What Every Seminarian Should Learn
about Caring for Creation

David Rhoads, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago

1. Scriptural, theological, historical, and spiritual foundations for Earth-care.

2. How faith communities can incorporate Earth-care into their identity and mission — worship, education, property, home and work, public ministry.

3. How faith communities can be places of moral deliberation on justice and ecology.

4. Personal lifestyle changes necessary to minimize our human impact on the earth.

5. Local ethical issues related to the environment and a global ethic.

6. The systemic changes needed to create a sustainable world (laws, policies, protocols, treaties, and how to advocate for them).

7. The ecological state of the world and a vision of sustainability.

8. The human justice issues related to ecological degradation.

9. How to work though fear, guilt, grief, and anger so as to offer ecological leadership with joy and grace.

10. How to cultivate reverence for the natural world as a basis for our actions. We will not save what we do not love