Annual Conference News & Updates

UMC Statements & Positions on Creation Care and Justice

Photo credit: https://www.umcjustice.org/what-we-care-about/environmental-justice/climate-justice

  • The United Methodist Council of Bishops’ 2009 God’s Renewed Creation: Call to Hope and Action
  • The Social Principles of The United Methodist Church (2017-2020)
    • “The Social Principles express The United Methodist Church’s official positions on societal issues, casting a vision for a just and equitable world…At their best, the Social Principles articulate our ethical aspirations for the common good in our public policies and personal commitments. Through them, we seek to love God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength and to desire for our neighbors what we desire for ourselves.”  
    • The Natural World
      • “All creation is the Lord’s, and we are responsible for the ways in which we use and abuse it. Water, air, soil, minerals, energy resources, plants, animal life, and space are to be valued and conserved because they are God’s creation and not solely because they are useful to human beings…”  
      • https://www.umc.org/en/content/social-principles-the-natural-world
  • The United Methodist Book of Resolutions
    • Resolution #1033 Caring for Creation: A Call to Stewardship and Justice
    • Resolution #1035 Climate Change and the Church’s Response
      • “The image of God in us (Genesis 2:7) is reflected in our abilities, responsibilities, and integrity, and with the power of the Holy Spirit we are called as God’s coworkers in dialogue and covenant to live and serve for the good of creation. We confess that we have turned our backs on our responsibilities in neglect, selfishness, and pride…One manifestation of our neglect, selfishness, and pride is our sinful disregard for creation that has given rise to the injustice of climate change…”
      • https://www.umcjustice.org/who-we-are/social-principles-and-resolutions/climate-change-and-the-church-s-response-1035
    • Resolution #1025 Environmental Racism in the US
    • Resolution #1029 Protection of Water
    • Resolution #4051 The United Methodist Church, Food, Justice, and World Hunger
      • “The Bible reveals that, from the earliest times, God’s faithful community has been concerned about hunger and poverty. Helping those in need was not simply a matter of charity, but of responsibility, righteousness, and justice…In faithfulness to our understanding of God’s good intentions for all peoples, we, as members of The United Methodist Church, set for ourselves, our congregations, institutions, and agencies no lesser goals than repentance for the existence of human hunger and increased commitment to end world hunger and poverty…”
      • https://www.umcjustice.org/who-we-are/social-principles-and-resolutions/the-united-methodist-church-food-justice-and-world-hunger-4051
    • Resolution #3361 World’s Population and the Church’s Response
      • “Our Scriptures contain both continuous and time-limited commandments…God’s commandment to the newly created man and woman, ‘Be fertile and multiply; and fill the earth…’ (Genesis 1:28) is a time-limited commandment that ends when it has been fulfilled. For the first time in human history, humanity is faced with the challenge of determining if the commandment has been fulfilled, and if it has, whether human fruitfulness and multiplication is no longer mandated in the same way…A review of today’s major problems, such as hunger, poverty, disease, lack of potable water, denial of human rights, economic and environmental exploitation, over-consumption, technologies that are inadequate or inappropriate, and rapid depletion of resources, suggests that all are affected by continuing growth of population…”
      • https://www.umcjustice.org/who-we-are/social-principles-and-resolutions/world-s-population-and-the-church-s-response-3361
    • Resolution #1034 Environmental Health
      • “God gave us a good and complete earth. We must care for that which is around us in order that life can flourish. We are meant to live in a way that acknowledges the interdependence of human beings not just on one another but the world around us…Since the onset of industrialization and globalization, we’ve lost our sense of interdependence with the natural world…Since Wesley’s days the rapid growth of chemical usage in our industrialized extraction, production, agricultural, and waste cycles have significantly altered our environments…with significant health impacts on the communities that live and work closest to them…”
      • https://www.umcjustice.org/who-we-are/social-principles-and-resolutions/environmental-health-1034
    • Resolution #1001 Energy Policy Statement
    • Resolution #1032 Principles for Just and Sustainable Extraction and Production
      • “John Wesley proclaimed the following guiding principles as core to faithful action: Do no harm. Do all the good you can. Obey the ordinances of God. Scientists have confirmed that some practices based largely on industrial extraction, production, and waste are not only harmful to many local ecologies and those who depend on them, but is harmful to the climate that humans depend on…Because of industrial extraction, production, and waste, some people’s lives are destroyed while others profit. This is harmful and is neither sustainable nor just…”
      • https://www.umcjustice.org/who-we-are/social-principles-and-resolutions/principles-for-just-and-sustainable-extraction-and-production-1032   
  • UM General Board of Church and Society
  • UM General Board of Global Ministries (UMCOR)
  • UMC Discipleship Ministries 
  • UMC Creation Justice Movement
    • “Growing a Creation Justice Movement in the UMC…to connect and support groups within the United Methodist Church and beyond for the work of creation care, justice, and regeneration.”
  • Creation Justice Ministries
    • “In the United States, the movement among people of faith caring for God's creation is vibrant, vast, and growing. For more than 30 years, Creation Justice Ministries has ecumenically brought together dozens of Christian member communions/denominations to share in common mission to care for God's creation.”