BWA General Council Resolution 1992.3

The General Council of the Baptist World Alliance, meeting in Montego Bay, Jamaica, July 4-12, 1992:

BELIEVES that Baptists need to take seriously the implications of God’s creation of our world and the stewardship given to humankind within that creation;

ASSERTS that human sinfulness has developed an exploitative ethic which puts the sustaining of that creation in jeopardy evident in the ecological crises facing the world today;

RECOGNIZES that evidence for such a crisis is to be found, for example, in:

• the rapid deforestation of the earth’s surface,

• the accumulation of radio-active waste,

• the over-exploitation of fisheries, the degradation of marine eco-systems and the pollution of the seas,

• the contamination of soils through the undisciplined use of pesticides,

• the impact of hazardous emissions into the atmosphere leading to a depletion of the ozone layer, in turn hastening the impact of the “greenhouse effect.”

NOTES the increasing consciousness of these problems reflected in the meeting of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro earlier this year;

BELIEVES that while such an occasion was useful in highlighting concern about these issues, the commitments of governments in both the developed and developing world to remedial action are as yet inadequate; and,

CALLS UPON the Baptist community worldwide, both to continue to press upon governments the need for action in defense of tomorrow’s world and ourselves to adopt responsible patterns of consumption and behavior which do not jeopardize the future of the created order.

Citations

Original Source Bibliography: Lotz, Denton, editor. Baptist World Alliance 1992-1993 Yearbook: Minutes of the General Council Meeting and Directory. McLean, VA: Baptist World Alliance, 1992.

Original Source Footnote/Endnote: Denton Lotz, ed., Baptist World Alliance 1992-1993 Yearbook: Minutes of the General Council Meeting and Directory (McLean, VA: Baptist World Alliance, 1992), p. 172.

Online Document Full Citation: BWA General Council Resolution 1992.3 Stewardship of the Earth; https://baptistworld.org/resolutions.

In-text Online Document Citation: (BWA General Council Resolution 1992.3).