July 17–21, 2006

For the Fruit of All Creation

The 2006 St. Olaf College Conference on Worship, Theology and the Arts presented nationally recognized musicians, artists, scholars and theologians who brought their own perceptions and expertise to a week-long conference on the beautiful campus in Northfield, Minn.

The 2006 theme, "For the Fruit of All Creation," was a springboard to explore individual and church community responsibility to care for God's gifts: “And it was very good.”

Wind, earth, fire and water: each of these elements demonstrates to us the ongoing dialectic of creation and destruction in which we live, both as mammals in a global ecosystem and as Christians who live under the cross simul iustus et peccator. Turbines and hurricanes; fecundity and decay; reformation and immolation; refreshment and floods. Wind destroys and energizes; soil dies and lives; fire kills and refines; water drowns and hydrates. It was very good. And it still goes on.

How do our theology, worship, and arts reflect and respond to this continuous cycle of creation and destruction in which we live? How do we, as people of God and servants of the church, draw this limited and littered world into our liturgy and theology? How do we carry our worship and theology and arts into the world with attentiveness to the care of all creation? What does Christ have to do with our understandings of wind, earth, fire, and water? What has sustainable agriculture to do with Eucharist? How might music and ritual serve as creation and recreation in the midst of dying? How might concrete natural phenomena enlighten or renew our theology and worship? How might we immerse ourselves into our cities and our farms as creatures who both destroy and create, at once sinful and forgiven?

The well-respected faculty at the 2006 CWTA brought their perspective and experience to explore these questions. Those joining them were able to renew and recharge their enthusiasm for service in their church.