The global stocktake (GST) at COP28 will be the first conducted since the Paris Agreement went into full effect and began its five-year cycles. In the third year of a cycle, the parties will conduct this 'inventory' of 'where they’re collectively making progress' on the Paris Agreement goals. Two years later, they will return to the COP (in this case COP30 in 2025) and bring more ambitious targets for emissions reductions, based on what the GST reveals.

Jesus died for us. We often need to be reminded that he also lived for us. I don’t simply mean that he lived long enough to articulate for us a set of teachings, as wonderful an accomplishment as that is. I mean that in his incarnation, in his en-flesh-ment, as an embodied being embedded in creation, Jesus showed us how to be a human being. This month’s theme prayers for Climate Intercessors will feature the role that plastics—its production and its pollution—play in climate change. Jesus showed us how to be a consumer. Read More.

Below you will find Bible studies about climate action authored by Lowell Bliss, the Director of The Eden Vigil Institute of Environmental Leadership. We hope you find them encouraging and helpful in your personal journey or as you gather in like-minded community to seek God over this important topic. For more resources and opportunities to connect, visit the Eden Vigil Institute of Environmental Leadership.

Cataclysms and bad news aren’t the only things that can cascade. So can thoughts and memories and connections. I remembered that the first time I had ever heard about the possible collapse of what is called the global ocean conveyor belt was in Al Gore’s 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.

Hope for the possibility of the 1.5°C target has been an illusion for nearly a decade; an assessment by experts siloed within their narrow disciplines projecting a possible case provided that, if everything outside of their realm goes just right (e.g. politics, international relations, military conflict, banking systems, religious engagement, etc.), then maybe they can still model their 1.5°C scenario.” Glibness? Cruelty? Irrelevance? Whatever it felt like, it made me wake up and realize that desperate hospital waiting rooms are populated by more than just medical experts, grieving families, and timid siblings. Chaplains—professional in their own right—are also common figures at hand in a hospital when calamitous pronouncements are made. It is an act of great leadership—spiritual, emotional—for a chaplain to step forward and compassionately suggest, “It may be time that we consider a different approach to care.” Read More

Excerpt: There is no doubt about it, John 11 is the story of a miracle.  Jesus calls Lazarus forth from the grave and it is another one of Jesus’s seven signs in this gospel that he is divine, another occasion for one of his seven I AM statements, in this case, “I am the resurrection and the life.”  I will begrudge no one in our Climate Intercessors prayer network who wants to pray for the miracle of preventing a 1.5°C warming.  Yet, as I read John 11, while it is obviously the story of a miracle, I don’t believe it is a story about miracles.  It is about death and life, and about how in Jesus we live, and breath, and have our being even unto eternity. Read More.

Our colleague, Sean Curran recently wrote a book review for the WCIU Journal of Peter Enns’ new book, ‘Curve-ball.” Read the full article on the WCIU Journal webiste.

In honor of Women’s History Month, we would like to celebrate a contemporary scholar and friend, Dr. Gina Zurlo.

Listen in as our Executive Vice President, Peter McLallen, Ph.D. interviews WCIU’s new President, Paul Cornelius, Ph.D. We hope you enjoy getting to know Paul as much as we do!

Recently, I had the pleasure of connecting with WCIU alumni, Sarah Mullin. Sarah works with a creative access people group by making strategic connections at her local college campus. Working mostly with refugees, Sarah has been able to conduct research, provide practical care through relational community building and give much-needed support to her vulnerable neighbors…

Dear Ed and Julia: I am concerned about God’s creation and so I try to stay informed and engaged about climate change. I am greatly troubled by the recent announcement that the host government for COP28, U.A.E., has appointed Sultan Al Jaber to serve as the president of the climate summit. Meanwhile, Al Jaber intends to retain his role as CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), one of the world’s largest petroleum producers. Read More

It’s December 2018 at the COP24 climate summit in Katowice, Poland, and I am as depressed as I have ever been. It didn’t help that I had an attack of kidney stones during my layover in Brussels. It didn’t help that my normal set of colleagues at these climate summits weren’t attending this one. I was alone. I was alone on a mattress on the floor of my price-gouging AirBnb, touk and gloves on to try and ward off the cold. And then there was the summit itself. Poland was hosting COP24 in their coal-mining region, promoting “just transition” seemingly as a way to keep promoting the fossil fuel itself. When the climate march rolled around on the Saturday after the first week, phalanxes of Polish police in riot gear were out in full force. COP24 is generally considered a “failed” COP, precisely at the time when the Paris Agreement needed to shift into a higher gear.

Jael, like Mary, the mother of Jesus, is hailed as the “most blessed of women,” (Judges 5:24). Yet Jael’s story has raised some eyebrows. These objections, in turn, have contributed to her not being seen as a hero, but as an example to avoid.

As we quickly approach the close of 2022 and prepare to welcome incoming President, Dr. Paul P. Cornelius the leadership of William Carey International University would like to invite our esteemed colleagues, networks, family, and friends to join us in praying for our academic community as we continue to pursue greater flourishing in line with our vision statement.

The Board of Directors is pleased to announce Paul P. Cornelius, Ph.D. has been selected to serve as the 10th President of William Carey International University (WCIU). This marks the end of a nine-month discernment process that included a competitive pool of candidates from all over the world. Dr. Cornelius is expected to begin his tenure in January 2023.

Deuteronomy is about the 'treaties' that we make with God that supersede any treaty, like the Paris Agreement, that nations make with each other. Its stated motivation behind its restatement of the Ten Commandments is markedly humanitarian. And its theme that 'the past is always present' should encourage us that God is still as active in 2022 as he was when the shekinah glory fell on Moses.