Twenty years ago this month I unofficially entered the creation-care community when, with the help of friends and family, I founded the Christian Nature Federation.  At a future date I’ll write a bit more about that three-year adventure.  It was an adventure with an aim that many ultimately said was good, right, and essential—but about ten years too soon.  The evangelical community was not ready for it, they said.

It’s my hope and prayer that it is ready now—a hope and prayer shared by many friends, old and new, who met at Judson University in Elgin, Illinois, late last week—in what is still unofficially called the “Creation Care Consultation.”  This was its third meeting, and a great deal was accomplished.  One of the chief accomplishments to me was articulated by Dr. Cal DeWitt, an evangelical professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.  I like to refer to Cal as the dean of the creation-care movement—having been emphasizing good earthkeeping since the time of Francis Schaeffer.  Cal did a wonderful job summarizing what many of us felt at the end of the consultation, and I’d like to share it with the WOC readers in order that you may be encouraged by the spirit of this meeting and what that could mean for the future of this movement—a movement I see as a recovery of a lost fundamental of the historic Christian faith, and one that is moving to the front burner rapidly:

Dr. Cal DeWitt

In building the movement called Creation Care, we have had to meet two great needs, and both have been increasingly met over our thirty years of development: First, was the need to build a creation theology, and more specifically a creation-care theology. This had to be rooted in a thorough and scholarly biblical theology. Most importantly, it also had to be coherent with an integrated scientific understanding of the biosphere and the world.  We have gone a long way in meeting this need.

Second, was the need to find ways to put this evangelical creation-care theology into practice.  This is what we are doing here in this meeting and in the various organizations we serve.

The work of the gospel, by definition, is the work of self-giving and service.  It is self-giving Good News for all creation.  It is praying that God’s will be done on earth.  And it is working to image God’s love for the world.  What our movement also has found is that it is difficult in our day to bring the gospel beyond our selves and our families into our wider communities and even more difficult to bring the gospel to all creation.  We confess that we find it challenging, in the words of Scripture, to bring good news for all creation.  And we pray that we increasingly will be enabled to do this.

We also confess that it is difficult both to gain power and influence through the creation care organizations we administer and develop—and simultaneously serve in Christ-like humility. Ours is the problem of coupling our positions of power and influence with the need to be humble servants.  This, of course, is why Jesus is such a great model for the evangelical creation care movement. Jesus did not control by organizational hierarchy or by corporate power. Christ’s control came through the hearts of people who received His message of passion, compassion, love, and care, and all of these reside at the core of creation care. Temptations to grasp for power were overcome by the passion for caring—caring for each other and for the whole creation. The sometime attempts at human “grasp” were overcome by God’s “gift.”

The Lord’s beatitude, “The meek shall inherit the earth,” raised an important question for our movement: How does one make progress when meekness is the quality and behavior we seek? Our work in creation care is attempting the difficult work of doing just that—to achieve power and influence, and yet do so through meekness.

In our work together, and in the organizations we serve, we commit ourselves to contribute toward building our own story of responsible stewardship—a story we pray will prove to be a continuing story of the power of meekness, love, and care.

See you outdoors!

Dean