A letter to the Prime Minister

27/10/2009

 

BMS World Mission has written to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, encouraging him to continue along the right path concerning climate change and committing, along with Baptist groups around the world, to praying for him as he goes to the Copenhagen conference on climate change in December.

BMS Director for Communications, Mark Craig, explains why:

Climate change –  two words guaranteed to start a debate anywhere two or three are gathered, including churches.

At BMS we’ve had our own debate about where we stand on the issue. Like many of you, it’s been a journey for us, and we’re still travelling. We’ve offset all of our air travel this year, we’re working to reduce travel through technologies like video-conferencing and we’ve introduced the subject to the Baptist Assemblies we partner in.

With the UN Copenhagen Climate Conference starting on 7 December, we were faced with a choice about how to respond. We could have added our voice to the many who are shouting, demanding and pleading for action from the world’s leaders.

We decided instead to write our first-ever open letter, to Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The letter was signed by both David Kerrigan, General Director of BMS, and by Steve Hughes, Chief Executive of key BMS partner A Rocha. In our letter, we asked Mr Brown to ensure that the United Kingdom speaks for the interests of the poor of the world, and provides clear leadership to other nations in that regard.

However, our key message to the Prime Minister was not a demand or a request. It was a promise – a promise to pray for him. We were also able to secure that same promise from Baptist leaders in 23 countries, and offer Mr Brown their prayers too.

We believe that’s a biblical response, and we hope that you’ll join us in praying for the Prime Minister as the Copenhagen conference progresses.

You can follow the developing picture during the conference on the BMS website, where we’ll have regular live updates from Copenhagen from Brendan Bowles, Director of Climate Stewards, part of the A Rocha family.


BMS has also developed a key creation care resource FutureShape, in partnership with A Rocha and the three UK Baptist Unions. It features contributions from Elaine Storkey, John Houghton, Vinoth Ramachadra and Dave Bookless. You can find FutureShape on the web at:
www.futureshape.org

The full text of the letter to the Prime Minister can be read here.