Environmental Justice and Ecumenism: The Lacuna in African Christianity

Abstract

The shape of African Christianity is overly concerned with an otherworldly focus that fails to consider the environmental concerns of Christian theology. Environmental theology seeks to understand that creation, as God’s world, is crucial to Christian stewardship. A triumphalist gospel ignores the Indigenous understanding of the environment and how spirituality should be integrated in our daily lives. The contemporary and ecumenical necessity of environmental theology for the 21st century is similar to the task of liberation theology in the contemporary context of multiculturalism of the 20th century. Borrowing from various Christian traditions and Indigenous cultures, this paper will pursue an ecumenical focus to call the African church and academy to environmental justice by offering practical suggestions.