AMBS recognized for focus on faith and ecology

March 8, 2016 | Web First
Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary
Elkhart, Indiana

The Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development has named Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS) as 12th in a list of 28 seminaries in North America that excel in offering courses on faith and ecology. The list is based on the number of courses that each school offers that focus primarily on environmental, ecological, creation-care or nature-based themes and their relation to faith teachings.

Based in Jerusalem, the Center seeks to promote an inter-religious vision for environmental sustainability by encouraging the cooperation and training of religious leaders, teachers and communities on ecological issues.

The list of schools is part of the Center’s December 2015 “Report on Faith and Ecology Courses in North American Seminaries,” which includes research on 252 North American educational institutions that train seminarians to be religious clergy—including Christian, Buddhist, Jewish and Muslim schools.

“Christian leaders need to understand how the dynamic forces of environmental degradation—caused by drought, war, pollution, unsustainable agricultural and industrial practices, and so on—create a perfect storm for social and political instability,” says Rebecca Slough, AMBS’s academic dean. “Communities of faith bearing witness to Christian hope, peacemaking and God’s reconciling mission will be ministering in the midst of these intersecting realities.”

The report specifically recognizes AMBS’s four faith-based environmental courses:

• In “Creation care: Theology, ethics and spirituality,” students engage in understanding their connection to God and creation through the intersection of place and spirituality, the theological context of creation care, the ethical and economic frameworks of eco-justice, and creation care practices in the church.

• “Eco-justice: A vision for a sustainable city,” offered through the Seminary Consortium for Urban Pastoral Education in Chicago, focusses on the question, “What does it mean to be a sustainable urban community?” Students evaluate the three components of sustainable community development: economics, environment and equity (or social justice).

• In “Thinking ethically,” students explore how Christians should respond to violence, healthcare, creation care, sexuality and systemic racism. Students examine approaches to moral life and decision-making that draw upon the resources of Christian faith and theology.

• “The spiritual practices: Water of life” seminar weaves together care for creation—specifically the resource of water—with study of biblical texts about water, reflection on the role of water in Christian faith, and practice of spiritual and conservation disciplines.

Offerings outside the classroom

The report also highlights “Rooted and Grounded: A Conference on Land and Christian Discipleship,” an event hosted by AMBS and co-sponsored by Blessed Earth’s Seminary Stewardship Alliance and the Institute for Ecological Regeneration of Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center. The conference has been held twice—in September 2014 and October 2015. AMBS has been a member of the Seminary Stewardship Alliance, a consortium of seminaries working at creation care education and issues since fall 2013.

The conference provides opportunities for pastors, theologians, farmers and other creation care advocates and practitioners to focus together on land and creation care, delving into the biblical text “to remember and imagine ways of living on the land that are restorative and reconciling.” It centres on the idea that people are becoming increasingly aware of “the intimate connection between the environmental crisis and humanity’s detachment from the land . . . [and] perceiving the profound link between the (un)health of the land and the inner disorder of our Western society.”

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