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Hope Media: (translated from Italian) Sustainability and the environment in the spotlight at the Sae conference in Camaldoli, between ethics and spirituality.

Adventist News – One month after the closing of the Ecumenical Training Session of the Sae (Secretariat for Ecumenical Activities), the echoes of the presentations and the days spent together are still alive in the participants. The Monastery of Camaldoli (AR) hosted the sixtieth edition of this annual meeting from July 28 to August 3. Christians of various denominations (Adventists, Baptists, Catholics, Methodists, Orthodox, Pentecostals, Waldensians) participated together with some believers of other monotheistic and Eastern religions.

The panels

The theme “A land to inhabit and protect” was inspired by the biblical text: “The Lord God took the human being and put him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate it and protect it” (Genesis 2:15).

The panels, organized in these seven days of the SAE, have addressed the topic from different angles: “Creation between Scripture and theologies,” “Reading the crisis, between science and experiences,” “The Churches for the protection of creation,” “Sustainability between economy and ecology,” “Religions and Earth”, etc.

The intervention of the pastor Romano

The pastor Davide Romano, director of the Adventist Institute of Florence and of the Department of Public Affairs and Religious Freedom of the Adventist Union (UICCA), was one of the two speakers of the panel “Ecospirituality between beauty and cry.” In his presentation, entitled “Until when, O Lord? The cry of creatures, between dismay and hope,” he began with a premise on the nature and limits of that discourse that speaks of the otherness of God with respect to creation. He then stated: “We can speak of an ecospirituality because God’s dream is to live among his creatures. Incarnation is the model of identification with the earthly, with the human and with the creaturely.”

For Pastor Romano, it is not possible to renounce every form of anthropocentrism, but “we can and must be interpreters of a critical anthropocentrism, culturally aware of its own partiality. Human beings are not alone, and it is not good for them to believe they can save themselves alone. It is necessary to create and rediscover a grammar of solidarity among creatures, in a world in which sin puts creatures in competitive tension with each other.” Even in the face of the damage and wounds inflicted on creation by humanity, the pastor affirmed that not everything depends on us. Faith in the creator God is an antidote to all pessimism and idolatry. “Who said that God cannot intervene? In Psalm 104 and 93 it is stated that creation is taken care of by God. God is constantly engaged in protection, this does not serve as an excuse for not being active on the side of ecological commitment, but it offers me hope, it tells me that salvation is not only my dream, of the Churches, of the SAE, of the Greens, but it is the dream of God, and if we wait for new heavens and a new earth it is not because the current ones must go to rubble, but there is a transfiguration of God that recovers everything. I believe that this work and protection of creation is a mandate entrusted to us, but at the same time it is a mandate that we carry out in the awareness that intelligence, dedication and love for creation are not only our worry, but a precise commitment that God has assumed with his creation.”

Pastor Romano has the impression, at times, that behind an excessive call to save the world there is potentially another form of anthropocentrism.

“If you think that you, the creature, will save the world, you have disconnected your faith from a real centrality of God,” he emphasized. “The apocalyptic is the one who sees the ambiguity of created realities, he is the one who waits, prays and resists knowing that God is the one who was, who is, who comes and who returns. The apocalyptic knows that in this world there are struggles, powers; we are at the center of a conflict and this dimension cannot fail to also inform our utopian impulses that risk failing because they do not see the reality of the conflict. I believe that the commitment to a re-enchantment of the world, as it sometimes seems to be glimpsed in some ecotheologies, is an ambitious and legitimate project, but I remain lukewarm.” On the other hand, I do not even resign myself to the beauty of the dramatic.”

Groups, workshops, prayer

A significant activity in the Ecumenical Training Sessions of the SAE is the one that takes place in the study groups and workshops where, starting from the proposals of an inter-confessional triad that leads and moderates the meetings, the proposals are listened to, the comparison is made, the exchange of reflections is made and new practices are suggested.

In the 2024 edition, six study groups were established (Building sustainability; Environment, religions, cultures; Ecospirituality; Educating ourselves to be creatures; Justice, peace, safeguarding creation; Pastoral of creation) and a workshop (Bodies, that is, creatures). They worked in four sessions and at the end of the week they returned their experiences to the plenary through some key words: responsibility, nonviolence and ecology, trust and care, interdependence, thanksgiving.

A common thread that ran through the week were the contemplative moments expressed in prayers, ecumenical celebrations, confessional liturgies and meditations.

Conclusion

Participation in Session 2024 was defined as “multiple”, at the end of the meetings, due to the presence of Protestants of various denominations, Orthodox, Catholics and representatives of other religions, coming from most of the Italian regions. 16% of those present were under 35 years old. The collection collected during the celebrations was donated to Neve Shalom-Wahat al-Salaam, the oasis of peace inhabited by Israelis and Palestinians. The craft stall financed two scholarships for male and female students who will thus be able to participate in the next training of the Sae.

Various languages ​​were used to address the theme: theology, environmental sciences, economics, law, ethics, best practices. Different but converging views on the divine and the world met on the theme of care. In the assembly of participants, with many present who expressed specific observations, the conference was appreciated as “a moment of great culture and great knowledge among people, especially at the table”, “an occasion to meet among different people, which means richness, characterized by a living prayer.

Prophetic Link:
“But the question of Sabbath and Sunday observance is to be agitated everywhere, and the deceptions of Satan will flood the world. The man of sin has instituted a spurious sabbath, and the Protestant world has taken this child of the papacy and cradled and nurtured it. Satan means to make all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of the fornication of Babylon. Men are binding themselves together in bonds of union to show their disloyalty to the God of heaven. The first day of the week is to be exalted and presented to all for observance. Shall we be partakers of this cup of abomination? Shall we bow to the authorities of earth and despise God? The powers of darkness have been gathering their forces to bring this crisis about in the world, so that the man of sin may exalt himself above God.” Review and Herald, April 15, 1890.

Source References

• A land to inhabit and protect