Blue theology and watershed discipleship in South Africa

Abstract

In an era increasingly shaped by escalating water crises, Ched Myers calls the church to watershed discipleship, arguing that watershed discipleship is a faithful response to Christian mission amidst a looming environmental catastrophe. The practical application of a traditional creation care paradigm can remain abstract, a-contextual and cosmetic; insufficiently radical in its diagnosis – remaining located in the political geography of dominant cultural ideation rather than in the topography of creation. Watershed discipleship has the potential to offer a postcolonial interpretation of the great commission as the incarnational yet missional re-inhabiting of the places in which we reside. In South Africa, a region beset with severe droughts and where water demand is outstripping supply, the work of Myers is hardly known. Building on Myers, the argument and application of watershed discipleship to a South African context will be demonstrated.