Environmentalism & the Church

[derwen]

Hi All! Great idea, this board.

An interesting article from Relevant Magazine about how people view the environment. As an employee for the National Park Service, I am all to aware of God's hand being at work in everything around me--I see it every day!

Thoughts on the Article?

[Rrose Selavy]

Here is my initial thought.

Man is the only example of God's creation that is fully aware of, and therefore responsible for his actions. Nature without man seems to get along quite nicely. When man is introduced, things can very easily get disrupted and thrown way out of balance. This is the effect of sinful man on a fallen world.

We are commanded to be good stewards of God's creation. While we may not be able to improve on nature, we can use it in more responsible and sympathetic ways. We can try to minimize our disruption and find ways to better co-exist with the rest of creation.

[img]graemlins/idea.gif[/img] This just came to me-- Joe, is it not possible that the waste and misuse of land that you deal with is a manifestation of the total depravity of man? (If it weren't so late I might have tried to work in all of TULIP into this particular discussion [img]graemlins/rose.gif[/img] ) I'm sure you have shed your blood in the difficult task of trying to clean up these areas.

Isn't there a correlation between God as creator and sustainer of the universe and man as caretaker and maintainer of this earth? God is ultimately going to restore the world to it's pre-fallen state. While man can't offer nature a complete redemption, he can do his part towards bringing back and maintaining a natural balance. Somewhere this has to act as an example of the redemptive power of salvation as well as the restoration of paradise on earth.

[robkemp]

my dear friend joshua, i certainly agree that there is a definite corralation between God's rule of creation and man's rule as God's "vice-regents" indeed romans 8 says creation groans to be liberated into the freedom under the children of God. Man sucks and his suckiness brought destruction to God's creation. but also i think there is not just "negative" revelation to be seen in creation. Romans 1 says all men have seen God's invisible qualities his eternal power and divine nature, this include much more than his wrath and judgement. his wrath and judgement come because(or to use the NIV word "since")men have rejected the revelation of God in nature, it is not saving by any means, but it is enough to make man accountable for not glorifing God when they knew better. Paul uses powerful words here, through creation, men know God. so i think is could be safe to say Christians of all people should care for the environment it is commanded to us in Genesis and it reveals our creator. so in honor of creation and to know my creator better i think i'll go to the beach.

[chasingsophia]

A few preliminary thoughts:
"According to Paul, God can reveal Himself to us through His creation."

That's not exactly what Paul meant. At least it's not the whole story. While agreeing that God is revealed in his creation, Paul certainly would never say that we can know God in any kind of saving way simply by observing creation. Paul appeals to God's revelation in nature as a damning revelation: the wicked know God, yet they revolt against Him. That is, they know enough to be guilty. The revelation in nature - like the revelation of the Law - can only condemn us, it can never lead us to repentance, nor restoration with God.

So the reasoning that as species become extinct, we will know less about God doesn't really hold up.

I thought a lot about creation in my 2+ years as a meter reader, especially the Romans 8 verse that says all creation groans, awaiting the revelation of the sons (children) of God. Man has been placed here as a testimony of what God is like to the rest of creation. We are the image bearers, the lords (little "l") of this planet, the image of the true Lord of all creation. I would think about this as I walked from house to house, and squirrels and birds would scatter, some dogs would bark angrily, others would bark cheerfully. I prayed that I would be a worthy image-bearer to the creation around me.

A note on the groaning: remember that creation was placed under the curse just as Adam and Eve were. The groaning is not necessarily "Mother Nature crying because her oceans are polluted," but rather a groaning under the death and disease, the predation, the pain in birth, and the toil which are all a part of the curse God proclaimed on creation. Pollution and resource waste probably fall under some other category, not the Romans 8 one.

Eventually I do agree with the author of that piece, though, in that man has been a bad steward. I'm an "environmenal technician," and as I go to our various worksites and bail 10 year old, rotting jet fuel from groundwater monitoring wells, I get a little sick. That's not just the toxic vapors, either (though they do deliver quite the headache!). This isn't good stewardship.

[chasingsophia]

"Nature without man seems to get along quite nicely."

Hm. That makes me wonder, though, if "nature" (as I understand you, all of creation except humans) can fulfill its purpose without a steward. "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth" (Gen. 1:28 NASB). It seems that God intended for the rest of creation to be under our authority.

God definitely retains a "veto" as it were, as in His long "Were you there?" message to Job (Job chs. 38-41, some of the most beautiful poetry in the Bible for my money). "Were you there when I laid the foundations?... Have you ever in your life commanded the morning, and caused the dawn to know its place?" So while God remains the ultimate Sovereign over his creation, and "in Him we live and move and have our being," still likewise I think that nature was designed to need a steward. I think God likes gardens as much as wilderness.

I don't know a *whole* lot about the specifics of the doctrine of Total Depravity. I think it has more to do with our inability (and the correlating unwillingness) to muster any goodness in ourselves in terms of saving righteousness. But yeah, the ecological raping of the rest of creation (not to mention ourselves) is a manifestation of our rejection of our role as benevolent stewards and Divine-image-bearers. Rob said, "Man sucks and his suckiness brought destruction to God's creation." I think that kinda blurs the line that I think should be kept distinct: there is the Curse, which God proclaimed as a result of Adam's sin, and there is the ongoing havoc wreaked by sinful men.

"Isn't there a correlation between God as creator and sustainer of the universe and man as caretaker and maintainer of this earth?"

I see the correlation too, and I think you're right: God expects his redeemed people to, by grace, live up to our calling as stewards, and also to be prophetic to the unredeemed world around us, that God will hold all men accountable for how they have and have not fulfilled their designed roles as "vice-regents" (good word, Rob). This also applies to those who think it is our job to serve the rest of creation (e.g., ALF, ELF, Greenpeace, etc.).

But like you said, we can't reverse the curse.

Hm. I wonder if a measure of man's authority over nature was recinded at the Fall? As shown in "toil," nature became hostile to man's rule. Yet some measure of authority remains, as seen in the domestication of certain plants and animals. Now there's wild conjecture for ya.

I love this verse of the Christmas song "Joy to the World": "No more let sin and sorrow grow / Nor thorns infest the ground / He comes to make His blessings known / Far as the Curse is found."

Francis Schaeffer wrote about Christian environmentalism. There's a copy of his book at a local used bookstore. I'll try to grab it. But as far as Christians ignoring ecological concerns, I think the Christian silence has a lot to do with not wanting to "sound like a liberal" on the matter.

[chasingsophia]

Rob,
About "negative" revelation: Don't you think, though, that ultimately, even an unbeliever's appreciation for what we call "creation" will be even further evidence against him at the final judgement?

Also, I thought of this C.S. Lewis quote:

"If we used [the universe] as our only clue [to God's existence], then I think we should have to conclude that He was a great artist (for the universe is a very beautiful place), but also that He is quite merciless and no friend to man (for the universe is a very dangerous and terrifying place)." MERE CHRISTIANITY ch. 5 paragraph 3.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ May 25, 2004 02:48 PM: Message edited by: Chasing Sophia ]</font>

[Rrose Selavy]

I thought so!! Am I wrong that this issue seems to have been greatly ignored in contemporary Christiandom? Except for a few Norwegians, I do not remember this topic being discussed very often while getting my Bible degree. Maybe I am just not seeing it.

We can be thankful that Greenpeace and other ecological movements have picked up the slack.

[Rrose Selavy]

"Nature without man seems to get along quite nicely."

I've been having reservations about this statment ever since I posted it, but I am unsure as to how to articulate it at the moment.

***************

Although I feel otherwise, for the purpose of my discussion "Nature" is that which is outside of man's influence. It is also not my intention to make a Nature=Good/Man=Bad statement. Both are fallen.

I have been trying to think of ways that man has possibly "improved" upon nature. This has been difficult. Natural selection seems to be pretty effective at making sure the best individuals surivive in the given habitat, as well as reducing the spread of diseases and genetic mutations.

Man is able to exhist outside of natural selection. We have developed therapies and medications which allows those to survive and reproduce who in the past would not have done so. We have devised more efficient ways of food production through breeding and genetic engineering. All these appear to be ways that we have been able to subdue the earth. Many humans do live longer and many do live more leisurely lives than we had in the past. While there are signifcant real benefits to what we have accomplished, some of the drawbacks have been pretty serious and unexpected "Mother Nature" often comes back to bite us. Hence the growing popularity of all things organic and natural.

Nature continues to be hostile to man's rule. Just as man is continually hostile to God's rule. The slave is hostile towards his master.

The difference between the two is that God's rule is perfect. Our rule will always be flawed. Therefore, when the comissioned but fallen man rules over the fallen creation some unexpected results are going to develop.

Given that situation, and please correct my many suppositions, are we not better off when our actions are more sympathetic to what is still intact of God's natural order? Are we possibly the most successful in our managment when our result mirrors a pre-fallen state of affairs?

[robkemp]

when i first saw this topic my first thought was of Aussie as well. i think this topic is ignored at places like northwestern and most evangelicalism for the same reasons other topics such as social action and justice and poverty are ignored, which is because they have been taken up by more liberal churches. it is sad when biblical issues are ignored to avoid associating with others. oh, and joe i can't take credit for 'vice-regents' that is rick gamble's word and i also didn't mean to completely discredit 'negetive' revealtion, but to balance it, support it, with positive revelation, both of which i believe are scriptural.

[chasingsophia]

are we not better off when our actions are more sympathetic to what is still intact of God's natural order? Are we possibly the most successful in our managment when our result mirrors a pre-fallen state of affairs?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">What is the pre-fallen state of affairs?

I read an interesting article several years ago entitled, "The Myth of the Ecologically Invisible Native American." For some reason that came to mind today. The title pretty much says it all, that the author was contending that even those who are hailed by environmentalists as the most "at one" with nature or the most reverent toward nature weren't "ecologically invisible." When you go to the Boundary Waters, the montra is "Leave No Trace." It's not possible.