The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made. All your works praise you, LORD; your faithful people extol you. They tell of the glory of your kingdom and speak of your might, so that all people may know of your mighty acts and the glorious splendor of your kingdom (Psalm 145:9-12).

Many are aware that a third major “Lausanne Conference” occurred this past fall in Cape Town, South Africa—adding more contemporary issues to what world evangelical leaders believe falls under the Christian responsibility to spread the good news of the Gospel.  Under its Cape Town Commitment is its “Confession of Faith” and “Call to Action.”  Its seventh confession relates directly to the aim and mission of this Wonder of Creation website and its organizational host, RBC Ministries:

Confession 7:  We Love God’s World

We share God’s passion for his world, loving all that God has made, rejoicing in God’s providence and justice throughout his creation, proclaiming the good news to all creation and all nations, and longing for the day when the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.

We love the world of God’s creation. This love is not mere sentimental affection for nature (which the Bible nowhere commands), still less is it pantheistic worship of nature (which the Bible expressly forbids). Rather it is the logical outworking of our love for God by caring for what belongs to him. ‘The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.’ The earth is the property of the God we claim to love and obey. We care for the earth, most simply, because it belongs to the one whom we call Lord.

The earth is created, sustained and redeemed by Christ. We cannot claim to love God while abusing what belongs to Christ by right of creation, redemption and inheritance. We care for the earth and responsibly use its abundant resources, not according to the rationale of the secular world, but for the Lord’s sake. If Jesus is Lord of all the earth, we cannot separate our relationship to Christ from how we act in relation to the earth. For to proclaim the gospel that says ‘Jesus is Lord’ is to proclaim the gospel that includes the earth, since Christ’s Lordship is over all creation. Creation care is a thus a gospel issue within the Lordship of Christ.

Such love for God’s creation demands that we repent of our part in the destruction, waste and pollution of the earth’s resources and our collusion in the toxic idolatry of consumerism. Instead, we commit ourselves to urgent and prophetic ecological responsibility. We support Christians whose particular missional calling is to environmental advocacy and action, as well as those committed to godly fulfillment of the mandate to provide for human welfare and needs by exercising responsible dominion and stewardship. The Bible declares God’s redemptive purpose for creation itself. Integral mission means discerning, proclaiming, and living out the biblical truth that the gospel is God’s good news, through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ, for individual persons, and for society, and for creation. All three are broken and suffering because of sin; all three are included in the redeeming love and mission of God; all three must be part of the comprehensive mission of God’s people.

[See the report by my friend Ed Brown, who was in Cape Town for the conference.]

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools. (Romans 1:18-22)

Paul confronted by Jesus on the road to Damascus by Richard Serrin

So what was my purpose in the last post on “Cosmo’s Fleas”? Just this: to point up the foundational principle of the Wonder of Creation website—that the creation is the general revelation of its Creator to all people regardless of whether or not they have placed their faith in Jesus. The church’s first theologian, Paul, begins his first lesson for the Roman Christians by affirming that the living, breathing Jesus (whom Paul saw after the Ascension and to whom he bowed the knee) was truly the Son of God—affirmed by Jesus’ physical death and His physical resurrection.
[See Richard Serrin's paintings here]

Later, in his letter to the believers in Colossi Paul asserts that Jesus was in fact the Creator, Sustainer, Purpose, Redeemer, and, in the end, the Reconciler of all creation (Colossians 1). In using the analogy of the fleas arguing about the existence of God, I wanted to express how a superior being who could see clearly the reality of both the dog and the fleas would find it absolutely foolish that a flea—whose entire life depended upon the existence of the dog—would claim that the dog does not exist. It should be plain to any flea that everything its senses reveal point to the dog’s existence.

So this website is founded on the understanding that the creation itself by its wonder and awesomeness makes the Creator’s existence plain to every person. Those who disbelieve that what they plainly see, hear, taste, touch, and smell is proof of God’s existence have chosen to deny reality—so they could not accuse God in the final judgment of not revealing His existence to them.

By Hudson River School artist Frederic Church

Further, disbelievers eventually—through denial of their Creator, by ungratefulness to Him, and by wicked behavior—become incapable of seeing Him and invariably turn to idolatry. Paul declares atheistic individuals to be fools, albeit still “religious.” Because the cosmos is so grand, awesome, and beyond human understanding, people will be compelled to worship. The wise will worship the Creator; the foolish will worship the creation. Pagans ritually worship created things and call them God. Humanists simply give the cosmos god-like powers but stop short of calling anything within it God. Both are equally blind—and without excuse. Paganism and humanism eventually lead to the moral disintegration of culture (described by Paul in the remainder of the first chapter of Romans).

By Hudson River School artist Frederic Church

There is an old exclamation that a good friend of mine has altered and uses with his signature on his emails. The original: “If I had not seen it, I never would have believed it!” His alteration: “If I had not believed it, I never would have seen it!” I like that. God has asked us to consider the cosmos and place our faith in Him as its Creator, and He sent Jesus to give us even more than the cosmos as proof of His existence—and proof of His amazing grace and His love for us. “The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent” (2 Peter 3:9).

[Right click on paintings to see them larger.  Read about the Hudson River School here]

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.  Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools (Romans 1:18-22)

A Parable

A strange thing happened last summer. In my continuing attempt to finally rid him of fleas, I had finished giving our dog, Cosmo, a bath. I’d used flea power and a flea collar, but nothing really seemed to work. Perhaps flea shampoo would do the job, I thought.

After the ordeal of the bath, and after his typical shaking and sprinting, we both sort of collapsed together on the family-room carpet and then the dog dozed off. That’s when I heard the voices—voices coming from Cosmo’s back!

I could hardly believe it, but the voices were clear—by their conversation I recognized them to be flea voices. Through some wrinkle in reality, I was being privileged to listen in on a discussion between two surviving fleas. Of all things, they were arguing about the existence of the dog! For want of better terms I’d have to describe the bickering bugs as “dogist” and “nodogist” fleas.

The dogist flea was experiencing great frustration with the nodogist flea who had been badgering, “Okay, just show me the dog. Have you ever seen the dog? You can’t show me the dog because it’s a figment in your mind; it’s imaginary!”

“Certainly,” said the dogist, “the dog does exist in my mind, but that’s because the actual existence of the dog is apparent in everything we know and experience. No, I cannot ‘see’ the dog in its totality because it is beyond my physical capacity—and yours. But generations ago the dog actually became a flea and communicated with a small group of our ancestors and revealed truth about himself to them. Surely you know about it; it’s been written down for a long time. In fact, the very language we use is even tied to the existence of the dog. In reality, nothing ultimately makes sense without the dog.”

“O sure,” says the nodogist flea, “I’m just supposed to take your word for it—or the word of some dog-eared old book that hardly any flea can understand—full of furry tales! You’re asking me to believe you and the words of some ignorant ancient fleas over the words and works of the wisest of living fleas who have studied hair, dandruff, skin, and blood with the best of technology and have found that belief in the dog is superstitious nonsense. No I don’t think so! It’s nonsense—non-science, get it?”

The conversation continued for some time. The dogist flea clearly and correctly saw everything in his world as evidence for the dog. He believed that all flea life depends upon the dog. The nodogist flea saw everything in his world as spontaneously generated matter. He admitted that much of his experience seemed to be tied to something that has life beyond his own, seemed to be marked by intelligence and purpose, and screamed out for coherence and meaning, but he passed it all off as the result of chance plus time plus space which demonstrates apparent, but not real, intelligent design. “Everything seen and unseen is nothing more than a meaningless cosmos,” he declared “Only fleas can give it meaning.” Then he quoted some deceased, famous, and worldly-wise materialist flea: “The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.”

“Yes, yes!” I wanted to yell in support of the dogist flea. “You’re close. You’re looking at Cosmo, yet you don’t see Cosmo. You’ve virtually used Cosmo’s name and don’t know him!” But I knew he would never hear. I’d have to be a flea to get him to understand. The dogist flea, of course, had it right, and I had to admire his faith. He doggedly continued trying to convince the nodogist flea of the truth. The believing flea was discovering that there is no blindness so dark as self-chosen blindness.

They went on to discuss their commonalities, how they both “saw” the same things: hair, follicles, dandruff, dust, skin, and that all-important blood that gives them life. Then in more hushed and sober voices they talked about the tragedies of life: the great white mashers, the five-tined rakes, the dust storms, the quakes, and the foamy floods like the one they had just experienced. They both marveled at the wonders of the two identical glassy pools; the hot, steamy, and dangerous cavern with its pink, slippery, undulating floor, and its beautiful pearly white stalagmites and stalactites; the two identical, dark, moist, and windy caves; and the twin labyrinthine canyons which lie virtually hidden under identical, constantly moving flaps of skin and hair.

So on and on the discussion went. Lying with my head on Cosmo’s flank, I thought long and hard about the materialist flea with all his confidence that there was no dog. Thinking himself informed, he went on ignoring the fundamental truth of their flea life: the existence of Cosmo. How interesting it is, I mused, that both fleas could go on living with their different beliefs—living on the very back of the dog whose existence they were debating—one knowing the obvious truth and the other denying it.

Finally I got a little bored, and knowing how much grief those fleas caused Cosmo, I was tempted to comb them out and then snuff out their miserable little lives, but for some reason, the faith of the believing flea caused me to hold back. I felt a kinship with it.  His existence and my existence raised the same questions—and demanded the same answers.

[Photos: my real dog, Shadow]

The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it (Psalm 24:1).

The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it (Genesis 1:15).

In 1989, with the help of two colleagues at Biola University, I founded the Christian Nature Federation.  It was an amazing adventure, but, as many said, “It was way ahead of its time.”  After three years, we had to close up shop for lack of financial backing.  You can read more about it in this post: A Milestone.

Yesterday I was rummaging through some old papers and came across a printed statement on caring for creation I wrote and sent to the CNF membership, a statement using an apt word some of the creation-care pioneers had coined to describe what our human responsibility is regarding God’s gift of the earth: earthkeepers.  I wonder if the conservative evangelical community of which I have always been a part is anymore ready to make this affirmation some twenty years later:

Jean-Francois Millet, The Diggers, c. 1850 – 55 Tweed Museum of Art

Earthkeeper’s Understanding

I believe that a personal, loving God created the heavens and the earth, and that He created man in his own image.  I understand that human beings are unique in all creation.  Endowed alone with the ability to reason and to make moral choices, mankind has a superior position over the rest of creation that involves a God-given authority and responsibility to care for it as a good steward.  While recognizing that the finite human mind cannot fully comprehend the “why” or the “how” of the creation process, I nonetheless thank God for the natural world—His general revelation to all people—that sustains life.  Therefore, I humbly submit myself to the earthkeeping responsibilities handed down to me as a descendant of the caretakers of Eden.

I wonder what would happen if this became a standard affirmation among followers of Christ around the world.  Is it still “ahead of its time,” or is it simply outside our power to effect?

[Note the simple and elegant "rule of thirds" used by Millet in his painting.]

Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all the depths; fire and hail, snow and clouds; stormy wind, fulfilling His word; mountains and all hills; fruitful trees and all cedars; beasts and all cattle; creeping things and flying fowl; kings of the earth and all peoples; princes and all judges of the earth; both young men and maidens; old men and children. (Psalm 148:7-12)

The Terraces, Yellowstone

Few people fail to be touched by a stunning photo of natural beauty or a gripping verbal description of natural events.  But that is not enough for our souls.  To truly grasp creation’s meaning, one must experience it. The wild highlights our finitude, vulnerability, and our utter and complete dependence upon the creating and sustaining power of God.

John Calvin called the natural world the “theater of God’s glory,” but it is even more than a theater; it’s a cathedral.  And awareness of God’s holiness only occurs when we enter it with the right spirit.  The word “cathedral” comes from the Latin term for “chair”: cathedra.  Traditionally a cathedral is the sacred place where a church bishop has his chair of authority—his throne.  While human bishops are supposed to keep us mindful of our stewardship role in the created order, too often the trappings and traditions of man hinder our capacity to hear the “still, small voice” of God in our urban churches.

For that reason, it’s important for us to preserve and treasure the cathedral of wilderness where we see that God, the ultimate authority, is clearly on the throne and where His wordless revelation can still be clearly seen and understood (Romans 1:20).  When truly attentive people enter the wild, they immediately recognize the signs that this is holy ground—a place where to them a flaming autumn maple is no less evidence of God’s miracle-working power and presence than the burning bush was to Moses.

Mountain goat, Beartooth Pass, Montana

Also important is for us to recognize that in the wilderness sanctuary we’re not alone in the impulse to worship.  God’s other creatures worship there as well.  As the prophets Isaiah and David remind us, all created things in their own nature respond to God—even trees, rivers, and mountains. (Isa. 55:12; Psa. 98:8)  This amazing truth from the Old Testament is echoed in the Revelation where all God’s creatures are seen as worshiping the One who died in order that the cosmos may be redeemed: “Every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying: ‘Blessing and honor and glory and power be to Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb [Jesus Christ], forever and ever!’” (Rev. 5:13)

Let this wonderful hymn, penned by the psalmist some three thousand years ago, resound in your heart whenever you worship in creation’s cathedral:

Heaven and earth proclaim

Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise Him in the heights! Praise Him, all His angels; praise Him, all His hosts! Praise Him, sun and moon; praise Him, all you stars of light! Praise Him, you heavens of heavens, and you waters above the heavens! Let them praise the name of the Lord, for He commanded and they were created. He also established them forever and ever; He made a decree which shall not pass away. Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all the depths; fire and hail, snow and clouds; stormy wind, fulfilling His word; mountains and all hills; fruitful trees and all cedars; beasts and all cattle; creeping things and flying fowl; kings of the earth and all peoples; princes and all judges of the earth; both young men and maidens; old men and children. Let them praise the name of the Lord, for His name alone is exalted; His glory is above the earth and heaven (Psalm 148:1-13).

[Click on photos to see them enlarged. ]