Matthew's Lectern

I can remember when the Green Party was considered by pretty much everyone to be a bunch of wackos. Not any more. In fact, everyone, politicians, church leaders, celebrities are all desperate to show their green credentials.

What are we to make of all this? What is the biblical and Christian attitude to the environment?

Firstly, I want to say loud and clear that I am an environmentalist. I care deeply about the environment. However, it is important to define the term carefully. The word “environmentalist” has come to mean something along the lines of “someone who agrees with environmental groups like Greenpeace and the WWF, someone who would never think of questioning an apparent scientific “consensus” that points toward future catastrophe, and someone who is deeply concerned that if we continue to go the way we are going we will destroy the earth. My definition of an environmentalist is much broader. Here goes: “an environmentalist is someone who cares deeply about the environment, and is prepared to do all he or she can to protect and enhance it”. Using this definition, I would argue that every single Christian should be an environmentalist.

One of the reasons I insist of defining the word broadly is that it allows room for disagreement among two people who are both environmentalists. For instance, one might look at the beautiful landscape threatened with wind turbines being placed everywhere and say “no, this landscape is too beautiful. Let’s not spoil it!” Another might reply “yes, but we need to stop burning fossil fuels and this way we can cut down pollution”. Under my definition, both are being as “environmentalists” even though they disagree.

Another reason why I want to insist on a broad definition is that there is a danger of any “ism” becoming a religion or religion-like. Albert Mohler argues persuasively on his blog that the beginnings of this can be seen in environmentalism. I want my environmentalism to be an outworking of my Christian faith, not a religion that I tag on to it because I “should”. I want my environmentalism to be driven not by the collective guilt of the culture or by the views of a group made up mainly of atheists, rather I want it to be a radical, biblical, God-honouring response to the real issues our world faces.

In Part 2 of this post, I’ll be giving the reasons why I am (and I believe every Christian should be) an environmentalist. But before I do that, let me give you a few reasons that don’t work for me.

1. I am not an environmentalist because I am worried about the future ability of the planet to sustain human life. We are often told that we must do this or that because if we don’t our grandchildren will “pay for it”. Now obviously there is a link between what we do and what our descendants experience and I’ll mention this later. History is linear and cause and effect are real. But in his covenant with Noah, God promised  that “while the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease”. At the very least this means, when read in context, that the economy of the Cosmos will be such that human life on earth is sustainable. When Jesus returns, there will be people, believers and unbelievers, living on the planet (1 Thess. 4:16-17). This frees me from being driven by guilt, fear of catastrophe and hype and rather to seek to walk in a biblical, God-centred environmentalism.
2. I am not an environmentalist because of the continuity between this creation and the New Creation. Great work has been done in the last few decades to make the case strongly (and in my view persuasively) that final heaven will be here. It will be on this earth that heaven will descend and the two will be unified (e.g. Rev. 21:1-12). I am convinced about this and am glad that we are finally moving away from medieval ideas of “heaven” that find no support in Scripture. Nevertheless, while there is continuity between the creation and the New Creation, there is also discontinuity. Peter speaks of “burning” and “dissolving (2 Peter 3:10-13), Paul speaks of redemption and renewal (Romans 8:19-21). The idea that final heaven might be less than it might be because we didn’t look after earth properly strikes me as preposterous. The idea that landfill sites might spoil our glorious, eternal home just doesn’t taken seriously the Bible’s emphasis on renewal.
3. I am not an environmentalist because I believe in yin and yang or cosmic consciousness or any other pantheistic or panentheistic theology. Enough said!

Maybe you are beginning to doubt if I really am an environmentalist after all. Well I am and I’ll be writing about the two unswervingly biblical reasons why I am in Part 2.