"We dare to propose that all churches which confess Jesus Christ as God and Saviour...should form a covenant for peace and justice". With those words the executive committee of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches boldly challenged the world church towards unity of witness against the threats to life in our age. The committee issued its proposal in 1983 in response to declarations made by the Alliance's general council in Ottawa (1982). That Council had provided a litany of testimony on the issues of justice, peace and the environment: widespread human rights violations, including torture; apartheid's oppression in South Africa; the resurgence of racism; the pervasiveness of sexism; unconscionable numbers of exiles, refugees and homeless people; massive hunger and starvation, especially among children; militarism and the threat of nuclear holocaust; the arrogance of humanity's "mastery" over creation which "groans" under the travail to which it is being subjected; frightening developments in biotechnology; ideological conflict (war) between and within nation-states; and the widening gap between rich and poor peoples and nations. The sum of this testimony pointed to a world dangerously imperilled and "in the grip of graceless powers...the outcome of greed and selfishness...supported by complex networks of economic, political and other forces...".

The Ottawa council left no doubt that the churches' witness to these "powers" must emerge out of a spiritual commitment. And it emphatically asserted that this witness is not an option; it is an imperative from Jesus Christ himself. Thus, for example, it called on the member churches "to regard the question of peace as not merely a political question but as one that immediately concerns our commitment to the God of peace", and made similar statements in regard the issues of justice and the environment. It welcomed reports that the poor, the oppressed and the discriminated peoples were awakening everywhere in "courageous witness against unjust powers...demanding justice, crying out for peace", and saw these as signs of hope that "Thine is the kingdom, power and glory", which was the theme of the council. Finally, it called upon the churches to "confess anew their faith in Jesus Christ...as Saviour and Lord", to claim in hope the biblical and eschatological vision of peace with justice, and to participate through the power of the risen Christ in the kingdom struggle for a renewed humanity and creation. To underscore the urgency of that witness, and to provoke that witness, the council approved the publication of the study, Called to witness to the gospel today, and mandated its distribution to all the WARC member churches.

The Called to witness study, together with the council's resolutions on justice and peace, inspired and informed the executive committee's "Covenant" statement which contains the bold challenge noted above. The full text of that challenge reads as follows:

"We dare to propose that all churches which confess Jesus Christ as God and Saviour whatever their traditions should form a covenant for peace and justice... In order to give visible expression to this covenant, we suggest, under the auspices of the World Council of Churches, the preparation and early summoning of a special ecumenical gathering in which all churches would participate and bear witness to ways of peace and justice."

The executive committee distributed its "Covenant" statement to all the WARC member churches, to the Christian World Communions (CWC), and to the World Council of Churches (WCC). Subsequently, the WCC called upon its member churches "to engage in a conciliar process of mutual commitment (covenant) to justice, peace and the integrity of creation" (Vancouver assembly, 1983) and then later, in 1986, it called for a world convocation on these issues, and scheduled that event for March, 1990, in Seoul, Korea. Thus there is a direct link between the WARC general council's decisions at Ottawa in 1982, the WARC executive committee's "Covenant" challenge in 1983, and the WCC's call for a world convocation on justice, peace and the integrity of creation.

The covenant in Reformed theology and history

"We dare to propose...a covenant for peace and justice". Reformed Christians through the centuries have regarded "covenant" as a critical lens for viewing with clarity the message of the bible. For good reason, therefore, the WARC executive committee made covenant the theological entry-point of its challenge and contribution to the world church on the issues of justice, peace and the integrity of creation.

There is of course a profound biblical basis for covenant theology; the term "covenant" pervades the scriptures. It is, however, inaccurate for Reformed Christians to assume that covenant theology springs directly from the bible. It emerged through a combination of biblical interpretation and historical construction. Covenant theology is in fact thoroughly conditioned by the problems and possibilities present in a specific place and time, namely, the "Age of Reformation" in sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe, and is a response to the crises of that context. The great crisis of that age in Europe was the problem of the reordering of human society: the very power of the "rediscovered" gospel of God's sovereign grace, given without merit, priestly mediation or civic intervention, threatened to undo the whole social fabric of that place and time.

Both Roman Catholicism and Lutheranism sought to resolve this crisis through new or refurbished patterns of ecclesiastical authority. Reformed Christianity, however, met the dilemma of that age by recovering the powerful symbol of covenant within the bible. Reformed Christianity applied the covenant symbol not only to the relation of humanity to God, but with great imagination it also applied covenant to the full-range of human relationships: marriage, family, the state, business, and the church. Indeed, the covenant-symbol became the spiritual and organizational principle for all of life, challenging and then replacing the hierarchic arrangements of both state and church within Reformed centres of influence.

In short, covenant theology empowered Reformed Christians with a sense of "vocation" and mission in their world: Reformed Christians understood themselves as being called by the covenant-making God to witness against the long entrenched and often repressive power arrangements of hierarchy and inheritance. This sense of covenant "call" is a Reformation legacy that drives Reformed Christians in our age to struggle against every form of tyranny and repression.

It is important to underscore this point because the covenant symbol has often been corrupted within history, not only by the people of Israel in the Old Testament but also by Reformed Christians; it has often been debased into a doctrinaire, self-glorifying and legalistic ideology. Indeed, we are painfully aware even today of those who interpret covenant to justify nationalistic zealotry and racial exclusivism. The idea of covenant has been and still is used by regimes and churches to theologically rationalize separatism, oppression, brutality and even war. It is important, therefore, for Reformed Christians to be reminded that in the biblical narrative of the covenant, God's embrace of the world is always expanding inclusively rather that contracting exclusively; that "vocation" and mission within the covenant results in service, stewardship and often suffering rather than protective self-glorification; and that God's sovereign grace inspires free and joyous gratitude rather than legalistic self-righteousness.

Finally, it is important to note one serious flaw in Reformed covenant theology, which has taken three or four centuries to be disclosed: it omitted one of the partners included in the original (biblical) narrative of covenant, namely, the creation. In the scriptures humankind exists in a three-fold covenant relatedness: our being consists at once of a being-with God, with our own kind, and with creation and its many and varied creatures. In Reformed Christianity, however, the creation was not incorporated into the covenant; or rather, the creation was regarded merely as the stage on which the drama of the divine-human covenant would be played out, a role which over time became strictly utilitarian. That is, Reformed covenant theology has been inextricably bound up with a social or political vision; it has not contained an ecological or environmental vision. Thus it is not accidental that the Puritan "Covenant Commonwealth" which was launched in North America in the seventeenth century has evolved today into a technological empire, one whose Nemesis is linked to its original failure to include the creation within the scope of its covenant theology. That failure needs urgent correction by Reformed Christians in our age.

As noted above, Reformed faith and practice has been significantly shaped by the covenant theology that emerged out of the historical context of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Europe and North America. The question for Reformed Christians today is whether it is possible, under the impact of the threats to life in our present age, to reclaim the covenant symbol in such a way that it can unite and empower the world family of Reformed churches in a common witness to justice, peace and the integrity of creation. The material in this booklet suggests that the covenant can be such a symbol both for Reformed and world Christianity, but only in a renewed or reconstructed form, one that restores justice for our "groaning" creation and reinterprets the foundational and subversive character of the covenant revealed in the bible.

"I will be your God..."

The term covenant (Hebrew "berith"; Greek "diatheke") appears nearly three hundred times in the Old Testament. Its primary meaning is "promise", "oath", "bond", and it defines the action in which God seals or confirms God's unilateral commitment to the creation or to one or more human partners. The covenant God made with Abraham and Sarah is an early example of this commitment: "I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generation for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you...and I will be their God (Gen 17.7-8b). The phrase "I will be your/their God", is a common covenant formula in the Old Testament, suggesting that the heart of the covenant is the gift of God's own self (cf. Ex 6.7; Lev 26.12; Jer 7.23; Ezek 11.20; Hosea 2.25). In its primary meaning, therefore, a covenant is not a contract between equals. Nor is it an agreement that God and the people establish. Rather, in the bible a covenant in the first instance is a unilateral declaration: God initiates, establishes and seals the covenant, and the people are privileged to live in God's presence, to trust God's promises, and to keep God's "berith". It is only in this context that the call to the churches to "covenant for justice, peace and the integrity of creation" can be understood or make any sense.

Invariably God initiates covenant in the worst possible situations and with the most improbable partners: the barren, the slaves, the poor, the powerless, the disenfranchised, the grieving, the suffering, the faithless, the unprotected, the exiled, and even the "defenceless" and "groaning" creation. In this action the God of the bible is set apart from all other "gods" who remain distant and detached from the earth in the plush silence of heaven (cf. Psalm 82). The primal disclosure of the bible is that Yahweh has a "preferential option" for the poor, unprotected and those in hopeless situations; God is forever making a move to enter covenant with these partners for their liberation. And the clear teaching of the bible is that this move is irreversible - and costly: "God so loved the world that [God] gave [God's] only begotten son" for the world's salvation (cf. Gen 9.8-17; 11.30; 17.19; Ex 2.24-25; 12.40-42; Deut 7.7-9; Isaiah 40.1-8; Jer 31.31-33; Hosea 11.8-9; John 3.16).

This is the key disclosure to Sarah and Abraham, without which the child of the promise could not be born (Gen 11.30; 17.19). This disclosure is reaffirmed to Moses, without which there would be no Exodus (Ex 3.7-10). And Israel celebrated this disclosure in regard God's covenant with creation, without which creation would still be "cursed" (Gen 9.8ff). But perhaps no one understood this disclosure in greater depth than Hosea, the eighth-century prophet. He penetrates to the heart of God and communicates God's covenant intention to bring together the strong and the weak for the common good. And Hosea understands that this is possible only because God remains irreversibly faithful to this covenant vision:

I will allure her to the wilderness [and begin again]
I will speak to her heart [and start over]...
I will betroth you to me in righteousness, in justice, in loyalty, in mercy, in faithfulness, and you shall know me (Hosea 2.14, 19-20).

For Hosea, everything depends on one's affirmation of God. He claims that there is a new beginning possible on earth only because the covenant God is determined to stay with the world "God so loves." The prophet has understood the primal disclosure of the bible as well as anyone: God's faithful commitment to the covenant promise is the only ground for newness on earth.

Everything is at stake in this disclosure because how we judge things in heaven is the way we imagine things to be on earth. If we hold to the notion of an impassive, distant, private and self-sufficient God in heaven who takes no risks, makes no commitments, embraces no pain, and comes to earth only after everything is settled, then the model for humanity, for the church, is that we also should be protective, separate, exclusive, invulnerable, and not risk ourselves for the sake of justice or peace. On this point everything is at issue for at least two reasons: first, because of the deep and present failure of our world; and second, because of the urgency for the church to rethink its life and witness in the face of this failure.

The question is whether there is an alternative affirmation to make that can let the church recharacterize how it is in heaven and how it might be on earth. God's move towards covenant solidarity with the partner is a clue not only that covenant is possible, but that such is God's intention for the world: God intends that our broken and threatened world become a community that covenants, that practices justice, establishes shalom and "stewards" the earth, that values all its members, that distributes its products equally, and that brings the strong and the weak together in common work and common joy (Jer 31.31-34; Amos 5-6; Micah 2; 4.3; 6.8; Acts 2.44-45; 1 Cor 1; 2 Cor 5.17-21; Phil 2.5-11; James 1.18-27; 1 John 4). Though the world is not yet that kind of community, we are assured that one day it will be (Rev 11.15). Indeed, in Jesus Christ we claim that God's "New Covenant" reign over the whole world, in all its sin, suffering, and brokenness, is already established, is becoming fully realized through the Holy Spirit, and is declared an everlasting promise. And the witness of the church proceeds from that covenant promise to articulate, anticipate, and practice that transformation which is sure to come. The church celebrates all of this in the eucharist, the feast which acknowledges and proclaims our belonging to this "new covenant" relationship as the body of Christ and, through the Spirit, opens all of life to the promises and demands of the new age: "This cup is the new covenant in my blood" (1 Cor 11.25).

"...And you shall be my people"

"You shall be...a covenant to the people" (Isaiah 42.6; 49.8). God's covenant initiatives are intended for a world yet to be liberated; God did not intend the covenant to be a "kept" secret within the church. Indeed, its character of surprise and subversiveness, judgement and justice, promise and peace, can become clear only as the covenant is related to the world beyond the covenant community. The covenant discloses that the world which the church is called to serve is a world threatened, divided, and still to be transformed. A theology of covenanting is not worth the effort unless it leads to courageous witness. And the ground of that witness is confessing: the church's witness springs from what it says it believes about the God who initiates covenant.

More than other traditions, Reformed Christianity has emphasized the crucial role of confessing in its life and witness: Reformed Christianity is confessing. And confessing is a form of resistance that often sets the confessor against the powers and principalities of the age; confessing carries risk and urgency, and sometimes brings death.

The crucial centre of the church's confessing is that Jesus Christ is Saviour and Lord. Whenever and however the church makes that confession it affirms that it knows something about the world, hopes something for the world, and expects something in the world. That is, to confess Jesus Christ as Lord anticipates the new future. And that is an important and very subversive gospel to confess in our age: to refuse to give up on the world and its promised transformation. Those who are victimized by the world and its present order need most of all the voices, presence, and solidarity of those who affirm that what now exists is not the way of the future: that the world is not fixed or settled; that abusive structures can be changed and transformed; that communities of people can covenant in solidarity for justice, peace, and the integrity of creation.

This volume underscores the urgency of such confessing. It claims that humankind is on a death march which must be stopped and turned around if life is to be lived on our planet in any meaningful way. We have moved to new and unprecedented levels of crises, provoking massive suffering among the world's poor, putting our ecosphere in peril, and pushing humanity towards the haunting spectre of the final abyss. If there is a common theme to our present age, it seems to be the dominating presence of the word survival. Throughout the world there is a sense that we are precariously close to the edge of all things. We live in dark times, and some are convinced it is already too late. But darkness faced and entered, darkness accepted and realized, is the beginning of understanding and the point of departure for all profound expressions of Christian hope. Let us be honest: the world cannot remain much longer the way it is. If that is not accepted as basic fact, nothing that follows in this booklet will make any sense.

The chapters that follow set the issues of justice, peace, and the integrity of creation within the framework of a renewed theology of the covenant. Although the issues are treated separately, they are clearly inseparable and interconnected. Until we render justice to each other and justice to the land, the peace for which all humanity longs will not arrive. Until we take care of all God's creatures while caring for each other, justice will be lacking on earth. And as long as justice is lacking, shalom's arriving is delayed. Centuries ago the prophet Isaiah pointed to the interconnectedness of justice, peace and the integrity of creation within God's covenant in words that provide both the hope and the challenge for God's covenant people in our age: "In the wilderness justice will come to live and integrity in the fertile land; integrity will bring peace...and justice give lasting security. My people will [then] live in a peaceful home" (32.16-18).