Pulaski Heights United Methodist Church

Nov 2009 Call to Action

Pastoral Letter, adopted November 3, 2009 at Lake Junaluska, NC, USA.
God’s Renewed Creation: Call to Hope and Action
A Pastoral Letter from the Council of Bishops of The United Methodist Church

God’s creation is in crisis. We, the Bishops of The United Methodist Church, cannot remain silent while God’s people and God’s planet suffer. This beautiful natural world is a loving gift from God, the Creator of all things seen and unseen. God has entrusted its care to all of us, but we have turned our backs on God and on our responsibilities. Our neglect, selfishness, and pride have fostered:
• pandemic poverty and disease;
• environmental degradation, and
• the proliferation of weapons and violence.i
Despite these interconnected threats to life and hope, God’s creative work continues. Despite the ways we all contribute to these problems, God still invites each one of us to participate in the work of renewal. We must begin the work of renewing creation by being renewed in our own hearts and minds. We cannot help the world until we change our way of being in it.
We all feel saddened by the state of the world, overwhelmed by the scope of these problems, and anxious about the future, but God calls us and equips us to respond. No matter how bad things are, God’s creative work continues. Christ’s resurrection assures us that death and destruction do not have the last word. Paul taught that through Jesus Christ, God offers redemption to all of creation and reconciles all things, “whether on earth or in heaven.”(Col 1:20ii
Aware of God’s vision for creation, we no longer see a list of isolated problems affecting disconnected people, plants, and animals. Rather, we see one interconnected system that “groans in travail.”(Romans 8:22) The threats to peace, people, and planet earth are related to one another, and God’s vision encompasses complete well-being. We, your bishops, join with many global religious leaders to call for a comprehensive response to these interrelated issues. We urge all United Methodists and people of goodwill to offer themselves as instruments of God’s ) God’s Spirit is always and everywhere at work in the world fighting poverty, restoring health, renewing creation, and reconciling peoples.
1 The 2004 General Conference of The United Methodist Church called for the Council of Bishops to publish new documents and a study guide similar to the Council’s landmark call in 1986, In Defense of Creation: The Nuclear Crisis and a Just Peace. This is the Council’s response to the General Conference action (The Book of Resolutions of The United Methodist Church 2004: “Replace In Defense of Creation with new Document and Study Guide”).