from inherent human weaknesses or human evil. It is not that population growth or utilization of resources are creating ecological problems, rather it is unfriendly environmental life style by which we live is the danger to the nature. The wealthy nations and poor are both guilty of this offense, because the wealthy consume and waste much on the other hand poor are pre-occupied with their immediate survival than long term care of the planet.

The Christian vocation is not otherworldly but closely related to this habitat, to this world, because as St. John says, this is the world that, “God so loved this world, that he gave his only Son” (Jn. 3:16). The Christian vocation consists, contrary to the popular conception, not of perceiving the world merely as a temporary stop on the journey to heaven, but as a ‘living space’ (Gen. 1:1-25) to live one’s commitment, to protect the integrity of creation and to change the situations that threaten life, the gift of God (Gen. 2:7). Therefore ecology and ecological concerns are significant dimensions of Christian Vocation and commitment. Developed as well as developing nations are being geared up to prevent an impending environmental disaster by programmes of action, ranging from mere planting of saplings to political, social, religious, economic actions. Churches and Ecumenical movements are now started thinking about methods of environmental conservation. It is a great challenge for humanity to re-formulate their religious, spiritual and secular values so that they transform their consciousness and bringing about systemic changes. Therefore Jonathon Porritt, Director of Friends of Earth, writes that conservation of ecology or green ideas have moved decisively from the fringes of society and talks of few intellectuals to the mainstream, so that now there is really no area of social or political concern that hasn’t touched in one way or other the ecological concerns.

To save life on the planet is by enormous effort of re-visioning. Only new visions can help cast out the failed ones. We have to move from life-denying visions to life-affirming ones. However difficult it may appear we need to create varieties of non-exploitative consciousness that pull in the same direction as our efforts to stave off climate change. Our efforts must move in the direction of creating living values and spiritual insights to care for each other and the earth. It is in this light Ecumenical Institute of Youth for Ecological Concerns has been planned, to create awareness particularly among the young people to come together and think about some creative possibilities to protect mother Earth from deep crisis. The aim is to enable and instill in youth the age old and time-tested values and methods of environmental conservation, through various interactions and availing various resources coupled with input sessions. Our aim is to think about the possible alternatives against the contemporary trends of consumerist and greedy culture.

Discussions

What are the practical implications of the call of youth towards the ecological conservation in Churches & Ecumenical Movements?
What are the processes that as young people can bring Creation – Humanity reconciliation in the present context?
What contributions can Youth/Students make towards the mission of climate justice?
In what ways can the eco-theology and climate justice further aid the practice of ecological concerns?
How does a renewed focus of youth on eco-sensitivity transform humankind’s relation with creation?
What changes does climate justice suggest to existing paradigms of eco-mission? In particular what does it mean for the understanding of adaptation and mitigation?
How can the importance of Biblical passages, Contributions of Ecumenical Movements and Contributions of Churches in climate justice be effectively communicated to pessimistic and ignorant youth?
How can we mobilize resources and develop appropriate ways to equip youth of local Churches/Congregations/Organizations/Educational Institutes to formulate and teach in leading eco friendly life styles?

Objectives

To contribute in the facilitation of local, national and global ecumenical networking among young people for environmental issues and concerns
To cross fertilization and facilitation of intra church, inter-denominational, inter-cultural and inter-religious interaction of young people for teaming up for climate change programs
To challenge and transform attitudes and structures to focus and take immediate steps for nature conservation
To conceptualize a eco-theology and eco-friendly culture from the experience and perspectives of young people