The external realities seem
to be overwhelming us because we no longer have an interior disposition to
deeply reflect, meditate, and contemplate over pertinent issues. The man seems
generally disturbed by the discipline of silence. The man has lost the sense of
wonder and surprise. For this reason, we need to stop everything we are now
doing and get off our computer, laptop, and cellphone for a good walk in the
woods, at the beach, take a refreshing break to feel the ground under our feet.
Pope Francis has written to
all of us a letter, Laudato Si’, “Care of Our common Home”. It must be said here that not all have read or even known
the contents of this letter. If that is not the case, we would not be talking
of ecological crisis today. Pope Francis is calling for our urgent attention
and time to enter it a mode of “ecological conversion” when he says: “The ecological conversion needed to bring
about lasting change is also a community conversion” (LS, 219).
Therefore it is not just
enough to analyze and describe the reality but there should be active and
creative participation in matters of dealing with the environment because it's
sustaining mother earth. If we only learned to treat well the mother earth,
this open space, this common home has also a great potential to revenge against
man in a very devastating way.
The clarion call for
individual and collective responsibility towards creation care and natural
because these God given resources belongs to all be shared, distributed and
used for the common good. This projects a sense of civility in this our common
home where traditions and values are the in-thing.
Pope
Francis has made a big impression on me as a great figure and personality by
his maverick ability to communicate effectively and efficiently as far as
interpreting the signs of the times that are prophetic and messianic, in
launching a new era in the church's life. A personality who breathes the
freshness of the Gospel message to the people's hearts, a Church called as a
people of God to go out of herself to the margins, to find the poorest of the
poor. A Pope with a passion yet determined to reform the curia.
Therefore,
there can never be any reform that bears fruit if it is not accompanied by the
interior renewal of individuals concerned and their total commitment to
serving. Laudato Si’ is a praise that
has to reawaken the hymn in us as Church today, the concept of harmony in the
sanctuary of environmental care and fraternal love.
The approach used in this
thesis is based on theological and Critical method that has a Missiological
paradigm shift that is critical, sensitive, interdisciplinary and transformative
in nature. One that has an open mind to the contemporary challenges of the
globe that refreshingly produces a determined spirit that is capable of seeking
new answers to the varied environment and theological crises. A method that
looks at everything as interconnected, proper system thinking that intermarries
mission theology with the doctrine of creation that has to culminate, in
eschatology where man lives with active hope for the future.
1. To explore into issues that
pertain to environmental care and man's vocation in this economy that sustains
his holistic existence, confronting issues as they ought to be addressed as far
as his dignity as persons are concerned.
2. To re-educate man in his responsibilities that God
ordained ab initio (Gen
1:28), to defend life from its conception to death, building bridges rather
than constructing walls between nations, preserving the garden of the world in
which God has set humanity.
3. To
awaken man’s conscience that he is living in a time of crisis and that he has
to see to it that he has to take radical steps to salvage the situation. The
change has to be now, if not now then very soon.
The thesis is divided into
three chapters: The first chapter deals with the care of Laudato
Si’: Care of Creation: whereby we shall delve into ecological
paradigmatic analysis of Pope Francis and creation, the ecological insights
into the history of ecological developments, the crisis and then the African
theologians and scholars in the analysis of a common home. In the second
chapter will treat the challenge that is affecting our common home as far as Degrading Our Common Home (The Kenyan Context) is concerned. The Kenya Government Natural Environmental
Policy, the state of the environment today in Kenya, policy implementations,
strategies and actions and the transformative approaches into ecumenical
encounters. The third chapter will launch us into the culture of
integral ecology, building on the laws of ecology, the human impact on ecology,
the concept of caring for one another and then factoring in the pedagogical
approach of ecological education and then the General
Conclusion.
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