Milwaukee was ground zero for evangelical theologians and archaeologists earlier this month, and the theme of the meeting was Caring for Creation.
Religion scholars meet every November, at a different location every year.
The larger groups, such as the Society of Biblical Literature, the American Academy of Religion and the American Schools of Oriental Research, held their meetings in the Chicago area. The Evangelical Theological Society and the Near East Archaeological Society usually meet within a reasonable proximity, this year it was Milwaukee.
The last time I attended these meetings was almost 20 years ago, so I took advantage of the proximity. I dropped in for a day for the NEAS meetings, and heard updates on such famous archaeological sites as Khirbet Qumran (where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found), and Tel Gezer (which has been excavated by a half dozen different expeditions over the past century).
These are scholars reading academic papers, so the topics and presentations can vary from intriguing to unintelligible to the average layman. But there’s always a major theme to the meeting and this year the focus was: Caring for Creation. As ETS President-Elect Robert Yarbrough stated in the conference program, “Our theme this year is an occasion to bring Scripture and Christian thought to bear on problems and possible remedies relating to environmental issues.
Good Timing
The timing could not have been better for Madison resident Ed Brown, who directs a ministry called Care of Creation. He is focused on mobilizing the church in the U.S. and around the world towards a greater sensitivity to the incredible environment which God has created and in which we live.
Not only is ETS and its scholarly members giving more consideration to the topic, the globally focused Lausanne movement just finished a global consultation on Creation Care and the Gospel. It was held from October 29-November 2, 2012, in St. Ann, Jamaica, and led by Ed Brown, who serves as Lausanne’s Senior Associate for Creation Care. Fifty-seven men and women from 26 countries to consider how to give more attention to God’s creation, while at the same time Hurricane Sandy was forcing the residents of the Middle Atlantic coast to give attention in its own blunt way.
A report on the consultation and its call to action for evangelical churches are available online.
“This meeting could turn out to be one of the most important consultations of Christian leaders in our day,” Brown believes. “We are asking the global church to respond to an environmental crisis that must be resolved in our generation.”
The academics in Milwaukee may not have been quite as unified as the Lausanne group that met in Jamaica. But the fact that such a group devoted its annual meeting to this topic may indicate that the evangelical church in the U.S. is starting to shift its thinking on the topic of Creation Care.