Dr Anne Primavesi addressed the topic ‘Oneness and Cultivating Unity’ at Eco-Congregation Ireland’s inaugural conference.Describing ‘Oneness’ and ‘Cultivating Unity’ as the context and defining purpose of eco-congregations, she talked about the challenge of making “a living, wholehearted commitment to doing what is good and right within and for the One Community of Life on Earth; a community sustained by a unified system of planetary resources.”
She spoke about the essential role to be played by Christians exercising ‘koinoni’ – cultivating unity between all living creatures on the basis of God’s indiscriminate love for them. “For an eco-congregation, such cultivation is a defining, on-going activity that consciously unifies our individual relationships with God with those of all earthly lives nourished by planetary resources: regardless of species, race, creed or power,” she said. “That is the fundamental religious as well as scientific basis for our living peaceably.”
Dr Primavesi is Fellow of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Study of Religion, Birkbeck College, University of London. A systematic theologian focussing on ecology, her books include Cultivating Unity within the Biodiversity of God and Making God Laugh: Human Arrogance and Ecological Humility.The full text of her talk can be read here – Oneness and Cultivating Unity.