The terms ‘conservation’ and ‘environmentalism’ often bear negative stigmas: images of activists chained to trees and of people engaging in physical conflicts over the practice of whale harvesting sometimes come to mind when we hear words associated with environmental protection. As Christians, we recognize that human life is far more important in the eyes of the Creator than is the life of any other creature, no matter how rare. Yet does this truth immediately release us from responsibility to the natural world? I do not believe that it does. Although the Bible does not specifically mention the ozone hole or climate changes caused by carbon dioxide emissions, it is very clear from Scripture that God cares about the world He has made. As a
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Why should Christians care about this world if God will someday replace it with a perfect earth? There are many possible answers to this question, but I will discuss only two. First, God though created the earth for His own pleasure and he wants us to “share in His pleasure,” it ultimately was created for Him (Van Dyke, 2006, p. 54-55). This is where anthropocentric ethics fails. While God does intend for us to use natural resources, they exist for His glory and pleasure first and foremost. If He knows and loves the sparrows that fall to the ground, then He also cares about how we treat the environment. We glorify Him when we properly steward ecosystems because it demonstrates both that we care to know Him through His creation and that we want to honor Him by learning about how His world operates. Second, the reasons for environmental restoration are similar to the reasons for sanctification. We might wonder if it is wasted effort to care for the natural world since God will create a second earth, yet similar reasoning could also lead us to ask why we should pursue righteousness before we reach Heaven. After all, we will someday receive glorified bodies and it is impossible for us to become practically holy in our current condition. Ultimately, however, obedience to God is never a destination: it is a process. We have been given a command by God to take care of the earth, and the process and heart attitude are what are most important to Him. Thus, although the Church rightly emphasizes the importance of spiritual truths, if we truly wish to please God in every aspect of our lives we must recognize that God also created a physical world and has given us responsibilities within it, both to fellow humans and to the
Why should Christians care about this world if God will someday replace it with a perfect earth? There are many possible answers to this question, but I will discuss only two. First, God though created the earth for His own pleasure and he wants us to “share in His pleasure,” it ultimately was created for Him (Van Dyke, 2006, p. 54-55). This is where anthropocentric ethics fails. While God does intend for us to use natural resources, they exist for His glory and pleasure first and foremost. If He knows and loves the sparrows that fall to the ground, then He also cares about how we treat the environment. We glorify Him when we properly steward ecosystems because it demonstrates both that we care to know Him through His creation and that we want to honor Him by learning about how His world operates. Second, the reasons for environmental restoration are similar to the reasons for sanctification. We might wonder if it is wasted effort to care for the natural world since God will create a second earth, yet similar reasoning could also lead us to ask why we should pursue righteousness before we reach Heaven. After all, we will someday receive glorified bodies and it is impossible for us to become practically holy in our current condition. Ultimately, however, obedience to God is never a destination: it is a process. We have been given a command by God to take care of the earth, and the process and heart attitude are what are most important to Him. Thus, although the Church rightly emphasizes the importance of spiritual truths, if we truly wish to please God in every aspect of our lives we must recognize that God also created a physical world and has given us responsibilities within it, both to fellow humans and to the