Creation Care Expert to Speak

Evangelical environmental leader Calvin DeWitt says he will ask three critical questions when he speaks later this month at a conference on environmental issues at a community college in Grand Rapids, Mich.

DeWitt is co-founder of the Evangelical Environmental Network and chair of the Christian Reformed Church's Synodical Task Force on Creation Care.

In his address, "The Role of Faith in Fostering Earth Stewardship," DeWitt says he will ask: How does the world work? What ought it to be? And then what must we do?

All of these questions, he says, "need to be deliberately interlinked in order to address the overwhelming challenge of how rightly to live on earth."

He will speak at 7:30 pm onSept. 28 in Multi-Purpose Room 108 in Sneden Hall at Grand Rapids Community College. No tickets are necessary.

His lecture will especially focus on the problems that people living on the planet, as well as the Earth's biosphere itself, currently face. In the process, he will present a framework "for Earth Stewardship in developing our scientific and moral capacity to foster living sustainably on earth," he says. 

DeWitt, a professor in the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is also author of "Earthwise: A Guide to Hopeful Creation," the third edition of which has recently been published by Faith Alive Christian Resources, the publishing agency of the Christian Reformed Church.

DeWitt suggests in "Earth-wise" that people discover a joyful, positive attitude about working together for good in this world. Looking forward in hope, people can make changes and take positive, lasting action that is more in harmony with the way the world works and is meant to be.

The book also includes discussion questions that are useful for small groups and Bible studies; a mini-workshop session on putting creation care into practice; a final chapter of inspiring stories of stewardship at the levels of state government, university research, and local town government. There is also a self-led study called "A Short Course in Environmental Science.

Creation care is an issue about which DeWitt holds deep convictions. He has devoted much of his time and energy to researching, writing about, advocating for and teaching students on this topic.

Following his address, he will meet with members of the CRC's synodical task force studying creation care and stewardship of the earth's resources. They are working on a draft report to be submitted to Synod 2012. The final report is due the following year.

Task force members say that a key to the report will be linking creation care to passages in the Bible that address the issue.