A new photographic exhibition at the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, Switzerland, highlights how caring for creation is not just important but an emergency measure. See a gallery of some of the images here…
A photographic exhibition – And It Is Good – opened at the World Council of Churches‘ Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, Switerland, last week, aimed at offering “fresh inspiration to viewers who realise how caring for creation is not just important but an emergency measure”.
Launching the exhibition on 26th September, Rev Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the WCC, said it was “another good moment for us to stand together and to also celebrate something together as we are facing the greatest challenge of humanity today, climate change.”
Bishop Solveig Fiske, of the Church of Norway, who cut a ribbon opening the exhibition with Bishop Solveig Lara Gudmundsdottir, of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland, said the exhibition “inspires us to work further on a theology that does not make a distinction between nature and us as human beings and we need to underline that we belong to each other and we are dependent on each other.”
The display was jointly launched by the WCC in conjunction with ACT Alliance, the Lutheran World Federation, and the World Communion of Reformed Churches. After it has been displayed at the Ecumenical Centre for three weeks, it will then tour various countries around the world until the COP25 Climate Conference in Santiago, Chile, in December, where it will be on display during the conference.
Each image in the exhibition has been paired with Bible verses. Here’s a sample…
PICTURE: Sean Hawkey
“O Lord, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom you have made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.”
– Psalm 104:24
PICTURE: Johanan Celine Valeriano
“Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains,
your judgments are like the great deep;
you save humans and animals alike, O Lord.”
– Psalm 36:6
PICTURE: Albin Hillert
“God said, ‘Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.’ And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good.” – Genesis 1:11-12
PICTURE: Albin Hillert
“For in [Christ] all things in heaven and on Earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created through Him and for Him. He Himself is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” – Colossians 1:16-17
PICTURE: Johanan Celine Valeriano
“But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.”
– Ephesians 4:15-16