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Water is essential to life. It is a gift of God. God wants all creation should receive the blessing of life-giving water. It is therefore a deeply religious and ethical issue and transgresses all standards of justice when people – and all of the created order – are denied water. Injustice is inflicted, not only against God’s creation, but against the creator. Therefore, a sound ethical andtheological understanding regarding water is essential. Faith communities should be integrally involved in caring for the natural environment, since environmental justice issues are core moral and ethical concerns and not just environmental, economic and social questions. We need to establish a sound theological base for our actions. We are dealing with questions of beliefs and values, which influence and direct our behaviour.
Basic Principles Christians Should Consider
(A) Recognize that we worship a Creator God
What are the very first words of the Bible? In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Often, churches concentrate on the salvation offered by Jesus, and neglect God the Father who is also Creator. To focus on the creation, a season of creation being observed from 1 September to the second Sunday in October, which includes the Feast of St Francis on 4 October.
(B) God is concerned about all of Creation, and not just us humans.
At the end of the creation story in Genesis (1:31) God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good. Not just us humans, but everything God had made was very good. When talking of water, we cannot separate it from the totality of the natural environment. Since everything God has created is good and of value, we Christians have made a great mistake in being anthropocentric – human centered – in our theology. We have believed that God is concerned only about us and our salvation, imagining that the rest of creation existed only for our benefit – for our exploitation. We do this at our peril because we cannot live without the rest of creation – we are dependent on it. Prof. Wangari Maathai, first African woman and environmentalist Nobel Peace Laureate, points out that we would not have survived, if God had created us before the sixth day.
Thomas Berry says we must see nature as a ‘subject’, being given respect and having a right to existence, just as we need respect, with a right to existence. Nature should not be treated as ‘object’, existing only to be exploited for human use. In John 3:16, we read God so loved the world – not humans only, but the world and all that is in it.
(C) God wants us to be the “earthkeepers”, to establish justice and equity
This is the foundation on which we build our church of love (Isaiah 5:7–10; Amos 5:10–15). Jeremiah reminds Israel that their shift of allegiance from true spirituality to secular profit motives results in God withdrawing the nation’s water by sending drought: Who gives autumn and spring rains in season, Who assures us of the regular weeks of harvest? Your wrongdoings have kept these away. (Jeremiah 5:20–28)
We have to realize that we must live in harmony with creation. There are universal laws, which involve the whole creation and which we need to follow. We humans often think that we can behave as we wish, without reference to God, God’s creation or God’s laws. The rest of creation has rights and all creation is valued by God and should therefore be valued by us.
Rather than seeing ourselves as stewards of Creation, we should be ‘earthkeepers’. But we have not been doing a good job! We think we know better than God. A fundamental mistake has arisen from our interpretation of Genesis 1:28:
God blessed them and said to them ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule [or: have dominion] over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’
Have we seen this as a license to exploit, use and abuse nature only for our benefit? Do we see we have an intrinsic responsibility to care for, look after, nurture and keep for the future that which God has brought into being? The key might be found in Genesis 2:15: The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. Other translations say To till and keep it. Remember what we read at the end of the creation story. Genesis 1:31: God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. Remember, too, Genesis 9:11: I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth. As we consider water, we must remember that it is an integral part of the natural environment and we must look after the totality of the natural environment if we are to have clean water and survive.
What are the implications of water scarcity and privatization with regard to
justice for the poor?
God calls for justice and equity. Jeremiah 5:20–28: This people has a stubborn and rebellious heart ... They know no limits in deeds of wickedness. Exodus 16:16–18: God fed the Israelites with as much as they needed. When talking of the poor, does that include the voiceless and powerless and does that include all of creation, which does not have a vote and cannot speak out for itself? Some would argue that creation is now beginning to make itself heard or felt, with climate change causing storms and droughts of increased severity.
Sean McDonagh in his book Dying for Water writes: ‘The challenges of the contemporary world call Christians to serve not just the poor or those exploited or oppressed and have no voice. It also calls us to protect this fragile, water planet – earth.’
We must guard against the domination of commercial interests – serving mammon instead of God! The inequalities of today’s world, where the rich have more than they need while more than two billion people are in poverty and without clean water or sanitation, denies God’s purpose. It is an affront to God. Aristotle said there were two economic systems: the ‘need’ system and the ‘greed’ system. He said it would be disastrous if we followed the greed system. What has the world followed? There are essentials that God provides for his creation that cannot be subject to commercial domination. Water is one.
A fraction of what the nations of the world spend on armaments would help to overcome environmental destruction and meet the Millennium Development Goals, including the goal concerning water. We are paying the price of our disobedience to God. God tells us to establish justice, not to rely on our armies.
No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength. But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him. (Psalm 33:16–19)
Thoughts for Reflection
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There is tension between the environment and the need for human development, but we have to realize that our well-being is integrally linked with the well-being of the environment
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Read the Bible with “green spectacles”! You will find it is full of the wonders of creation. Consider the following passages among many: Genesis 1:2, 9–10, Genesis 2:6, Ezekiel 47:1–12, John 4:10, 13, 14, Revelation 21:1–4, 22:1–2 :
3. Can we see this not only in terms of the ecumenical movement, but interfaith? all, we all, whatever faith, breathe the same air and drink of the same water.
Questions for Discussion
After
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What can we do to be good “earthkeepers”?
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How can we treat water as a valuable commodity without a price on it?
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Should there be legal rights for ‘a healthy environment’ (e.g., South African
Constitution) and should there be legal rights for the natural environment?
Ideas for Action
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As a community, explore what can we do about waste disposal and water pollution?
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As a community, explore what can we do to harvest water and stop soil erosion?
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Let us work together with the other faiths in our communities to address the water
crisis, because we are all threatened by it.
* Bishop Geoff Davies is the Executive Director of Southern African Faith Communities’ Environmental Institute, South Africa (http://safcei.org) . He had presented this theological reflection in one of the Consultations of EWN in Africa.
