Do you agree with the following statement: Christians should care about what God cares about. 

If you would answer yes, then consider the follow-up question below…

Do you actively care for the environment?

There’s an area that doesn’t get a lot of press in Christian circles, more specifically, in evangelical circles (or rows, cause that’s how we do).

If I had heard a sermon on caring for creation a few years ago, I probably would have scoffed. Why? Because questions of ecology tend to be politicized before biblicized.

The sad generalization is that who you voted for in the last election is a reliable indicator as to where you stand on creation care. Of course there are exceptions on both sides of the man-made spectrum that is liberal and conservative. But generalizations help sometimes. I made one earlier, namely, that evangelicals tend to ignore environmental care.

Some of this attitude has been justified by saying, “Well, God’s gonna destroy it all in the end anyways.” Hmmm…so that means don’t care for it now? That’s like saying my body is going to die one day so I’ll trash it along the way. To rebut that one, just point to the reality that God is redeeming and resurrection physical bodies–> perhaps to inhabit a physical heaven?

Think of it like this (this helped me). When I hear dominion, I think of a king and a kingdom. In a way, God has called us to be co-rulers of the creation around us. Not in the “I’m a boss” sense, but in the managerial sense. God is the ultimate authority, but he chose to give Adam and Eve and you and me a piece of that pie.

So what, then, is our dominion to look like? Back to the king. Imagine a king (or president) who looks over his kingdom and says, “It sure is nice to have this dominion.” And he then proceeds to use and abuse the people to enhance and advance his own comforts, profit-margins, and agendas. We would say, “That’s a bad ruler.” In fact, this land has gone to war to dethrone such rulers.

But that’s the same thing we do as co-regents of the creation around us. God put Adam in the garden to cultivate it and care for it and see it thrive. When we trash it, pollute it, “roll coal”, take 45-minute showers, leave every light in the house on, take unnecessary jaunts around town in our gas guzzlers, use Styrofoam everything, buy insane amounts of plastic water bottles, and throw away all that paper advertisement in the mailbox, we aren’t cultivating or caring. And the land certainly isn’t thriving.

So I urge you, don’t get caught up in the political pandering about fracking, surface mining, and global warming. The better consideration is a personal one: Am I doing my part to help care for God’s beautifully complex creation?

Need some practical help?

Get out and enjoy nature. God’s presence abounds.