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printWhole Earth Evangelism
Creation care is part and parcel of the Great Commission and the Great Commandment.
In the 1960s, the ecology movement was launched with a fundamental insight: Everything is part of a system. If you alter one thing, it will affect something else—for good or ill. For example, we discovered back then that using the pesticide DDT to control mosquitoes and malaria (a good thing) also weakened the shells of birds' eggs and threatened their ability to reproduce (a bad thing). Such discoveries helped us think beyond our immediate actions and anticipate the collateral damage created by the way we live.
Are evangelization, compassionate justice ministry, and earth care similarly connected in a spiritual ecology? In this essay for the Global Conversation, Scott Sabin, author of the newly published Tending to Eden, connects those dots.
On a precarious slope, Etienne digs in the dusty soil with a small hoe, planting beans in hopeful anticipation of the rains, which have become unpredictable in recent years. Miles away, his wife is returning from the increasingly distant forest with a large bundle of firewood on her head. She was up before dawn carrying water from the spring, nearly an hour's walk away. The infant on her back is sick with intestinal parasites from drinking the water that she has worked so hard to provide.
Though the global context may be lost on Etienne and his family, they live with the consequences of environmental degradation on a daily basis. By contrast, in the United States, frequent headlines warn of the tribulations of the earth and its ecosystems, but because the impact on our daily lives feels minimal, the steady parade of dire predictions is ignored—or worse, fosters despair.
Until I began working with Plant with Purpose (formerly Floresta), I was among those who ignored the signs, occasionally lamenting the loss of a favorite hiking place or noticing that I no longer saw horned lizards in my backyard. Beyond that, the environment was a secondary concern. Those who went before me at Plant with Purpose, however, saw a direct connection between forest health and the health of poor communities. To get beyond treating the symptoms of poverty, we would need to address the health of the ecosystem that supported the poor. Standing on a windswept hillside in Haiti one afternoon, overlooking a panorama of eroded mountains and silt-choked rivers, it dawned on me that we could not give a cup of cold water without restoring the watershed. Over the past 18 years, I have slowly realized that this observation applies beyond Haiti. We all depend on a healthy world.
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TaylorNicole
I think that we should take a greater responsiblilty for creation ,but there is a fine line between taking care and obsessing. I think a Christian can look at creation and see the beauty of God in it so that should inspire us to take care of it. I do believe that humanity, in general, doesn’t care for this world and the poor, and that the world is now reaping the consequences.
Summer Bri'ann
I loved the author's idea of good stewardship going hand in hand with the gospel. It is very true that in other parts of the world, the climate and enviromental changes effect them more than it may effect us. I believe when we are building relationships globally with the body of Christ we could be increasingly more effective to our brothers and sisters if we teach them or encourage them to be good stewards of creation. However, our first mission field, in the area of stewardship, needs to be at home.
Caleb Robert Link , United States
Evangelical Christianity is the primary force destroying Christianity.
Jeffrey Spencer, United States
Mr. Furfari asks, "let us not change Christian civilization that has led to progress and prosperity for billions." What he fails to acknowledge is that the global warming crisis is changing climate world-wide -- the very climates on which this civilization is based. Because we human beings are causing climate change, we are dooming our own civilization. We must address the global warming crisis and the only way to do this is to reduce our carbon footprints, especially those of us who live in (and benefit from) the "developed" part of the world.
Roger McKinney, USA
I don't think it's true that Christians have ignored creation until recently. That is an exaggeration fabricated by people who want to sell books and by the radical environmentalists who want moral support for their corrupt, earth-worshiping agenda. Creation care is nothing but good stewardship, which has always been at the heart of Christian teaching. And it's part of helping the poor. The only thing Christians have failed at is worshiping creation as some want us to do. I can guarantee you that those who make creation their idol have no interest whatsoever in saving souls. Christians have no reason join them and nothing to be ashamed of in regard to the traditional Christian stance toward creation.
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