It’s all about saving souls not seals… isn’t it?
We live in a glory-filled world; a world with “a redundancy of beauty” and awe.[1] From meadows full of beautifully intricate wildflowers, butterflies, and bees, to towering alpine mountains home to fabled bears, ibex, and lynx. From rainforests full of rainbow-coloured birds, to wide open oceans where whales frolic and sing under the joyful watch of their Maker. All this beauty and diversity is a wonderful gift for us to enjoy from our even more wonderful creator God. The magnificence of the gift of creation does not stop at beauty: creation is also abundantly useful. To pick just a few examples: we use trees to build our homes and furniture, use grass to feed our livestock, and use reed beds to decontaminate our wastes and to provide clean water to drink. Creation is an immensely beautiful and useful gift.
Despite all this beauty and utility, Christians often wonder if caring for creation is something we should be concerned with. Many remain sceptical of Christians taking up environmental concerns, viewing them as a tangent and distraction from the Great Commission. As someone once sarcastically remarked: “It’s about saving souls, not seals.” Others at the extreme end of the scepticism spectrum have argued that Creation is only there to benefit mankind, thus any use of creation, no matter how environmentally damaging, is legitimate. According to them, environmental concerns are issues that no one, secular or Christian, should burden themselves with.
This sceptism is unwarranted. I firmly believe that not only is caring for creation our duty as Christians, but it is our privilege. Not only that, but it is also an effective means of loving our neighbour and a way we can honour our magnificent God. But to begin, we must go back to where it all began. Back to the garden…
An ecological mandate
When we think of the original work given to mankind, we immediately think of the cultural mandate (Genesis 1:28). This comprehensive mandate entailed the command to fill the earth with image-bearers which is the part we tend to focus on. But what is sometimes overlooked is that this mandate is also fundamentally ecological and lays the groundwork for mankind’s proper and godly interaction with the rest of creation.
Alongside the command to fill the world with offspring, Adam was explicitly told to subdue and have dominion over creation. This involved working upon and with creation, using the wisdom and authority God had given him to change the environment of Eden and the surrounding world, making what was already declared very good even better. As part of this, Adam was given the immense privilege to name the animals. God could have kept this task for Himself, yet he delegates this responsibility to Adam. Naming is the first act of Adam’s dominion and is an act that leads to love and care – for to truly care for something we need to know its name.[2]
Linking dominion with care may sound strange to our modern ears. When we hear of dominion, we all too easily think of domination, harsh rule, and perhaps even tyranny. Sadly, this verse, and in particular the two verbs subdue and have dominion, have been subject to much misinterpretation. Some have claimed this verse gives us authority to use and abuse creation, others that the only purpose of creation is to benefit mankind, thus justifying many acts of environmental degradation in our subduing and dominion of the world.
Though these interpretations rightly claim that the two verbs imply forcefulness, the very context of this passage shows that to apply this command in a destructive, harsh manner is a distortion. In Genesis 1, Adam is given the authority to have dominion over creation from the One who is in dominion over Him. As an image bearer, Adam is God’s representative on earth, His vice-regent. Adam’s dominion should mirror the dominion that his Master exercises, and we see throughout Scripture that God’s dominion over His people is loving, caring, wise, and patient.[3] In short God’s dominion over us is for our good. So should Adam’s dominion over creation. Yes, there are aspects of the world which need subduing to make it more habitable and conducive to human life, but this is to be done in a caring, sensitive and wise manner which does not harm or fundamentally damage creation, but works with it, to create something even more beautiful and diverse. Douglas Green[4] says it well:
“When God “subdues” the land, he makes it verdant and fruitful and when he “rules over” the creatures, their numbers increase and they fill the earth. So if God’s vice regents want to exercise dominion on his behalf, then their subduing and ruling must have the same creation enhancing character.” Douglas Green
Creation care is thus an act of obedience, part of our original mandate and a role for us as image-bearers. But it is more than an act of obedience. It is also a means of motivating us to worship.
Worship the Creator
As I have mentioned we live in a world full of glory. Calvin went as far as to say Creation is the theatre of God’s glory.[5] When we survey a beautiful landscape, witness an awesome natural spectacle, or see an incredibly designed species, the right and fitting response is to enjoy it and let it motivate us to worship its Creator. The beauty and wondrous design of creation is testament to the beauty and magnificence of our God and a reminder that He is worthy of all praise. When creation displays the wonder of God, it fulfils its role in pointing us to Him and motivating us to worship.
This is one of the foremost reasons why creation care is so important. When we abuse and destroy creation, we are in effect damaging Creation’s testament to its Creator. No one surveys a degraded and destroyed landscape and is inspired to worship; they are moved to grieve and lament instead. Conversely, many have surveyed beauty of the mountains or have listened to the symphony of the dawn chorus and fallen on their knees in worship of the One who made all this splendour. Preserving, conserving, and enhancing the beauty of creation matters because God’s glory matters. He has designed this world to be full of creatures, habitats, and spectacles that inspire the world to worship and give testament to His existence so that we are without excuse (Romans 1:20).
It is also worth noting that when Christians act in improper ways towards creation, it harms our witness to the unbelieving world[6] and implies we do not hold creation’s Creator in high esteem. When we are given a precious gift by a friend or family member, we treasure it not only because of the gift, but because of our love for the giver. When we abuse creation, we in effect throw the gift God has given us back in His face. It is a dreadfully poor witness, and the watching world does notice. Let us make sure our dealings with Creation do not put a stumbling block in the way of others coming to worship God.
Love for neighbour
Worship is central to our existence. It is the reason we were made: “to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever” as the old Catechism puts it. But worship is only part of our calling. Time and time again, we see in Scripture the command to love our neighbour and care for the weak and needy. This includes loving them in the specific places they are in, for which creation care again becomes relevant.
The world’s poor often live in areas most exposed to and dependent upon the natural environment and its ecological processes. The livelihoods of the poor are thus disproportionately affected by environmental change, both positively and negatively. This relationship can be seen most keenly in agricultural systems. When creation is well cared for and functioning as it should, local agricultural systems benefit from ecosystem services[7] and enhanced ecological resilience. Conversely, when the local environment is damaged or polluted, yields suffer which contributes to food insecurity and lost incomes for those already on the poverty line. Love for our neighbour may mean supporting organisations who work to protect the poor from environmental degradation by safeguarding ecosystems and repairing ecological damage.
Secondly, love for our neighbour must extend to our neighbours who are not yet born: the future generations that will come after us. Our children will inherit the world from us. There are few better inheritances that we could leave them than a healthy, functioning environment, whose beauty inspires them to worship their magnificent Creator. However, if this current generation degrades God’s creation by causing rampant deforestation, destroying fragile habitats, hunting or persecuting-to-extinction magnificent animals, and polluting our rivers and seas we leave behind little of God’s great gift for those who come after us to enjoy and use. We will have selfishly consumed today and harmed the inheritance of our children and will have not loved our offspring, let alone our neighbours, as ourselves. Avoiding this scenario will mean taking care with how much we consume of the earth’s resources and what we consume. Where we can afford it, we should consider purchasing goods that have been produced and manufactured in ways that are ecologically and socially sustainable, thus helping to ensure a healthy, beautiful world persists for future generations.
A multi-faceted task
Care for creation takes on many surprising dimensions. It is not simply a matter of protecting the environment for the environment’s sake. Creation care is a means of glorifying our God and motivating others to worship Him. It is a means of loving our neighbour and caring for the least of these. It is the fitting and proper response to the gift God has given us and is our duty as image-bearers and vice regents. Creation care is fundamentally Christian.
References
[1] Tim Chester, Enjoying God, (Chessington: The Good Book Company, 2018) p.45.
[2] Hadden Turner, Naming Creatures, Plough Quarterly, https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/environment/naming-creatures
[3] Edward R. Brown, Ruling God’s World God’s Way: Dominion in Psalm 8, In: Creation Care and the Gospel, Eds. Bell, C. & White, R.S. (Peabody, MS: Hendrickson, 2016).
[4] Douglas J. Green, When the Gardener Returns, In: Keeping God’s Earth, Eds, Block, D.I & Toly, N.J (Nottingham: Apollos, 2010) p.270.
[5] See Jon Payne, The Theater of Glory, Ligonier https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/theater-of-glory
[6] See Lynn White’s 1967 paper, ‘The Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis’, Science, for a famous example of the scorn from secular scientists that has resulted from improper attitudes and actions by Christians concerning the environment.
[7] These are the essential ecological processes like pollination, nutrient cycling, and pest control that ecosystems provide us for free. If these services were not provided (e.g. when the species that provide them decline in number or become extinct), our agricultural systems would fail, or we would have to manually provide these services at great cost e.g. through hand pollination.