Conclusion

Pioneering ecological theologian, Joseph Sittler, whose eloquence and insight on these matters remain virtually unsurpassed, in an article “Ecological Commitment as Theological Responsibility” said that because of the virtual demise of a vigorous doctrine of the Creation:

it is difficult but possible to get men to understand that pollution is biologically disastrous, aesthetically offensive, equally obviously economically self-destructive and socially reductive of the quality of human life. But it is a very difficult job to get even Christians to see that so to deal with the Creation is Christianly blasphemous. A proper doctrine of creation and redemption would make it perfectly clear from a Christian point of view the ecological crisis presents us not simply with moral tasks but requires of us a freshly renovated and fundamental theology of the first article whereby the Christian faith defines whence the Creation was formed, and why, and by whom and to what end.

In his book Gravity and Grace, he had this to say:

When we turn the attention of the church to a definition of the Christian relationship with the natural world, we are not stepping away from grave and proper theological ideas; we are stepping right into the middle of them There is a deeply rooted, genuinely Christian motivation for attention to God’s creation, despite the fact that many church people consider ecology to be a secular concern. “What does environmental preservation have to do with Jesus Christ and his church?” they ask. They could not be more shallow or more wrong.

What I have written, I offer in the hope that it will assist in restoring a proper balance that may impact our Christian outlook, our life styles and perhaps also our daily priorities.

These days, many environmentalists are seeking spiritual reasons why we should preserve the world. Writer Alston Chase recently assembled a list of the popular religious options: Tao, Vedanta, Sufism, Cabalism, Spinozistic Pantheism, Yoga, biofeedback, transcendental meditation, Ghandian pacifism, inimism, panpsychism, alchemy, ritual magic, Buddhist economics, fossil love, planetary zoning, deep ecology, shallow ecology, reinhabitation, ecological primitivism, chicken liberation, stone age economics, Yan Yang, the androgynous universe, the Gaia hypothesis, global futures, Spaceship Earth, rights of rocks, ecological resistance.” It is my belief that we Christians have reasons that are more satisfactory as they are based on the truth of the God who really exists, humans as they are intended to be and the world as it really is.

Reasons we share with others are: our own existence depends on it; we owe it to our children; a good earth provides for more joyful living; it is in the best interests of the entire earth community. However, as Christians have even better reasons: the earth is of value because it is God’s creation; he has declared it good and he delights in it; he has appointed us his vice-regents to care for it as well as for one another; the good we can do will have some counterpart in the new earth. And, in view of the resurrection, we have assurance that any good we do will not be in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58). Perhaps the greatest reason for caring for the earth is simply gratitude. The earth is God’s gift of grace to us and as Stephen Bouman-Prediger puts it, “Grace begets gratitude, and gratitude care.”

Reasons for Christian care are God-centred. Scott Hoezee says it well: “Christians must be staunch environmentalists—or staunch creationalists, to use a more biblical term—not because we have our own best interests at heart but because we have God’s best interests at heart.” And as he adds, “we Christians believe that the hands that are upraised to bless forests and toads are now pierced hands.”

It may well be that some who read this book may find all this talk about God will raise unanswered questions, either because their own background has not included such a perspective, or because they may have some belief in God, but as yet have no personal experience of him. I would like to add a word for those searching for some answers and who are willing to take a further step in finding a relationship with God that is real, makes sense of much of what we see around us, and provides a transforming experience that enables them to live satisfying and productive lives with some certainty as to what the future holds.

Finding such an experience essentially involves two things. First, a willingness to acknowledge that our lives are not all that God intended them to be. We have all fallen short of God’s requirements (see Romans 3:23) and most of the world’s problems simply arise from that fact. Second, a willingness to trust Jesus for whom he claimed to be, whom the Bible repeatedly declares him to be and whom the experience of thousands have proved him to be: the Lord of Creation and the Saviour of the world.

Two things happen when we surrender our lives to Jesus Christ and accept him as our Lord and Saviour. First, we receive forgiveness and reconciliation with the creator of the universe. Second, he comes to life within us in the Person of the Holy Spirit, to begin a work of transformation from within, to fit us for his service here and for future membership of the new heavens and earth. I will be surprised if one of the results will not be a new appreciation of the world in which we live. The songwriter George Wade Robinson said it well: