Stewards of the Earth: Christians and Environmentalism
By Randy Alcorn
I have been reading exchanges between Christians who strongly disagree over the extent to which Christians should be concerned about the environment.
On one extreme, there are those who assume that every claim of man-caused global warming is true, ignoring the fact that many groups, including pro-choice organizations, are capitalizing on exaggerated environmental fears to justify ungodly agendas that include increasing global abortions.
On the other extreme there are Bible-believing Christians who figure that since the world is going to hell in a hand basket, and the devil is the god of this world, and they are not to love the world, then they shouldn’t care for the creation. Since the earth is going to sink in flames and ruin anyway, why bother rearranging the furniture on the Titanic?
This ignores the biblical mandate so clear in Genesis 2, as well as the promise of Scripture that God is going to redeem the entire creation. He is not done with it, and He never revoked his command that we should take good care of it.
Frankly, I don’t know how to interpret all the data cited by the opposing camps. Some scientists say there is a solid basis for believing that human culture is radically destroying the earth. Other experts say this is “junk science” and there are cycles of climate change completely outside of human control.
While there may be some unjustified hysteria, there is also clear reason for environmental concern, as anyone should know who has seen the poisoned waters in cities, the ugliness and ruin of once beautiful land, and the increased rates of illness of those drinking tainted water. You don’t have to like Al Gore, or believe an Inconvenient Truth is all good science, or that human beings are the ultimate cause of global warming. But as a Christian you should recognize God has entrusted the care of the earth to us, that we have not been doing a good job at it, and of whom much is given, much will be required. God has given us this task of creation care, and we need to do a better job of it.
Christians should lead the way in our concern for the environment, realizing that this is a way of showing love for the God who created the world and the people who occupy it. It is one means of fulfilling the two great commandments, to love God with all our heart, and to love our neighbors. We show love to our children by taking care to provide them with a safe and healthy place to live. We should seek to do the same for our neighbors and fellow inhabitants of planet Earth.
We should be concerned for the poor, the needy, the aliens, the disabled and the unborn. And we should show that concern by caring for the environment in which they live, and in which our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren will live.
When I was still a teenager and had known Christ only one year, Francis Schaeffer called my attention to a biblical view of stewarding creation in his 1970 book Pollution and the Death of Man. Schaeffer wrote:
God’s calling to the Christian now, and to the Christian community, in the area of nature—just as in the area of personal Christian living in true spirituality—is that we should exhibit a substantial healing here and now between man and nature and nature and itself, as far as Christians can bring it to pass . . . . So man has dominion over nature, but he uses it wrongly. The Christian is called upon to exhibit this dominion, but exhibit it rightly: treating the thing as having value in itself, exercising dominion without being destructive. The Church should always have taught and done this, but she has generally failed to do so. And we need to confess our failure.
Carl F. H. Henry was an evangelical theologian involved in the formation of the original Christian Action Council that began the Crisis Pregnancy Centers. In 1976 he wrote volume two of The God Who Speaks and Shows, in which he said:
God has much more in mind and at stake in nature than a backdrop for man’s comfort and convenience, or even a stage for the drama of human salvation. His purpose includes redemption of the cosmos that man has implicated in the Fall. Today the ecological problem is often stated in a way that accommodates the divorce and alienation of history and nature by exaggerating the importance of man and downgrading the importance of nature; the ecological problem thus becomes one of man’s survival . . . . It is unfair to blame Christianity for the ecological crisis; what’s more, Christianity is best able to arrest it. The Bible has timeless relevance for ecological problems; neither heirs of nor strangers to the Judeo-Christian outlook can afford to overlook its message.
In 1994 Chuck Colson wrote in The Body:
We should be contending for truth in every area of life. Not for power or because we are taken with some trendy cause, but humbly to bring glory to God. For this reason, Christians should be the most ardent ecologists. Not because we would rather save spotted owls than cut down trees whose bark provides lifesaving medicine, but because we are mandated to keep the Garden, to ensure that the beauty and grandeur God has reflected in nature is not despoiled. We should care for animals. Not because whales are our brothers, but because animals are part of God’s kingdom over which we are to exercise dominion.
While the animal rights movement has gone to extremes, the fact is that God created us to be stewards of animals. He holds us accountable for how we treat them. “The godly are concerned for the welfare of their animals” (Proverbs 12:10, NLT). We are caretakers for the animals, but they belong to God, not us: “For all the animals of the forest are mine, and I own the cattle on a thousand hills. Every bird of the mountains and all the animals of the field belong to me” (Psalm 50:10-11, NLT).
In 1995 evangelical Howard Snyder wrote a Christianity Today article saying this:
A poll conducted by the authors of Environmental Values in American Culture (MIT Press), revealed some surprising news: Most Americans agree with the statement "Because God created the world, it's wrong to abuse it."
It is safe to say that the environment has not been prominent on the evangelical agenda. We may privately acknowledge the need to be better stewards of our natural resources, but we generally stay away from groups and organizations working on environmental issues because we suspect they are either too "liberal," "New Age," or both. Indeed, some groups clearly have New Age ties, and political liberals seem to have cornered the environmental market. But if this poll accurately reflects the philosophical underpinnings of most Americans regarding care of the planet, our fears may have been unwarranted. Rank-and-file Americans want to take better care of the earth for the same reason we do: God made it.
When it comes to concern for the environment, I have no interest in following conservatives or liberals. I am called to be a follower of Christ, no matter who that aligns me with on any given issue. I care about defending the unborn and the sanctity of marriage and the value of business, so some consider me a conservative. I care about the poor and racial equality and the environment and humane treatment of animals, so some will consider me a liberal. Maybe some will call me New Age.
Who cares about the labels? Let’s seek to follow the whole counsel of God, and refuse to conform to anyone else’s agenda. Let’s be followers of Jesus, living our lives before the Audience of One, and not worrying about what people think whose judgment seat we will not stand before.
