Virginia Seminary's Mollegen Forum Explores Earth's Water Crisis, Urging a Theology of Water

Alexandria, VA (PRWEB) May 7, 2007 -- "To withhold or contaminate water; to be unconscious or deliberately unaware of brothers and sisters who lack water and all else that upholds their wellbeing and dignity, is to stand against the very One under whom this nation of ours has placed itself." Such were the words of the Rt. Rev. Frank T. Griswold, former presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church (1997-2006) at the April 26, 2007 Mollegen Forum on water, held at Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS). Entitled, "The Water of Life: the Earth's Water Crisis", the day-long forum featured acclaimed environmental author Fred Pearce ("When the Rivers Run Dry"), environmental attorney Martha Franks, the Rev. Canon Peter G. Kreitler, Episcopal priest and host of "Earth Talk" radio, and the Very Rev. Martha J. Horne, dean and president of Virginia Seminary.

"Water," said Griswold in his introductory remarks, "glorifies the Lord by being what God intended water to be, a sacrament -- an outward and visible sign of God's desire revealed in Christ to impart and sustain life... water not as a possession, a commodity, a source of economic advantage for some at the expense of others but a gift, an outpouring of divine love that reflects Christ's yearning for the wellbeing and full flourishing of the whole creation of which we, with our fragile humanity, are an intimate part."

In her talk, Martha Franks discussed her legal experience as a specialist in water law and its approach to the idea of property rights. "The heart of environmentalism," said Franks, "is the argument that natural resources cannot be separated into private parcels. In a purely secular context, the development of water law has forced people to face their interdependence, and to create a system in which all water users, including non-human water users, participate. From this secular direction, therefore, water shows our interconnectedness with creation in a literal, physical way that serves as a metaphor for the spiritual changes that we must make in response to our new relation to the earth."

"I believe that a theology of water holds a greater hope," Franks continued. "The change in vision that we need is like the theological shift between the old law and the new law, where instead of trying to define correct behavior, Christ, the source of living water, tells us that we must re-form our hearts to be in right relation to our neighbors. In the same way, we must abandon the effort to parse out exactly what our correct share of the world's resources should be. Rather, we should be asking, in a living way, what our role in the world's eco-system should be."

A noonday Eucharist was held in the Seminary Chapel where the Rev. Canon Peter Kreitler preached a stunning message of Christian awareness and responsibility as stewards of God's creation. "Woman and man, I have placed you in the garden to be guardians, to keep and serve. And you are watching as creation collapses. I have given you two hands, one for the book of scripture and the other for the book of nature, as your guidebooks along the pathway of life; I've lifted up prophets to hold mirrors to your face; I've lifted up a modern day prophet -- the voice of water -- Jacques Cousteau, who said at the Earth Summit in 1992, 'unless we do something radical today, we will be unable to do anything at all tomorrow.' Tomorrow is today. The earth is in our hands." A video of Canon Kreitler's sermon is available at www.vts.edu/alumni/.

British author Fred Pearce gave an afternoon discussion on "When the Rivers Run Dry", the title of his best-selling book. Attributing part of the world's water crisis to climate change, Pearce pointed out that the principle causes of the crisis are due to "huge demands on the world's rivers, taking [up to four times more water from them than we did a generation ago," and on irrigated farming which utilizes "two-thirds of all the water abstracted from our rivers and underground reserves" to produce "high-yield" super crops of rice and wheat. "If the world gets into growing biofuels to reduce our reliance on oil and cut greenhouse gas emissions, say by a quarter of its fuel" said Pearce, "that would effectively double our water demand for crops."

Pearce then outlined options to help address the water crisis such as becoming "better at catching the rain where it falls," finding ways to reduce enormous losses from water evaporation at reservoirs, an increased use of recycled urban waste water, and most importantly, developing "cheap and modern systems of drip irrigation" that could cut water demand up to 70-80 percent.

"It's not rocket science," urged Pierce. "We have somehow to ensure universal access, while encouraging both communal efforts a conservation, and price incentives to penalize misuse and encourage more efficient use."

Texts from the Mollegen Forum may be accessed by visiting www.vts.edu/news/news.

The Mollegen Forum was named after the Rev. Albert T. Mollegen, former New Testament and Ethics professor (1936-1974) at Virginia Seminary. A powerful and charismatic teacher, Mollegen was deeply committed to an ongoing conversation between the Church and the world, encouraging the intersection of theology with the social, political, and economic issues of the day.

Virginia Theological Seminary is the largest of the 11 accredited seminaries of the Episcopal Church and was founded in 1823. The school prepares men and women, representing more than 40 different dioceses and 9 different countries, for service in the Church, both as ordained and lay ministers, and offers a number of professional degree programs and diplomas.

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