Wonder of Creation » Creation Quotations

Creation Quotations

Vigen Guroian

Several summers ago my children found two turtles and put them in the vegetable garden. During a thaw the next February, as I was digging up the soggy soil where the peas go, I lifted a heavy mound with my shovel, and then another. The two turtles had burrowed down for winter sleep, and I had rudely awakened them too soon. So I carried them to a corner of the garden where I would not disturb them and dug them in again. When my wife said that she feared the turtles might be dead, I said I did not think so (though I wasn’t as sure as I sounded). I insisted that in spring they would come up. And they did in Easter week.

Lilies and hyacinths signify the resurrection, and I can understand why. But I have a pair of turtles that plant themselves in my garden each fall like two gigantic seeds and rise on Easter with earthen crowns upon their humbled heads. With the women at the tomb, I marvel. For “Christ did arise, Christ did awaken/Out of the virgin tomb, out of the tomb of light” (Armenian Ode for Ordinary Sundays). And he leads us back, back into the garden of delight.

The Fragrance of God by Vigen Guroian

Aldo Leopold

A Land Ethic

It is inconceivable to me that an ethical relation to land can exist without love, respect, and admiration for land and a high regard for its value. By value, I of course mean something far broader than mere economic value; I mean value in the philosophical sense.

Perhaps the most serious obstacle impeding the evolution of a land ethic is the fact that our educational and economic system is headed away from, rather than toward, a intense consciousness of land. Your true modern is separate from the land by many middlemen, and by innumerable physical gadgets. He has no vital relation to it; to him it is the space between cities on which crops grow. Turn him loose for a day on the land, and if the spot does not happen to be a golf links or a ‘scenic’ area, he is bored stiff. If crops could be raised by hydroponics instead of farming, it would suit him very well. Synthetic substitutes for wood, leather, wool, and other natural land products suit him better than the originals. In short, land is something he has ‘outgrown.’

Almost equally serious as an obstacle to a land ethic is the attitude of the farmer for whom the land is still an adversary or a taskmaster that keeps him in slavery. Theoretically, the mechanization of farming ought to cut the farmer’s chains, ‘ but whether it really does is debatable.

One of the requisites for an ecological comprehension of land is an understanding of ecology, and this is by no means co-extensive with ‘education’; in fact, much higher education seems deliberately to avoid ecological concepts. An understanding of ecology does not necessarily originate in courses bearing ecological labels; it is quite as likely to be labeled geography, botany, agronomy, history, or economics. This is as it should be, but whatever the label, ecological training is scarce.

The case for a land ethic would appear hopeless but for the minority which is in obvious revolt against these ‘modern’ trends.

The ‘key-log’ which must be moved to release the evolutionary process for an ethic is simply this: quit thinking about decent land-use as solely an economic problem. Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and esthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.

Aldo Leopold was born in Burlington, Iowa, on January 11 1887. As a boy he developed a lively interest in field ornithology and natural history and after schooling in Burlington, at Lawrenceville Prep in New Jersey, and the She field Scientific School at Yale, he enrolled in the Yale forestry school, the first graduate school of forestry in the United States. Graduating with a masters in 1909, he joined the U.S. Forest Service, by 1912 was supervisor of the million-acre Carson National Forest, and in 1924 accepted the position of Associate Director of the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin, the principal research institution of the Forest Service at that time. In 1933 he was appointed to the newly created chair in Game Management at the University of Wisconsin, a position he held until his death.

Leopold was throughout his life at the forefront of the conservation movement—indeed, he is widely acknowledged as the father of wildlife conservation in America. Though perhaps best known for A Sand County Almanac, he was also an internationally respected scientist, authored the classic text Game Management, which is still in use today, wrote over 350 articles, mostly on scientific and policy matters and was an advisor on conservation to the United Nations He died of a heart attack on April 21, 1948 while helping his neighbors fight a grass fire. He has subsequently been named to the National Wildlife Federation’s Conservation Hall of Fame, and in 1978, the John Burroughs Memorial Association awarded him the John Burroughs Medal for his lifework and, in particular, for A Sand County Almanac.

Alister McGrath

Alister McGrath is former professor of theology at Oxford and principal of Oxford’s Wycliffe Hall [pictured] as well as a contributing editor at Christianity Today. In his book The Reenchantment of Nature, McGrath has written one of the most comprehensive reviews of the historic Christian understanding of the meaning of nature as the general revelation of God. Hardly anything that Alister writes is less than comprehensive! Among the important points he makes about the significance of the material world is that God took on himself the form of material man in the person of Christ: the Incarnation

Here are some of his thoughts on the implication of God becoming incarnate within his creation:

The Trinitarian conception of God affirms that God is to be thought of as both creator of the world and creative presence within it. And if God inhabits the natural order, the place of divine habitation must be treated with respect. In the Christian tradition nature is not divine, nor is it possessed of any divine quality [contrary to pantheistic thought]. Nevertheless, it is and remains both God’s possession and the place of the indwelling of the one “who fills all in all” (Eph. 1:23)

The Christian idea of the natural order as God’s place of action and dwelling is intensified by the doctrine of the incarnation, perhaps one of the most remarkable Christian ideas. In essence, the doctrine holds that God did not choose to remain in heaven, but entered into human history in the form of a human being. Rather than demanding that we ascend to God in order to be saved, God chose to enter into our world, to meet us there and bring us home. In insisting that Jesus Christ is both divine and human, Christian theologians affirm that God entered into the natural world and redeemed it from within. If God valued this world enough to enter it, and dignify it with the divine presence, then Christians ought to hold that place of habitation with appropriate respect. . . .

The Christian vision of the future takes the form of the renewal and transformation of creation. The day will come when “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay” (Rom. 8:19-23) and achieve the glorious freedom for which it was created. This theme is reiterated throughout the Old Testament, which frequently looks forward to the final restoration and reintegration of nature. What has been distorted and ruined will finally be restored to its original integrity—including the animal kingdom: “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox: but the serpent—its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord” (Isa. 65:25). . . . [Wolf and lamb photo source]

Perhaps Christians have been slow to realize the full ecological implications of their rich theological heritage. Yet there can be no doubt that Christianity possesses and is distinguished by a set of beliefs that affirm the importance of respecting, tending, and preserving the natural order. There are doubtless many “bad” Christians who fail to appreciate what their tradition demands of them, or prefer to overlook the implicit ecological dimensions of their faith. That is, however, a criticism of individual Christians, not of the fundamental vision of Christianity itself. I have no doubt that Christians need to be more attentive and sensitive to this issue, and to welcome criticism of individuals and churches when they fail to live up to their ideals in these matters. This is a vitally important role that environmentalists from outside the Christian faith can play in keeping the churches faithful to their calling. But it is quite untrue to suggest that Christianity itself, by definition and account of its fundamental ideas and values, is antienvironmental. . . .

The critical role of Christianity in emphasizing human accountability for the environment, and placing limits on human exploitation of nature, is only now being recognized—at a time when it is needed more than ever.

Carl F.H. Henry

Selected statements from God, Revelation, and Authority
(Vol. II, “God Who Speaks and Shows: Fifteen Theses, Part One”)

Today’s conceptualization of the real once again so anchors the totality of existence in natural processes that it erodes any final significance for personal reality, divine or human. Irreducibly at stake in the contrast of the biblical and scientistic views is. . . in short, whether God is truly known in his self-revelation or is mere fiction. . . .

Either one must abandon the Hebrew-Christian view of the universe, or one must repudiate contemporary naturalism and its radical misrepresentation of reality. One must uphold either the biblical emphasis on the ontological priority of the intelligible Creator or opt for the contemporary reduction of ultimate reality to natural processes. The issue is that precise and that clear-cut. . . .

Man, in whom the elements of nature focus in a special responsible rationality, exists in a divinely established reliance on both God and created nature. . . . Man. . . acts culpably and knowingly when he fails to find evidence for God’s order in nature whenever the external world forces him to revise hypotheses or when its behavior fulfills his expectations, no less than when he shares in wantonly destroying and polluting nature and in grafting the technological monstrosities and the ugly scars of alien conquest upon nature’s visage. The Christian apostle’s verdict—”they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful” (Rom. 1:21 KJV)—is as equally appropriate to the modern age of technocratic scientism as it was to the ancient pagan religions.

God has much more in mind and at stake in nature than a backdrop for man’s comfort and convenience, or even a stage for the drama of human salvation. His purpose includes redemption of the cosmos that man has implicated in the Fall. Today the ecological problem is often stated in a way that accommodates the divorce and alienation of history and nature by exaggerating the importance of man and downgrading the importance of nature; the ecological problem thus becomes one of man’s survival.

Because God considers the human more important than the subhuman, it becomes easy for prideful man to conclude that external nature is not only less important than man, but also of no value apart from him. He sees nature intended solely for his preferred use as he autonomously manipulates it, as lacking beauty except as he pronounces it beautiful, and as having value only as and if he can channel it to human welfare. . . . Concern over the extinction of vanishing species has its place in a Christian outlook, but in a naturalistic view it hardly has in it a vestigial remnant of reason. If man himself is only a passing phase of the evolutionary process, how can a wholly unknown future burden him with moral obligations for lesser species of life?

Ecological experts readily concede that appeals based on human survival lack motivational power unless they also involve immediate self-interest. . . . Those who argue that if self-interest got us into the difficulty, self-interest will also extricate us from it, seem to forget that interest in the species’ future differs considerably from one’s individual present interest. Without a persuasive metaphysics [biblical worldview], human beings will simply pursue their own immediate advantage or desires. . . . The basic issue in ecology, as in every other human problem, is not only the nature of man, nor even the nature of nature, but ultimately also the nature and will of God. . . .

It is unfair to blame Christianity for the ecological crisis; what’s more, Christianity is best able to arrest it. The Bible has timeless relevance for ecological problems; neither heirs of nor strangers to the Judeo-Christian outlook can afford to overlook its message. . . .

Scientific naturalism, not Christian theism, nurtures man’s disposition to desecrate the cosmos. Disinterested abuse of nature is a fearsome by-product whenever scientific abstraction assesses external reality without cognizance of personal moral will. . . . If ecology is a moral concern, that concern can hardly be supported or enlivened by a merely scientistic conception of nature whose methodology is intrinsically blind to ethical norms. . . . The present indignation over the ecological crisis is simply an emotional surd, unless contrary to technocratic scientism it presupposes mankind and human culture to be not simply functions and reflexes of the natural world but also somehow distinct from the cosmos and responsibly related to it. The human species has already done much to upset the earthly balances which sustain life; the biblical revelation provides the most persuasive reasons why mankind can and ought to take a very different course. . . .

Less imaginative and more biblically based is the fact, now almost wholly absent from ecological considerations, that God who reveals himself discloses not simply his common grace, but also his wrath in nature as well as in history. Not only in earthquake and flood, which insurance statisticians readily salute as acts of God, but in ecology also, the hand of God points an indignant finger at man’s obliviousness to God’s purposes in the cosmos. . . . If the heavens declare only the prevalence of industrial smog, if day after day uttereth only the chatter of mass media, then the glory of God as veiled by technocratic scientism is conceivably indeed a form of judgment. . . .

It seriously distorts both the Old and New Testaments to say that man alone matters to God. From the creation account onward the Bible boldly correlates the fortunes of the cosmos with those of man. Even if man made in his image is declared “very good,” God identifies the created gradations of existence that precede man as “good.” The earth was not made for man to manipulate as he pleases. Indeed, he is given the vocation of keeping and dressing the Garden (Gen. 2:15). . . .

The messianic vision comprehends a restoration of the unity of man and nature. . . . The terrible imbalances that man’s inordinate will has introduced into the natural realm can be solved only if the question of existence is once again set in its proper context. Only the knowledge of God and its implications for man’s true self-understanding and for the cosmic implications of redemption can restore order and beauty. . . .

The imperative need is for man to do what is right. The right is what God wills, and God’s will embraces man and nature alike. God did not create the world a waste or chaos but a place to be settled. God’s purpose in nature is correlated with his purpose for man. It envisions obedient human sonship as attested by the incarnation of God-man, the divine agent in creation of the cosmos and of man. Though man’s welfare, properly understood, is indeed a legitimate criterion in approaching nature, this must be comprehended through a restoration of nature and man alike to their divinely intended purpose. . . .

Every conjectural philosophy of nature is an oblique response to revelational realities. . . .

Wendell Berry

The Gift of Good Stewardship

The great study of stewardship, then, is “to know/That which before us lies in daily life” and to talk about skill. In the loss of skill we lose stewardship; in losing stewardship we lose fellowship; we become outcasts from the great neighborhood of Creation. It is possible—as our experience in this good land shows—to exile ourselves from Creation, and to ally ourselves with the principle of destruction—which is, ultimately, the principle of nonentity. It is to be willing in general for beings to not-be. And once we have allied ourselves with that principle, we are foolish to think that we can control the results. The “regulation” of abominations is a modern governmental exercise that never succeeds. If we are willing to pollute the air—to harm the elegant creature known as the atmosphere—by that token we are willing to harm all creatures that breathe, ourselves and our children among them. There is no begging off or “trading off.” You cannot affirm the power plant and condemn the smokestack, or affirm the smoke and condemn the cough.

That is not to suggest that we can live harmlessly, or strictly at our own expense; we depend upon other creatures and survive by their deaths. To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of Creation. When we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament. When we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration. In such desecration we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness, and others to want.

Wendell Berry, an essayist, novelist, and poet, has been honored with the T.S. Eliot Award, the Aitken Taylor Award for poetry, and the John Hay Award of the Orion Society. He lives with his wife on a farm in Henry County, Kentucky. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the publication of this seminal stewardship essay in Wendell Berry’s book, The Gift of Good Land: Further Essays Cultural and Agricultural.

Katharine Hayhoe and Andrew Farley

Global warming facts for faith-based decisions

A Climate For Change

As Christians, we’re naturally suspicious of people who believe differently from us. How can such activists—those whose voices have so often been raised against us on fundamental issues like family and the sanctity of life—have anything worthwhile to say about the environment?

In the past, we may have seen climate change used as a political tool on the part of this party or that organization to manipulate and get what they want. Our hesitations are justified. It’s hard to trust information from sources we feel might manipulate facts to suit their political agenda. But the issue of climate change really is different. It’s not about blue politics or red politics or any kind of politics. It’s about thermometer readings and history.

J. D’Laine Strovas’ review on Amazon.com

I come from a very conservative Christian family who appreciates science and all it has done to improve our society, but is also skeptical of the science behind “liberal” agendas. Since people like Al Gore are outspoken on climate issues, many conservative Christians tend to think that climate change is strictly a Democratic platform and therefore is not entirely scientific. A Climate For Change takes the political issues out of climate change and presents the hard science in an easy-to-read and logical format.

Dr. Katharine Hayhoe is a climate science professor at Texas Tech University and served on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. These credentials merit her expertise in the field of climate change. Dr. Andrew Farley is a linguist professor at Texas Tech University and pastor of a local evangelical church. His thoughts on Christianity, and our responsibility for the earth and its inhabitants, bring a special focus that no other books on climate change currently offer.

I highly suggest buying this book for the conservative Christian in your family who can’t seem to move past the political undertones of climate change. It presents the basic science behind our changing climate and debunks some commonly used arguments against human induced climate change (for example: “Don’t scientists disagree whether climate change is currently happening and whether it is being caused and/or exacerbated by human actions?”-NO!)

C. S. Lewis

Annihilating Space

In his autobiography, Surprised By Joy, C.S. Lewis writes:

I number it among my blessings that my father had no car, while yet most of my friends had, and sometimes took me for a drive. This meant that all these distant objects could be visited just enough to clothe them with memories and not impossible desires, while yet they remained ordinarily as inaccessible as the Moon. The deadly power of rushing about wherever I pleased had not been given me. I measured distance by the standard of man, man walking on his two feet, not by the standard of the internal combustion engine. I had not been allowed to deflower the very idea of distance; in return I possessed “infinite riches” in what would have been to motorists “a little room.” The truest and most horrible claim made for modern transport is that it “annihilates space.” It does. It annihilates one of the most glorious gifts we have been given. It is a vile inflation which lowers the value of distance, so that a modern boy travels a hundred miles with less sense of liberation and pilgrimage and adventure than his grandfather got from traveling ten. Of course if a man hates space and wants it to be annihilated, that is another matter. Why not creep into his coffin at once? There is little enough space there.

Brian McLaren

Consider The Turtles Of The Field

Many Evangelicals Find Themselves In An Emerging Theological Habitat,

Where Care Of Creation Is Central To Mission.

Right now, I’m thigh-deep in muck. Clad in hip waders, I’m slogging through a spring-fed bog in northern Maryland. I’m surrounded by tussock sedge, alder, jewelweed, skunk cabbage, and swamp rose. And I’m having a great time. I’ve done this for a couple of days almost every spring for the last dozen years. I’m out here as a volunteer to do wildlife surveys. In particular, we’re looking for the rarest turtle in North America, Glyptemys muhlenbergii, the little four-inch bog turtle. In the 1970s, they were found in more than 400 sites in our little state. In the 1990s, we could only find them in about half those sites. The other sites had been ditched, drained, bulldozed, polluted, invaded by non-native plants, bisected by roads for turtle-smashing cars, depleted by collectors, or otherwise made uninhabitable for these little creatures.

When I meet professional wildlife biologists and other volunteers, they’re surprised that an evangelical (or post-evangelical, or “younger evangelical,” or whatever) pastor would be out here doing this sort of thing. They’re not used to seeing mud-smeared pastors who aren’t afraid to grope around in bog muck for turtles or who keep track of chorus frogs and Baltimore checkerspots and Indian paintbrush. I know what they’re thinking:

Christians, especially ones associated with the term “evangelical,” are part of the problem, not part of the solution. They listen to James Dobson and Pat Robertson and James Kennedy, not Wendell Berry and Herman Daly; they focus on the family and the military, not the environment. The surface causes of environmental carelessness among conservative Protestants are legion, including subcontracting the evangelical mind out to right-wing politicians and greedy business interests. Putting the gospel of Jesus through the strainer of consumerist-capitalism and retaining only the thin broth that this modern-day Caesar lets pass through…a tendency to be against whatever “liberals” are for. Even more important, though, are the deeper theological roots of environmental disinterest—and the emerging theological values that many of us are embracing instead. People who are sensitive to creation know that creation is in constant flux. Continents drift, climates change, magnetic poles flip-flop, and bogs like this one gradually give way to wet meadows and then various kinds of forests.

There’s a natural succession out here under the sun, and I think there’s a kind of natural succession going on theologically for many Christians as well. Let me mention three of these elements:

First, increased concern for the poor and oppressed leads to increased concern for all of creation. The same forces that hurt widows and orphans, minorities and women, children and the elderly also hurt the songbirds and trout, the ferns and old growth forests: greed, impatience, selfishness, arrogance, hurry, anger, competition, irreverence-plus a spirituality that cares for souls but neglects bodies, that prepares for eternity in heaven but abandons history on earth. When greed and consumerism are exposed, when arrogance and irreverence are unplugged, when hurry and selfishness are named and repented of, the world and all it contains (widows, orphans, trees, soil) are revalued (or re-deemed) and made sacred again. No, in this emerging view, these little bog turtles we’re looking for today are a priceless treasure, an original creation of the greatest Artist in (and beyond) history-even though they are deemed precisely worthless to someone who would want to build a interstate highway through this bog.

Second, the eschatology of abandonment is being replaced by an engaging gospel of the kingdom. The phenomenon of evangelical-dispensational eschatology (doctrine of last things or end times) makes perfect sense in the modern world. Understandably, Christians in the power centers of modernity (England in the 1800s, the United States in the 1900s) saw nothing ahead in the story of modernity-nothing but destruction. Their only hope?

A skyhook Second Coming, wrapping up the whole of creation like an empty candy wrapper and throwing it in the trash can, and the sooner the better, so God could bring us all to heaven, beyond time, beyond matter, beyond this creation entirely. In this model, virtually no continuity exists between this creation and the new heavenly creation; this creation is discarded like a non-recyclable milk carton. Why get sentimental about a cheap container destined for the cosmic dumpster of nothingness? This pop-evangelical eschatology made one understandable but serious mistake: It assumed that modernity was all there was or ever would be. Just as the early Christians could not imagine the gospel outlasting the Roman Empire (unless they got the point of the Apocalypse of John), 19th and 20th century evangelicals couldn’t imagine the gospel outlasting modernity, the empire of reason, consumerism, and individualism. For pop-evangelical eschatology to proliferate and maintain hegemony, it had to reinterpret the Hebrew prophets. Their prophetic visions of reconciliation and shalom within history (metaphorically conveyed via lions and lambs, children and serpents, swords and plowshares, spears and pruning hooks) had to be pushed beyond history, either into a spiritualized heaven or a millennial middle ground-between history and eternity, so to speak. The eschatology of abandonment also had to marginalize Jesus (which they did, to a degree, by letting Jesus remain as savior but promoting Paul to master-teacher).

But now, as more and more of us rediscover Jesus as master-teacher, we are struck by the centrality of “the kingdom of God” in Jesus’ message (and Paul’s too). And it is clear to us that this kingdom is not just about heaven after we die: It’s about God’s will (or wish) being “done on earth” now, in history. In this kingdom, Jesus said, sparrows matter. Lilies of the field matter. Yes, people matter even more, but it’s not a matter of either/or; it’s a matter of degree in a world where everything that is good matters-where everything God made matters. God sent Jesus into the world with a saving love, and Jesus sends us with a similar saving love-love for the orphans and widows, the prostitutes and lepers, the poor and forgotten to be sure, but also for the little creatures who suffer from the same selfish greed and arrogance that oppress vulnerable humans.

Third, the hallowed concept of private ownership is being confronted by the biblical concept of stewardship. If liberal Christianity was tempted in the last century to become the civil religion of socialism that reverences state ownership, then certainly conservative Christianity has since become the happy mistress of capitalism that enshrines private ownership. No wonder then that private ownership and private enterprise are defended by many conservative Christians as vigorously as the doctrine of the Trinity or salvation by grace. For increasing numbers of us who consider ourselves post-liberal and post-conservative, words like private (meaning personal and individual), ownership (meaning autonomous personal and individual control), and enterprise (meaning autonomous, personal, individual control over projects that use God’s world for our purposes) seem to fly in the face of kingdom values. Values such as community (meaning seeing beyond the individual to the communal), fellowship (which means sharing, holding in common with the community, not grasping as “mine!”), and mission (meaning our participation in God’s projects in God’s world for God’s purposes). Can there be some alternative to the extremes that either deny or enshrine private ownership? Could a biblical stewardship that celebrates God’s ultimate ownership someday fuel a new grace-based economy-just as private ownership currently fuels our greed-based consumerist economy (or as government ownership fuels a control-based socialist economy)? A stewardship economy doesn’t see every majestic mountain as a potential site for strip-mining operations, nor does it see forests as board-feet of marketable lumber, nor does it see this spring-fed emergent wetland (drained and bulldozed) as a lucrative site for a “housing development” (an unfitting term if there ever was one, since bulldozers and pavement un-develop in hours what it took God’s creation centuries to develop). Rather, whatever we “own” (including the molecules and cells that constitute our bodies) is really lent and entrusted to us by God, received by us and reverently used for a time, after which we must let go one way or another—either through giving and voluntary sharing, or through dying and involuntary relinquishing.

So, what do we do differently in this emerging theological habitat, this new stage in the spiritual forest succession? That remains to be seen. But for starters, we see differently, and we care differently, and we value differently-and if those differences catch on, with Christianity being the largest religion in the world, there are bound to be good effects in our world. Ultimately, those effects will have to go beyond the important but limited conservation actions of individuals (recycling, reusing, abstaining, etc.). The effects of caring will have to change our systems-transportation systems that depend on fossil fuels and that divide and devastate our nonhuman neighbors’ habitats, housing systems that maximize human impact through suburban sprawl, farming systems that violate rather than steward land, advertising systems that make us want more stuff that we don’t need and that will soon fill even more square miles with trash. Even our family systems will need reconsideration. For example, we may realize that nuclear family (of so much Christian focus) and “subatomic family” (i.e. the nuclear family further split by divorce) both require (and waste) more resources than the truly traditional family – the extended or “molecular” one. Could extended families and intentional households ever make a comeback? If they do, it will be good news for all of creation-including humans. Okay. Enough talk. I need to continue my survey.

It’s one little way as a member of my watershed (one’s watershed being one’s most important creational address, by the way-more important than nation, state, or zip code) that I can express my care for creation. A care that flows from my identity: a creature who wants to care for other creatures, because I am made in the image of a Creator who cares for us all. I hope you’ll find your own ways to express care too, wherever your creational address.

Sojourners Magazine, March 2004 (Vol. 33, No. 3, pp. 14-20).

McGuffey and His Readers

By John H. Westerhoff III
(Mott Media, 1982; p. 82)

From the perspective of McGuffey’s Readers, every object in the natural world, like every phase of experience, can be understood properly only in relation to God. That is, everything in creation is grounded in and expressive of God’s purposes. We, therefore, live most meaningfully in harmony with nature. Our ideal environment is not what we have created, but what God has created. We are called to be stewards of God’s creation. While acknowledging that we all benefit from God’s creation, the lessons in McGuffey’s Readers impress upon us the point that we are not to misuse nature for our benefit. Respect, not control, is our proper relationship to the natural world.

A person may speak of “my” garden or property, but everyone knows that these are only entrusted to our care. God created them, and they are His. He has given the care of His creation to His creatures and will one day require an account of our faithfulness.

God designed nature for our benefit, both for our physical needs and our spiritual training, be we are never to forget that the natural world belongs to God. We depart from a steward’s life close to nature at our peril. Further, the design of the world is evidence of God’s faultless planning. Nature, therefore, can be studied to reveal the character and glory of God.

From Entropy: Into the Greenhouse World

by Jeremy Rifkin
Bantam Books, 1980 (revised in 1989) [From the chapter titled "A Second Christian Reformation"]

Sin is people’s hubris in believing that they can treat God’s creations differently than God does; namely, manipulate and exploit them for purposes other than what they were created for. Sin is also people’s hubris in believing that they can reorder this world and redefine its purpose to suit their own whims and fancies. The Christian life must be one of conserving wholeness over fragmentation, balance over imbalance, and harmony over disharmony. A Christian must love God’s creation and treat it with respect because God created it with love.

Dominion, then, does not mean the right to exploit nature. Far from it, say the scholars. Dominion means stewardship over nature. Henlee H. Barnett, in his book The Church and the Ecological Crisis, points out that the Biblical view of humankind “is that of a keeper, caretaker, custodian . . . of the household earth.” Stewardship, says Barnett is “the New Testament term for this role of human beings in relation to the natural order.” The first requisite of a steward, according to Barnett, “is faithfulness, because he handles that which belongs to another.” The concept of stewardship leads directly to the Biblical notion of covenant. In Genesis, God says, “I established my Covenant with you [humankind], and with your seed after you and with every living created thing.”

God, then, has a covenant with humanity. Men and women are to act as His stewards on earth, preserving and protecting all of God’s creations. This covenant puts human beings in a special relationship to God. Since people are a creation of God, just like all of God’s other creations, they are equal to them in their finite nature; only God is infinite. While all creations are equal in that they owe their existence to the same source – God – human beings are nonetheless different. The difference, as Francis Schaeffer points out in his book Pollution and the Death of Man, is that human beings are made by God in his image and are given the responsibility to act as stewards over the rest of God’s creation. Therefore, people are both part of nature, equal to and dependent on all other living creatures, and at the same time separate from nature with a responsibility to protect and take care of it. As long as people accept both relationships, they are faithful to God’s purpose and are carrying out the covenant God made with them. However, when people take advantage of their special relationship by taking over God’s creation as their own, using it for their own ends rather than God’s glory, they have broken the covenant and are rebelling against God.

Micah Network 4th Triennial Global Consultation on Creation Stewardship and Climate Change

Foreword by René Padilla, International President, Micah Network

The Declaration on Creation Stewardship and Climate Change, which synthesizes the findings of the Fourth Triennial Global Consultation held in Kenya by the Micah Network from13-18 July 2009, may perhaps in time be regarded as the most significant document coming out of the evangelical movement on a subject that has hardly received in the past the attention it deserves from people who confess the triune God as the God of Creation.

Drafted by an international network that managed to organize very active participation in group discussion on the part of the people attending the Consultation, this document is a superb summary of the ecological concerns of a global evangelical network fully committed to God’s integral mission, conceived as the proclamation and demonstration of the Gospel. The hope is that the Declaration will not only serve as an agenda for the members of the Micah Network but that it will also encourage Christians everywhere to take seriously the global environmental crisis resulting from “ignorance, neglect, arrogance and greed,” to overcome the traditional dichotomy between evangelism and socio-ecological responsibility, and to become actively engaged in practicing and promoting the care of God’s creation.

Established in 1999, the Micah Network has grown into a worldwide movement of over 500 Christian relief, development and justice organizations churches and individuals. It includes over 330 active members and 230 associate members from over 80 countries. Its primary objective is to encourage the practice of that, according to the text from which it derives its name, God requires of his people: “To act justly and love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).

17 July 2009

Declaration on Creation Stewardship
and Climate Change

We, members of the Micah Network[1], gathering together from 38 countries on all 5 continents, met at Limuru, Kenya from 13–18 July 2009 for its 4th Triennial Global Consultation. On the matter of Creation Stewardship and Climate Change, we sought God’s wisdom and cried out for the Holy Spirit’s guidance as we reflected on the global environmental crisis. As a result of our discussions, reflections and prayers, we make the following declaration:

1. We believe in God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit in community – who is the creator, sustainer and Lord of all. God delights in His creation, and is committed to it.[2]

2. In the beginning, God established just relationships amongst all of creation. Women and men – as image-bearers of God – are called to serve and love the rest of creation, accountable to God as stewards. Our care for creation is an act of worship and obedience towards the Creator.[3]

3. We, however, have not always been faithful stewards. Through our ignorance, neglect, arrogance and greed, we have harmed the earth and broken creation’s relationships.[4] Our failure to be faithful stewards has caused the current environmental crisis, leading to climate change, and putting the earth’s ecosystems at risk. All creation has been subjected to futility and decay because of our disobedience.[5]

4. Yet God remains faithful.[6] In Christ’s incarnation, life, death and resurrection, God is at work to reconcile all of creation to Himself.[7] We hear the groaning of creation as in the pains of childbirth. This is the promise that God will act, and is already at work, to renew all things.[8] This is the hope that sustains us.

5. We confess that we have sinned. We have not cared for the earth with the self-sacrificing and nurturing love of God. Instead, we have exploited, consumed and abused it for our own advantage. We have too often yielded to the idolatry that is greed.[9] We have embraced false dichotomies of theology and practice, splitting apart the spiritual and material, eternal and temporal, heavenly and earthly. In all these things, we have not acted justly towards each other or towards creation, and we have not honoured God.

6. We acknowledge that industrialization, increased deforestation, intensified agriculture and grazing, along with the unrestrained burning of fossil fuels, have forced the earth’s natural systems out of balance. Rapidly increasing greenhouse gas emissions are causing the average global temperature to rise, with devastating impacts already being experienced, especially by the poorest and most marginalized groups. A projected temperature rise of 2°C within the next few decades will significantly alter life on earth and accelerate loss of biodiversity. It will increase the risk and severity of extreme weather events, such as drought, flood, and hurricanes, leading to displacement and hunger. Sea levels will continue to rise, contaminating fresh water supplies and submerging island and coastal communities. We are likely to see mass migration, leading to resource conflicts. Profound changes to rainfall and snowfall, as well as the rapid melting of glaciers, will lead to more water stress and shortages for many millions of people.

7. We repent of our self-serving theology of creation, and our complicity in unjust local and global economic relationships. We repent of those aspects of our individual and corporate life styles that harm creation, and of our lack of political action. We must radically change our lives in response to God’s indignation and sorrow for His creation’s agony.

8. Before God we commit ourselves, and call on the whole family of faith, to bear witness to God’s redemptive purpose for all creation. We will seek appropriate ways to restore and build just relationships among human beings and with the rest of creation. We will strive to live sustainably, rejecting consumerism and the resulting exploitation.[10] We will teach and model care of creation and integral mission. We will intercede before God for those most affected by environmental degradation and climate change, and will act with justice and mercy among, with and on behalf of them.[11]

9. We join with others to call on local, national, and global leaders to meet their responsibility to address climate change and environmental degradation through the agreed inter-governmental mechanisms and conventions, and to provide the necessary resources to ensure sustainable development. Their meetings through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process must produce a fair, comprehensive, and adequate climate deal. Leaders must support the efforts of local communities to adapt to climate change, and must act to protect the lives and livelihoods of those most vulnerable to the impact of environmental degradation and climate change. We recognize that among the most affected are women and girls. We call on leaders to invest in the development of new, clean technologies and energy sources and to provide adequate support to enable poor, vulnerable and marginalized groups to use them effectively.

10. There is no more time for delay or denial. We will labour with passion, persistence, prayer and creativity to protect the integrity of all creation, and hand on a safe environment and climate to our children and theirs.

For those with ears to hear, let them hear.[12]

[1] Micah Network is a global network of Christian agencies and churches involved in relief, development and advocacy, and responding to poverty and injustice.

[2] Colossians 1:15–16, Romans 11:36

[3] Genesis 1:26–30, Genesis 2:15

[4] Genesis 3:13–24

[5] Romans 8:20

[6] Romans 8:21

[7] Colossians 1:19–20, Philippians 2:6–8

[8] Romans 8:22, Revelation 21:5

[9] Colossians 3:5, Matthew 6:24

[10] Matthew 6:24

[11] Micah 6:8

[12] Mark 4:23

Thoughts from Wendell Berry on “Good Work”

By denying spirit and truth to the non-human Creation, modern proponents of religion have legitimized a form of blasphemy without which the nature- and culture-destroying machinery of the industrial economy could not have been built-that is, they have legitimized bad work.

Good human work honors God’s work. Good work uses no thing without respect, both for what it is in itself and for its origin. It uses neither tool nor material that it does not respect and that it does not love. It honors nature as a great mystery and power, as an indispensable teacher, and as the inescapable judge of all work of human hands. It does not dissociate life and work, or pleasure and work, or love and work, or usefulness and beauty. To work without pleasure or affection, to make a product that is not both useful and beautiful, is to dishonor God, nature, the thing that is made, and whomever it is made for. This is blasphemy: to make shoddy work of the work of God. But such blasphemy is not possible when the entire Creation is understood as holy and when the works of God are understood as embodying and thus revealing his Spirit.

In the Bible we find none of the industrialist’s contempt or hatred for nature. We find, instead, a poetry of awe and reverence and profound cherishing, as in these verses from Moses’ valedictory blessing of the twelve tribes:

And of Joseph he said: ‘Blessed of the LORD is his land, With the precious things of heaven, with the dew, And the deep lying beneath, With the precious fruits of the sun, With the precious produce of the months, With the best things of the ancient mountains, With the precious things of the everlasting hills, With the precious things of the earth and its fullness, And the favor of Him who dwelt in the bush (Deut. 33:13-16, NKJV).

Wendell Berry. Christianity and the Survival of Creation. Pantheon Books, 1992-3.

Thoughts from N. T. Wright in Surprised By Hope (Harper One, p.207-8)

Building For The Kingdom

Many people, faced with the challenge to work for God’s kingdom in the present, will at once object. “Doesn’t that sound,” they will ask, “as though you’re trying to build God’s kingdom by your own efforts?” Well, if it does sound like that, I’m sorry. It wasn’t meant like that. Perhaps some further clarification is needed.

Let’s be quite clear on two points: First, God build’s God’s kingdom. But God ordered this world in such a way that His own work within that world takes place not least through one of His creatures, namely, the human beings that reflect His image. That, I believe, is central to the notion of being made in God’s image. God intends His wise, creative, loving presence and power to be reflected—imaged, if you like—into His world through his human creatures. He has enlisted us to act as His stewards in the project of creation. And, following the disaster of rebellion and corruption, He has built into the gospel message the fact through the work of Jesus and the power of the Spirit, He equips humans to help in the work of getting the project back on track. So the objection about us trying to build God’s kingdom by our own efforts, though it seems humble and pious, can actually be a way of hiding from responsibility, of keeping one’s head well down when the boss is looking for volunteers. Not that one can go on eluding God’s call forever . . . but still.

Second, we need to distinguish between the final kingdom and the present anticipations of it. The final coming together of heaven and earth is, of course, God’s supreme act of the new creation, for which the only real prototype—other than the first creation—was the resurrection of Jesus. God alone will sum up all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth. He alone will make the “new heavens and new earth.” It would be the height of folly to think that we could assist in that great work.

But what we can and must do in the present, if we are obedient to the gospel, if we are following Jesus, and if we are indwelt, energized, and directed by the Spirit, is to build for the kingdom. This brings us back to 1 Corinthians 15:58 once more: what you do in the Lord is not in vain. You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that’s shortly going to be thrown on the fire. You are not planting roses in a garden that’s about to be dug up for a building site. You are—strange though it may seem, almost as hard as to believe as the resurrection itself—accomplishing something that will become in due course part of God’s new world. Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of His creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or walk; every act of care and nurture, comfort and support, for one’s fellow human beings and for that matter one’s fellow nonhuman creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored in the world—all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make. That is the logic of the mission of God. God’s recreation of His wonderful world, which began with the resurrection of Jesus and continues mysteriously as God’s people live in the risen Christ and in the power of His Spirit, means that what we do in Christ and by the Spirit in the present is not wasted. It will last all the way into God’s new world. In fact, it will be enhanced there . . . .

I know that He calls His followers to live in Him and by the power of His Spirit and so to be new-creation people here and now, bring signs and symbols of the kingdom to birth on earth as it is in heaven.

[From page 202]

On the meaning of God’s call to Israel in the first place:

Faced with His beautiful and powerful creation in rebellion, God longed to set it right, to rescue it from continuing corruption and impending chaos and to bring it back into order and fruitfulness. God longed, in other words, to reestablish His wise sovereignty over the whole creation, which would mean a great act of healing and rescue. He did not want to rescue humans from creation and more than He wanted to rescue Israel from the Gentiles. He wanted to rescue Israel in order that Israel might be a light to the Gentiles, and He wanted thereby to rescue humans in order that humans might be His rescuing stewards over creation. That is the inner dynamic of the kingdom of God.

That, in other words, is how the God who made humans to be His stewards over creation and who called Israel to be the light of the world is to become king, in accordance with His original intention in creation, on the other hand, and His original intention in the covenant, on the other. To snatch saved souls away to a disembodied heaven would destroy the whole point. God is to become king of the whole world at last. And He will do this not by declaring that the inner dynamic of creation (that it be ruled by humans) was a mistake, nor by declaring that the inner dynamic of His covenant (that Israel would be the means of saving the nations) was a failure, but rather by fulfilled by them both. That is more or less what Paul’s letter to the Romans is all about.

means of saving the nations) was a failure, but rather by fulfilled by them both. That is more or less what Paul’s letter to the Romans is all about.

Thoughts from Jurgen Moltmann in The Source of Life, 1997

How does God preserve his creation? God preserves its life force in spite of human sin and cosmic disorder. God preserves it through his patience, for by suffering all that contradicts life, God gives those he has created time. God’s longsuffering leaves those he has created space. The preserver of creation is almighty inasmuch as he “hopes all things and endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:7). This is the way God loves those he has created, enticing them to turn back from death to life, and to return home to his eternal kingdom.

If we see the wonder of creation as a communication of God’s creative love, then in the wonder of creation’s preservation we will see the inexhaustible suffering power of that love. In both these things, God’s hope for the future finds expression. Creation’s history of suffering is God’s history of suffering too. The history of the return to life of created beings is at the same time a history of God’s joy over those he has created.

For through his immanent Spirit he participates in the fate of what he has created. In the sighs and groans of suffering creation God’s Spirit itself sighs and groans and calls for redemption. The God who through his indwelling Spirit suffers with those he has created is the firm hope of created being. This hope is our assurance that the beings he has created have not been forsaken by their Creator. (Fortress Press, p. 119)

Thoughts from T.S. Eliot on “The Idea of a Christian Society.” 1939

We are being made aware that the organization of society on the principle of private profit, as well as public destruction, is leading both to the deformation of humanity by unregulated industrialism, and to the exhaustion of natural resources, and that a good deal of our material progress is a progress for which succeeding generations may have to pay dearly. I need only mention, as an instance now very much before the public eye, the results of soil erosion—the exploitation of the earth, on a vast scale. . . , for commercial profit: immediate benefits leading to dearth and desert.

I would not have it thought that I condemn a society because of its material ruin, for that would be to make its material success a sufficient test of its excellence. I mean only that a wrong attitude toward nature implies, somewhere, a wrong attitude towards God, and that the consequence is an inevitable doom.

For a long enough time we have believed in nothing but the values arising in a mechanized, commercialized, urbanized way of life: it would be as well for us to face the permanent conditions upon which God allows us to live on this planet. And without sentimentalizing the life of the savage, we might practice the humility to observe, in some of the societies upon which we look down as primitive or backward, the operation of a social-religious-artistic complex which we should emulate upon a higher plane. We have been accustomed to regard “progress” as always integral; and have yet to learn that it is only by an effort and a discipline, greater than society has yet seen the need of imposing upon itself, that material knowledge and power is gained without loss of spiritual knowledge and power. . . . We need to know how to see the world as the Christian fathers saw it; and the purpose of re-ascending to [our] origins is that we should be able to return, with greater spiritual knowledge, to our own situation. We need to recover the sense of religious fear, so that it may be overcome by religious hope.

we should be able to return, with greater spiritual knowledge, to our own situation. We need to recover the sense of religious fear, so that it may be overcome by religious hope.

Thoughts from Sir John Houghton:

Incarnation and Resurrection: a future for the material

You may well ask the question, has not human sin ruined it all? In trying to look after the Earth are we not facing a losing battle? Is there a future for the Earth? Some Christians think there is not. Picking on particular verses in the Bible which seem to suggest there is no future for the physical Earth, Christians have often argued against getting involved – it is only salvation from spiritual evil that matters, they say. Arguing that way, however, is to ignore the fact that the central themes of Christian theology – those of creation and salvation – are very closely tied together. They are joined through the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus.

So, although there is bad news, there is also good news. Human failure and sin have not put an end to God’s purposes for human beings. When in Jesus, God became human in the incarnation, he demonstrated to the fullest extent possible God’s commitment to the material world. William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury sixty years ago wrote: “Christianity’s… most central saying is, ‘The Word was made flesh’ (John 1.14)… By the very nature of its central doctrine Christianity is committed to a belief… in the reality of matter and its place in the divine scheme.”

It is the resurrection of Jesus which is the key to our hope for the future. When Jesus rose from the dead he did not leave the material created order; rather he demonstrated his power of transformation over that order. Professor Oliver O’donovan of Oxford has written, “It might have been possible… before Christ rose from the dead, for someone to wonder whether creation was a lost cause… The hope that we call ‘Gnostic’, the hope of redemption from creation rather than for the redemption of creation, might have appeared to be the only possible hope.”

But we are not Gnostics. St Paul takes up this theme of the redemption of creation in a remarkable passage in Romans 8.20-21. “Creation is waiting”, he says, “with eager expectation. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God”.

Emphasis on resurrection and redemption continues in the book of Revelation where we are presented with the marvelous vision John had of new heavens and new Earth – a redeemed, transformed Earth and redeemed people to live on it!

So there is a future for the Earth! We need a theology of creation which includes as central themes both Incarnation and Resurrection – rocks on which a theology of creation has to be built. Jesus Christ is central to all our thinking about creation – and creation is part of the future that he came to establish.

The article from which this was taken can be read here.

On Kids and Wonder From Rachel Carson:

A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.

If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder without any such gift from the fairies, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in. Parents often have a sense of inadequacy when confronted on the one hand with the eager, sensitive mind of a child and on the other with a world of complex physical nature, inhabited by a life so various and unfamiliar that it seems hopeless to reduce it to order and knowledge. In a mood of self-defeat, they exclaim, “How can I possibly teach my child about nature—why, I don’t even know one bird from another!”

I sincerely believe that for the child, and for the parent seeking to guide him, it is not half so important to know as to feel. If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow. The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil. Once the emotions have been aroused—a sense of the beautiful, the excitement of the new and the unknown, a feeling of sympathy, pity, admiration or love—then we wish for knowledge about the object of our emotional response. Once found, it has lasting meaning. It is more important to pave the way for the child to want to know than to put him on a diet of facts he is not ready to assimilate.

From The Sense of Wonder

, by Rachel L. Carson,

Thanks to Julie Link for sending this Oswald Chambers’ quote:

Naturally we never look to Nature for illustrations of the spiritual life, we look at the methods of business men, at man’s handiwork. Our Lord drew all His illustrations from His Father’s handiwork, He spoke of lilies and trees and grass and sparrows. As Christians we have to feast our souls on the things ignored by practical people. A false spirituality blots Nature right out. The way to keep your spiritual life un-panicky, free from hysterics and fuss, free from flagging and breaking, is to consider the bits of God’s created universe you can see where you are. Foster your life on God and on His creation and you will find a new use for Nature. Read the life of Jesus—the calm, unhasting, unperturbed majesty of His life is like the majesty of the stars in their courses because both are upheld by the same power. (Chambers’ Notes on Isaiah)

Some good reflections related to creation careFrom Christianity Today online:

Compiled by Richard A. Kauffman

| posted 11/24/2008 09:09AM

Thrift Quotations to stir heart and mind:

FOR SO MANY of the problems now ailing us-from shameful wastefulness, to growing economic inequality, to independence-killing indebtedness, to runaway mindless consumerism-I believe that the philosophy of thrift is the closest thing we have to a miracle cure.

David Blankenhorn, Thrift: A Cyclopedia

BY NO MEANS runne in debt: take thine own pleasure. Who cannot live on twentie pound a yeare, cannot on fortie; he’s a man of pleasure.

George Herbert, in “The Church-porch”

SERIOUSLY and frequently meditate on the account that men are to give of using their wealth. We are not lords of our riches, but stewards; and a steward must give an account of his stewardship.

William Gouge, “Of Well-using Abundance” (sermon, 1655)

FRUGALITY IS GOOD, if Liberality be join’d with it. The first is leaving off superfluous expenses; the last bestowing them to the Benefit of others that need.

William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude

GAIN ALL YOU CAN. … Save all you can. … Then give all you can.

John Wesley, “The Use of Money” (sermon, 1744)

THIS MAY BE SAID of all our estates: what God gives us, is not given us for ourselves, but, “for the Lord.”

Cotton Mather, Essays to Do Good

SOMETIMES THE POOR are praised for being thrifty. But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.

Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN’S Poor Richard’s Almanac never tired of preaching the doctrine of saving. And now comes a new generation of alleged financial experts who seem to be telling us that black is white and white is black, and that the old virtues may be modern sins.

Paul Samuelson, Economics (4th edition)

MAYBE WE should start considering our sojourn on earth as a loan. There can be no doubt that for the past hundred years at least, Europe and the United States have been running up a debt, and now other parts of the world are following their example. Nature is issuing warnings [in the form of climate changes] that we must not only stop the debt from growing but start to pay it back.

Vaclav Havel, “Our Moral Footprint,” in The New York Times

THRIFT, THE POWER to save, which means self-restraint, is mainly important, not because it means wealth in the end, not because it enables you to make others work while you watch or play, but because it gives you peace of mind. Without peace of mind no one can do his best work or lead a life really worth while.

Bolton Hall, Thrift

[Quotes collected by Dean Ohlman]

Jacques Ellul

Stewardship and Love of Nature

Since nature is no longer sacred, man is taken to be the lord of nature. But the essential thing has been forgotten: This nature is the creation of God, who handed it over to Adam and Eve – not to do as they pleased, but to manage and care for in the [superintending] absence of God.

What does this mean? From the perspective of the Hebrew Scriptures it means two things. It means that God does not want to rule over his creation directly; he does not want creation to be an object that runs exactly the way he sets it up like some automatic mechanism. God places people in nature precisely so that everything will not be submitted mechanically to some over-riding power, but in order “to give room to play.” This in turn means that humanity (in the image of God) is called to act toward creation in the same way God does, although without His total power. And this God is given the name love. If God created, it is through love; if He gives independence to creation, it is through love. We must treat nature in the same way, managing it not for blind and egotistical profit, but through love. Such are the implications of the first chapters of Genesis.

“Christian Responsibility for Nature and Freedom” by Jacques Ellul

From Cross Currents Spring 1985 pp. 49-53

John Woolman, 1720-1772

I may here mention a remarkable circumstance that occurred in my childhood. On going to a neighbor’s house, I saw on the way a robin sitting on her nest, and as I came near she went off ; but having young ones, she flew about, and with many cries expressed her concern for them. I stood and threw stones at her, and one striking her she fell down dead. At first I was pleased with the exploit, but after a few minutes was seized with horror, at having, in a sportive way, killed an innocent creature while she was careful for her young. I beheld her lying dead, and thought those young ones, for which she was so careful, must now perish for want of their dam to nourish them. After some painful considerations on the subject, I climbed up the tree, took all the young birds, and killed them, supposing that better than to leave them to pine away and die miserably. In this case I believed that Scripture proverb was fulfilled, “The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.” I then went on my errand, and for some hours could think of little else but the cruelties I had committed, and was much troubled. Thus He whose tender mercies are over all his works hath placed a principle in the human mind, which incites to exercise goodness towards every living creature; and this being singly attended to, people become tender-hearted and sympathizing; but when frequently and totally rejected, the mind becomes shut up in a contrary disposition….

I kept steadily to meetings, spent first-day afternoons chiefly in reading the Scriptures and other good books, and was early convinced in my mind that true religion consisted in an inward life, wherein the heart does love and reverence God the Creator, and learns to exercise true justice and goodness, not only toward all men, but also toward the brute creatures; that, as the mind was moved by an inward principle to love God as an invisible, incomprehensible Being, so, by the same principle, it was moved to love him in all his manifestations in the visible world; that, as by his breath the flame of life was kindled in all animal sensible creatures, to say we love God as unseen, and at the same time exercise cruelty toward the least creature moving by his life, or by life derived from him, was a contradiction in itself….

About the twenty-third year of my age, I had many fresh and heavenly openings, in respect to the care and providence of the Almighty over his creatures in general, and over man as the most noble amongst those which are visible. And being clearly convinced in my judgment that to place my whole trust in God was best for me, I felt renewed engagements that in all things I might act on an inward principle of virtue, and pursue worldly business no further than as truth opened my way..

In my youth I was used to hard labor, and though I was middling healthy, yet my nature was not fitted to endure so much as many others. Being often weary, I was prepared to sympathize with those whose circumstances in life, as free men, required constant labor to answer the demands of their creditors, as well as with others under oppression. In the uneasiness of body which I have many times felt by too much labor, not as a forced but a voluntary oppression, I have often been excited to think on the original cause of that oppression which is imposed on many in the world. The latter part of the time wherein I labored on our plantation, my heart, through the fresh visitations of heavenly love, being often tender, and my leisure time being frequently spent in reading the life and doctrines of our blessed Redeemer, the account of the sufferings of martyrs, and the history of the first rise of our Society, a belief was gradually settled in my mind, that if such as had great estates generally lived in that humility and plainness which belong to a Christian life, and laid much easier rents and interests on their lands and moneys, and thus led the way to a right use of things, so great a number of people might be employed in things useful, that labor both for men and other creatures would need to be no more than an agreeable employ, and divers branches of business, which serve chiefly to please the natural inclinations of our minds, and which at present seem necessary to circulate that wealth which some gather, might, in this way of pure wisdom, be discontinued. As I have thus considered these things, a query at times hath arisen: Do I, in all my proceedings, keep to that use of things which is agreeable to universal righteousness? And then there hath some degree of sadness at times come over me, because I accustomed myself to some things which have occasioned more labor than I believe Divine wisdom intended for us….

In the fall of this year, having hired a man to work, I perceived in conversation with him that he had been a soldier in the late war on this continent; and he informed me in the evening, in a narrative of his captivity among the Indians, that he saw two of his fellow-captives tortured to death in a very cruel manner. This relation affected me with sadness, under which I went to bed; and the next morning, soon after I awoke, a fresh and living sense of Divine love overspread my mind, in which I had a renewed prospect of the nature of that wisdom from above which leads to a right use of all gifts, both spiritual and temporal, and gives content therein. Under a feeling thereof, I wrote as follows:- “Hath He who gave me a being attended with many wants unknown to brute creatures given me a capacity superior to theirs, and shown me that a moderate application to business is suitable to my present condition; and that this, attended with his blessing, may supply all my outward wants while they remain within the bounds he hath fixed, and while no imaginary wants proceeding from an evil spirit have any place in me? Attend then, O my soul! to this pure wisdom as thy sure conductor through the manifold dangers of this world.

Doth pride lead to vanity? Doth vanity form imaginary wants? Do these wants prompt men to exert their power in requiring more from others than they would be willing to perform themselves, were the same required of them? Do these proceedings beget hard thoughts? Do hard thoughts, when ripe, become malice? Does malice, when ripe, become revengeful, and in the end inflict terrible pains on our fellow-creatures and spread desolations in the world?

Do mankind, walking in uprightness, delight in each other’s happiness? And do those who are capable of this attainment, by giving way to an evil spirit, employ their skill and strength to afflict and destroy one another? Remember then, O my soul! the quietude of those in whom Christ governs, and in all thy proceedings feel after it.

Doth he condescend to bless thee with his presence? To move and influence thee to action? To dwell and to walk in thee? Remember then thy station as being sacred to God. Accept of the strength freely offered to thee, and take heed that no weakness in conforming to unwise, expensive, and hard-hearted customs, gendering to discord and strife, be given way to. Doth he claim my body as his temple, and graciously require that I may be sacred to him? O that I may prize this favor, and that my whole life may be conformable to this character! Remember, O my soul! that the Prince of Peace is thy Lord; that he communicates his unmixed wisdom to his family, that they, living in perfect simplicity, may give no just cause of offence to any creature, but that they may walk as He walked!”….

Some fowls yet remained of those the passengers took for their sea-store. 1 believe about fourteen perished in the storms at sea, by the waves breaking over the quarter-deck, and a considerable number with sickness at different times. I observed the cocks crew as we came down the Delaware, and while we were near the land, but afterwards I think I did not hear one of them crow till we came near the English coast, when they again crowed a few times. In observing their dull appearance at sea, and the pining sickness of some of them, I often remembered the Fountain of goodness, who gave being to all creatures, and whose love extends to caring for the sparrows. I believe where the love of God is verily perfected, and the true spirit of government watchfully attended to, a tenderness towards all creatures made subject to us will be experienced, and a care felt in us that we do not lessen that sweetness of life in the animal creation which the great Creator intends for them under our government.

Excerpts from the journal of Quaker, John Woolman,

University of Virginia Library Electronic Text Center.
University of Virginia Library
Charlottesville, VA

John Woolman [1720-1772] was an American Quaker clergyman and reformer who traveled within the colonies preaching against slavery, advocating just Indian policy, and opposing the rum trade.

Jeremy Rifkin

A Second Christian Reformation

Sin is people’s hubris in believing that they can treat God’s creations differently than God does; namely, manipulate and exploit them for purposes other than what they were created for. Sin is also people’s hubris in believing that they can reorder this world and redefine its purpose to suit their own whims and fancies. The Christian life must be one of conserving wholeness over fragmentation, balance over imbalance, and harmony over disharmony. A Christian must love God’s creation and treat it with respect because God created it with love.

Dominion, then, does not mean the right to exploit nature. Far from it, say the scholars. Dominion means stewardship over nature. Henlee H. Barnett, in his book The Church and the Ecological Crisis, points out that the Biblical view of humankind “is that of a keeper, caretaker, custodian . . . of the household earth.” Stewardship, says Barnett is “the New Testament term for this role of human beings in relation to the natural order.” The first requisite of a steward, according to Barnett, “is faithfulness, because he handles that which belongs to another.” The concept of stewardship leads directly to the Biblical notion of covenant. In Genesis, God says, “I established my Covenant with you [humankind], and with your seed after you and with every living created thing.”

God, then, has a covenant with humanity. Men and women are to act as His stewards on earth, preserving and protecting all of God’s creations. This covenant puts human beings in a special relationship to God. Since people are a creation of God, just like all of God’s other creations, they are equal to them in their finite nature; only God is infinite. While all creations are equal in that they owe their existence to the same source – God – human beings are nonetheless different. The difference, as Francis Schaeffer points out in his book Pollution and the Death of Man, is that human beings are made by God in his image and are given the responsibility to act as stewards over the rest of God’s creation. Therefore, people are both part of nature, equal to and dependent on all other living creatures, and at the same time separate from nature with a responsibility to protect and take care of it. As long as people accept both relationships, they are faithful to God’s purpose and are carrying out the covenant God made with them. However, when people take advantage of their special relationship by taking over God’s creation as their own, using it for their own ends rather than God’s glory, they have broken the covenant and are rebelling against God.

The new stewardship doctrine and the laws of thermodynamics, when combined with more orthodox theology, set the tone for a new, reformulated Christian doctrine and covenant suited to the ecological prerequisites of an entropic world view. Most of all, the stewardship doctrine provides an answer to the ultimate question, “Why should I take the responsibility of caring for and preserving the natural order?” Because it is God’s order. God created it and God entrusted human beings with the responsibility of overseeing it. It comes down to a question of serving God or rejecting Him.

The new stewardship doctrine turns the modern worldview upside down. The rules and relationships that are used to exploit nature are diametrically opposed to those that are necessary to conserve nature. For example, private ownership of resources, increased centralization of power over nature, the elimination of biological diversity, the refusal to set limits on production and consumption, the fragmentation of human labor into separate and autonomous spheres of operation, the reductionist approach to understanding life and the interrelationships between phenomena, and the concept of progress as a process of continually transforming the natural world into a more exploitable human?made environment have long been considered as valid pursuits and goals in the modern world. Every single one of these items and scores of others that make up the operating assumptions of the age of growth are inimical to the principles of ecology, a low?entropy economic framework, and, most important, the newly defined stewardship doctrine.

Stewardship requires that humankind respect and conserve the natural workings of God’s order. The natural order works on the principles of diversity, interdependence, and decentralization. Maintenance replaces the notion of progress, stewardship replaces ownership, and nurturing replaces engineering. Biological limits to both production and consumption are acknowledged, the principle of equitable distribution of resources is accepted, and the concept of wholeness becomes the essential guideline for measuring all relationships and phenomena. In reality, the new stewardship doctrine represents a fundamental shift in humanity’s frame of reference. It establishes a new set of governing principles for how human beings should behave and act in the world.

If the Christian community fails to embrace the concept of a New Covenant vision of stewardship, it is possible that the emerging religious fervor could be taken over and ruthlessly exploited by right?wing and corporate interests. The evangelical awakening could end up providing the essential cultural backdrop that a fascist movement in the United States would require to maintain control over the country during a period of long?range economic decline.

Even a thoughtful and respected evangelical theologian of the stature of Francis Schaeffer believes that fascism is a very real possibility for the United States in the troubled economic years that lie ahead. In reflecting on America’s inability to find a solution to the problem of worsening inflation and recession cycles, Schaeffer concludes: “I cannot get out of my mind the uncomfortable parallel to the German’s loss of confidence in the Weimar Republic just before Hitler, which was caused by unacceptable inflation. History indicates that at a certain point of economic breakdown people cease being concerned with individual liberties and are ready to accept regimentation.”‘

Schaeffer is pessimistic about the prospect for the United States. He believes that the overriding value Americans place on their own “personal peace and affluence” will likely lead to a fascist type order as the economy continues to contract: “I believe the majority . . . will sustain the loss of liberties without raising their voices as long as their own lifestyles are not threatened.”

What Schaeffer fails to say is that there are already many disturbing signs within the evangelical movement pointing to just such a possibility. For example, many middle?class Christians are falling back more and more on the old notion of the “gospel of wealth,” equating Biblical doctrine with rugged individualism, free enterprise, and unlimited material accumulation. This kind of expansionist theology is still very much a dominant motif in American Christianity. The ”gospel of wealth” theme will likely continue to be used by individual Christians to justify a lack of concern or involvement with the pressing economic needs ahead, needs that require a communal and not merely an individual or free?enterprise response. For these Christians, the evangelical movement will serve as a sanctuary for withdrawal from the turmoil around them. If economic conditions become so bad that they begin to threaten even this last refuge of the middle class, chances are good that withdrawal will quickly translate into active support of the right?wing and capitalist interests even to the point of accepting whatever authoritarian measures are deemed necessary by the state to maintain social order.

By radically redefining humanity’s relationship to the rest of God’s creation, contemporary Christian scholars are challenging our expansionist epoch. The new concept of dominion as stewardship and conservation rather than ownership and exploitation is at loggerheads with both traditional Christian theology and the mechanical worldview of the past several hundred years. By refocusing the story of Creation and humanity’s purpose in the world, Christian theologians have committed an act of open rebellion against their own doctrinal past. The Christian individual who for hundreds of years sought salvation through productivity and the subduing of nature is now being challenged by a new Christian person who seeks salvation by conserving and protecting God’s creation. The Christian work ethic is being replaced by the Christian conservation ethic. This new emphasis on stewardship is providing the foundation for the emergence of a new Christian Reformation and a New Covenant vision for society.”

From

Entropy: Into the Greenhouse World

Bantam Books, 1980 (revised in 1989)

Margaret Clarkson

Expectation

[Romans. 8:19-22]

This glowing dawn,

all nature stands on tiptoe

waiting

drenched in wonder.

Soft air breathes

mists rise

waters ripple

petals stir

grasses and

leaves sigh.

Birds loose shining shafts of song.

High in the blue

bright wings drift

hover and dart.

By fragrant brier

furred bodies freeze

nostrils twitch

whiskers quiver and stiffen

sharp eyes glance

sure paws flash.

Shimmering insects flit and fall.

On dewy thorn

the patient spider weaves

her jeweled web.

In weedy depths

of still green waters

shadowy forms gleam

silently gliding.

Breezes freshen

the morning quickens.

Washed in new gold

all nature waits on tiptoe

watching

wordlessly questing:

Is this the day?

will it be soon,

the hour of earth’s redemption,

Life’s return?

John Wesley, 1703-1791

The General Deliverance

Sermon #60 [text of the 1872 edition]

“The earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him that subjected it: Yet in hope that the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth, and travaileth in pain together until now.” Romans. 8:19-22.

1. Nothing is more sure, than that as “the Lord is loving to every man,” so “his mercy is over all his works;” all that have sense, all that are capable of pleasure or pain, of happiness or misery. In consequence of this, “He openeth his hand, and filleth all things living with plenteousness. He prepareth food for cattle,” as well as “herbs for the children of men.” He provideth for the fowls of the air, “feeding the young ravens when they cry unto him.” “He sendeth the springs into the rivers, that run among the hills, to give drink to every beast of the field,” and that even “the wild asses may quench their thirst.” And, suitably to this, he directs us to be tender of even the meaner creatures; to show mercy to these also. “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn:” — A custom which is observed in the eastern countries even to this day. And this is by no means contradicted by St. Paul’s question: “Doth God take care for oxen?” Without doubt he does. We cannot deny it, without flatly contradicting his word. The plain meaning of the Apostle is, Is this all that is implied in the text? Hath it not a farther meaning? Does it not teach us, we are to feed the bodies of those whom we desire to feed our souls? Meantime it is certain, God “giveth grass for the cattle,” as well as “herbs for the use of men.”

2. But how are these Scriptures reconcilable to the present state of things? How are they consistent with what we daily see round about us, in every part of the creation? If the Creator and Father of every living thing is rich in mercy towards all; if he does not overlook or despise any of the works of his own hands; if he wills even the meanest of them to be happy, according to their degree; how comes it to pass, that such a complication of evils oppresses, yea, overwhelms them? How is it that misery of all kinds overspreads the face of the earth? This is a question which has puzzled the wisest philosophers in all ages: And it cannot be answered without having recourse to the oracles of God. But, taking these for our guide we may inquire,

I. What was the original state of the brute creation?

II. In what state is it at present? And,

III. In what state will it be at the manifestation of the children of God?

I. 1. We may inquire, in the First place, What was the original state of the brute creation? And may we not learn this, even from the place which was assigned them; namely, the garden of God? All the beasts of the field, and all the fowls of the air, were with Adam in paradise. And there is no question but their state was suited to their place: It was paradisiacal; perfectly happy. Undoubtedly it bore a near resemblance to the state of man himself. By taking, therefore, a short view of the one, we may conceive the other. Now, “man was made in the image of God.” But “God is a Spirit:” So therefore was man. (Only that spirit, being designed to dwell on earth, was lodged in an earthly tabernacle.) As such, he had an innate principle of self-motion. And so, it seems, has every spirit in the universe; this being the proper distinguishing difference between spirit and matter, which is totally, essentially passive and inactive, as appears from a thousand experiments. He was, after the likeness of his Creator, endued with understanding; a capacity of apprehending whatever objects were brought before it, and of judging concerning them. He was endued with a will, exerting itself in various affections and passions: And, lastly, with liberty, or freedom of choice; without which all the rest would have been in vain, and he would have been no more capable of serving his Creator than a piece of earth or marble; he would have been as incapable of vice or virtue, as any part of the inanimate creation. In these, in the power of self-motion, understanding, will, and liberty, the natural image of God consisted.

2. How far his power of self-motion then extended, it is impossible for us to determine. It is probable, that he had a far higher degree both of swiftness and strength, than any of his posterity ever had, and much less any of the lower creatures. It is certain, he had such strength of understanding as no man ever since had. His understanding was perfect in its kind; capable of apprehending all things clearly, and judging concerning them according to truth, without any mixture of error. His will had no wrong bias of any sort; but all his passions and affections were regular, Being steadily and uniformly guided by the dictates of his unerring understanding; embracing nothing but good, and every good in proportion to its degree of intrinsic goodness. His liberty likewise was wholly guided by his understanding: He chose, or refused, according to its direction. Above all, (which was his highest excellence, far more valuable than all the rest put together,) he was a creature capable of God; capable of knowing, loving, and obeying his Creator. And, in fact, he did know God, did unfeignedly love and uniformly obey him. This was the supreme perfection of man; (as it is of all intelligent beings;) the continually seeing, and loving, and obeying the Father of the spirits of all flesh. From this right state and right use of all his faculties, his happiness naturally flowed. In this the essence of his happiness consisted; But it was increased by all the things that were round about him. He saw, with unspeakable pleasure, the order, the beauty, the harmony, of all the creatures; of all animated, all inanimate nature; the serenity of the skies; the sun walking in brightness; the sweetly variegated clothing of the earth; the trees, the fruits, the flowers,

And liquid lapse of murmuring streams.

Nor was this pleasure interrupted by evil of any kind. It had no alloy of sorrow or pain, whether of body or mind. For while he was innocent he was impassive; incapable of suffering. Nothing could stain his purity of joy. And, to crown all, he was immortal.

3. To this creature, endued with all these excellent faculties, thus qualified for his high charge, God said, “Have thou dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” (Gen. 1:28.) And so the Psalmist: “Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands: Thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.” (Psalm 8:6, &c.) So that man was God’s vicegerent upon earth, the prince and governor of this lower world; and all the blessings of God flowed through him to the inferior creatures. Man was the channel of conveyance between his Creator and the whole brute creation.

4. But what blessings were those that were then conveyed through man to the lower creatures? What was the original state of the brute creatures, when they were first created? This deserves a more attentive consideration than has been usually given it. It is certain these, as well as man, had an innate principle of self-motion; and that, at least, in as high a degree as they enjoy it at this day. Again: They were endued with a degree of understanding; not less than that they are possessed of now. They had also a will, including various passions, which, likewise, they still enjoy: And they had liberty, a power of choice; a degree of which is still found in every living creature. Nor can we doubt but their understanding too was, in the beginning, perfect in its kind. Their passions and affections were regular, and their choice always guided by their understanding

5. What then is the barrier between men and brutes? The line which they cannot pass? It was not reason. Set aside that ambiguous term: Exchange it for the plain word, understanding: and who can deny that brutes have this? We may as well deny that they have sight or hearing. But it is this: Man is capable of God; the inferior creatures are not. We have no ground to believe that they are, in any degree, capable of knowing, loving, or obeying God. This is the specific difference between man and brute; the great gulf which they cannot pass over. And as a loving obedience to God was the perfection of man, so a loving obedience to man was the perfection of brutes. And as long as they continued in this, they were happy after their kind; happy in the right state and the right use of their respective faculties. Yea, and so long they had some shadowy resemblance of even moral goodness. For they had gratitude to man for benefits received, and a reverence for him. They had likewise a kind of benevolence to each other, unmixed with any contrary temper. How beautiful many of them were, we may conjecture from that which still remains; and that not only in the noblest creatures, but in those of the lowest order. And they were all surrounded, not only with plenteous food, but with every thing that could give them pleasure; pleasure unmixed with pain; for pain was not yet; it had not entered into paradise. And they too were immortal: For “God made not death; neither hath he pleasure in the death of any living.”

6. How true then is that word, “God saw everything that he had made: and behold it was very good!” But how far is this from being the present case! In what a condition is the whole lower world! — to say nothing of inanimate nature, wherein all the elements seem to be out of course, and by turns to fight against man. Since man rebelled against his Maker, in what a state is all animated nature! Well might the Apostle say of this: “The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain until now.” This directly refers to the brute creation In what state this is at present we are now to consider.

II. 1. As all the blessings of God in paradise flowed through man to the inferior creatures; as man was the great channel of communication, between the Creator and the whole brute creation; so when man made himself incapable of transmitting those blessings, that communication was necessarily cut off. The intercourse between God and the inferior creatures being stopped, those blessings could no longer flow in upon them. And then it was that “the creature,” every creature, “was subjected to vanity,” to sorrow, to pain of every kind, to all manner of evils: Not, indeed, “willingly,” not by its own choice, not by any act or deed of its own; “but by reason of Him that subjected it,” by the wise permission of God, determining to draw eternal good out of this temporary evil.

2. But in what respect was “the creature,” every creature, then “made subject to vanity?” What did the meaner creatures suffer, when man rebelled against God? It is probable they sustained much loss, even in the lower faculties; their vigour, strength, and swiftness. But undoubtedly they suffered far more in their understanding; more than we can easily conceive. Perhaps insects and worms had then as much understanding as the most intelligent brutes have now: Whereas millions of creatures have, at present, little more understanding than the earth on which they crawl, or the rock to which they adhere. They suffered still more in their will, in their passions; which were then variously distorted, and frequently set in flat opposition to the little understanding that was left them. Their liberty, likewise, was greatly impaired; yea, in many cases, totally destroyed. They are still utterly enslaved to irrational appetites, which have the full dominion over them. The very foundations of their nature are out of course; are turned upside down. As man is deprived of his perfection, his loving obedience to God; so brutes are deprived of their perfection, their loving obedience to man. The far greater part of them flee from him; studiously avoid his hated presence. The most of the rest set him at open defiance; yea, destroy him, if it be in their power. A few only, those we commonly term domestic animals, retain more or less of their original disposition, (through the mercy of God,) love him still, and pay obedience to him.

3. Setting these few aside, how little shadow of good, of gratitude, of benevolence, of any right temper, is now to be found in any part of the brute creation! On the contrary, what savage fierceness, what unrelenting cruelty; are invariably observed in thousands of creatures; yea, is inseparable from their natures! Is it only the lion, the tiger, the wolf, among the inhabitants of the forest and plains — the shark, and a few more voracious monsters, among the inhabitants of the waters, — or the eagle, among birds, — that tears the flesh, sucks the blood, and crushes the bones of their helpless fellow-creatures? Nay; the harmless fly, the laborious ant, the painted butterfly, are treated in the same merciless manner, even by the innocent songsters of the grove! The innumerable tribes of poor insects are continually devoured by them. And whereas there is but a small number, comparatively, of beasts of prey on the earth, it is quite otherwise in the liquid element. There are but few inhabitants of the waters, whether of the sea, or of the rivers, which do not devour whatsoever they can master: Yea, they exceed herein all the beasts of the forest, and all the birds of prey. For none of these have been ever observed to prey upon their own species:

Saevis inter se convenit ursis: Even savage bears will not each other tear.

But the water-savages swallow up all, even of their own kind, that are smaller and weaker than themselves. Yea, such, at present, is the miserable constitution of the world, to such vanity is it now subjected, that an immense majority of creatures, perhaps a million to one, can not otherwise preserve their own lives, than by destroying their fellow-creatures!

4. And is not the very form, the outward appearance, of many of the creatures, as horrid as their dispositions? Where is the beauty which was stamped upon them when they came first out of the hands of their Creator? There is not the least trace of it left: So far from it, that they are shocking to behold! Nay, they are not only terrible and grisly to look upon, but deformed, and that to a high degree. Yet their features, ugly as they are at best, are frequently made more deformed than usual, when they are distorted by pain; which they cannot avoid, any more than the wretched sons of men. Pain of various kinds, weakness, sickness, diseases innumerable, come upon them; perhaps from within; perhaps from one another; perhaps from the inclemency of seasons; from fire, hail, snow, or storm; or from a thousand causes which they cannot foresee or prevent.

5. Thus, “as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; even so death passed upon all men;” and not on man only, but on those creatures also that “did not sin after the similitude of Adam’s transgression.” And not death alone came upon them, but all of its train of preparatory evils; pain, and ten thousand sufferings. Nor these only, but likewise all those irregular passions, all those unlovely tempers, (which in men are sins, and even in the brutes are sources of misery,) “passed upon all” the inhabitants of the earth; and remain in all, except the children of God.

6. During this season of vanity, not only the feebler creatures are continually destroyed by the stronger; not only the strong are frequently destroyed by those that are of equal strength; but both the one and the other are exposed to the violence and cruelty of him that is now their common enemy, — man. And if his swiftness or strength is not equal to theirs, yet his art more than supplies that defect. By this he eludes all their force, how great soever it be; by this he defeats all their swiftness; and, notwithstanding their various shifts and contrivances, discovers all their retreats. He pursues them over the widest plains, and through the thickest forests. He overtakes them in the fields of air, he finds them out in the depths of the sea. Nor are the mild and friendly creatures who still own his sway, and are duteous to his commands, secured thereby from more than brutal violence; from outrage and abuse of various kinds. Is the generous horse, that serves his master’s necessity or pleasure with unwearied diligence, — is the faithful dog, that waits the motion of his hand, or his eye, exempt from this? What returns for their long and faithful service do many of these poor creatures find? And what a dreadful difference is there, between what they suffer from their fellow-brutes, and what they suffer from the tyrant man! The lion, the tiger, or the shark, gives them pain from mere necessity, in order to prolong their own life; and puts them out of their pain at once: But the human shark, without any such necessity, torments them of his free choice; and perhaps continues their lingering pain till, after months or years, death signs their release.

III. 1. But will “the creature,” will even the brute creation, always remain in this deplorable condition? God forbid that we should affirm this; yea, or even entertain such a thought! While “the whole creation groaneth together,” (whether men attend or not,) their groans are not dispersed in idle air, but enter into the ears of Him that made them. While his creatures “travail together in pain,” he knoweth all their pain, and is bringing them nearer and nearer to the birth, which shall be accomplished in its season. He seeth “the earnest expectation” wherewith the whole animated creation “waiteth for” that final “manifestation of the sons of God;” in which “they themselves also shall be delivered” (not by annihilation; annihilation is not deliverance) “from the” present “bondage of corruption, into” a measure of “the glorious liberty of the children of God.”

2. Nothing can be more express [firmly stated]: Away with vulgar prejudices, and let the plain word of God take place. They “shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption, into glorious liberty,” — even a measure, according as they are capable, — of “the liberty of the children of God.”

A general view of this is given us in the twenty-first chapter of the Revelation. When He that “sitteth on the great white throne” hath pronounced, “Behold, I make all things new;” when the word is fulfilled, “The tabernacle of God is with men, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them and be their God;” — then the following blessing shall take place (not only on the children of men; there is no such restriction in the text; but) on every creature according to its capacity: “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying. Neither shall there be any more pain: For the former things are passed away.”

3. To descend to a few particulars: The whole brute creation will then, undoubtedly, be restored, not only to the vigour, strength, and swiftness which they had at their creation, but to a far higher degree of each than they ever enjoyed. They will be restored, not only to that measure of understanding which they had in paradise, but to a degree of it as much higher than that, as the understanding of an elephant is beyond that of a worm. And whatever affections they had in the garden of God, will be restored with vast increase; being exalted and refined in a manner which we ourselves are not now able to comprehend. The liberty they then had will be completely restored, and they will be free in all their motions. They will be delivered from all irregular appetites, from all unruly passions, from every disposition that is either evil in itself, or has any tendency to evil. No rage will be found in any creature, no fierceness, no cruelty, or thirst for blood. So far from it that “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the young lion together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall feed together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain.” (Isaiah 11:6, &c.)

4. Thus, in that day, all the vanity to which they are now helplessly subject will be abolished; they will suffer no more, either from within or without; the days of their groaning are ended. At the same time, there can be no reasonable doubt, but all the horridness of their appearance, and all the deformity of their aspect, will vanish away, and be exchanged for their primeval beauty. And with their beauty their happiness will return; to which there can then be no obstruction. As there will be nothing within, so there will be nothing without, to give them any uneasiness: No heat or cold, no storm or tempest, but one perennial spring. In the new earth, as well as in the new heavens, there will be nothing to give pain, but everything that the wisdom and goodness of God can create to give happiness. As a recompence for what they once suffered, while under the “bondage of corruption,” when God has “renewed the face of the earth,” and their corruptible body has put on incorruption, they shall enjoy happiness suited to their state, without alloy, without interruption, and without end.

5. But though I doubt not that the Father of All has a tender regard for even his lowest creatures, and that, in consequence of this, he will make them large amends for all they suffer while under their present bondage; yet I dare not affirm that he has an equal regard for them and for the children of men. I do not believe that

He sees with equal eyes, as Lord of all,

A hero perish, or a sparrow fall.
By no means. This is exceeding pretty; but it is absolutely false. For thoug
Mercy, with truth and endless grace,
O’er all his works doth reign,
Yet chiefly he delights to bless
His favourite creature, man.

God regards his meanest creatures much; but he regards man much more. He does not equally regard a hero and a sparrow; the best of men and the lowest of brutes. “How much more does your heavenly Father care for you!” says He “who is in the bosom of his Father.” Those who thus strain the point, are clearly confuted by his question, “Are not ye much better than they?” Let it suffice, that God regards everything that he hath made, in its own order, and in proportion to that measure of his own image which he has stamped upon it.

6. May I be permitted to mention here a conjecture concerning the brute creation? What, if it should then please the all-wise, the all-gracious Creator to raise them higher in the scale of beings? What, if it should please him, when he makes us “equal to angels,” to make them what we are now, — creatures capable of God; capable of knowing and loving and enjoying the Author of their being? If it should be so, ought our eye to be evil because he is good? However this be, he will certainly do what will be most for his own glory.

7. If it be objected to all this, (as very probably it will,) “But of what use will those creatures be in that future state?” I answer this by another question, What use are they of now? If there be (as has commonly been supposed) eight thousand species of insects, who is able to inform us of what use seven thousand of them are? If there are four thousand species of fishes, who can tell us of what use are more than three thousand of them? If there are six hundred sorts of birds, who can tell of what use five hundred of those species are? If there be four hundred sorts of beasts, to what use do three hundred of them serve? Consider this; consider how little we know of even the present designs of God; and then you will not wonder that we know still less of what he designs to do in the new heavens and the new earth.

8. “But what end does it answer to dwell upon this subject, which we so imperfectly understand?” To consider so much as we do understand, so much as God has been pleased to reveal to us, may answer that excellent end — to illustrate that mercy of God which “is over all his works.” And it may exceedingly confirm our belief that, much more, he “is loving to every man.” For how well may we urge our Lord’s words, “Are not ye much better than they?” If, then, the Lord takes such care of the fowls of the air, and of the beasts of the field, shall he not much more take care of you, creatures of a nobler order? If “the Lord will save,” as the inspired writer affirms, “both man and beast,” in their several degrees, surely “the children of men may put their trust under the shadow of his wings!”

9. May it not answer another end; namely, furnish us with a full answer to a plausible objection against the justice of God, in suffering numberless creatures that never had sinned to be so severely punished? They could not sin, for they were not moral agents. Yet how severely do they suffer! — yea, many of them, beasts of burden in particular, almost the whole time of their abode on earth; So that they can have no retribution here below. But the objection vanishes away, if we consider that something better remains after death for these poor creatures also; that these, likewise, shall one day be delivered from this bondage of corruption, and shall then receive an ample amends for all their present sufferings.

10. One more excellent end may undoubtedly be answered by the preceding considerations. They may encourage us to imitate Him whose mercy is over all his works. They may soften our hearts towards the meaner creatures, knowing that the Lord careth for them. It may enlarge our hearts towards those poor creatures, to reflect that, as vile as they appear in our eyes, not one of them is forgotten in the sight of our Father which is in heaven. Through all the vanity to which they are now subjected, let us look to what God hath prepared for them. Yea, let us habituate ourselves to look forward, beyond this present scene of bondage, to the happy time when they will be delivered therefrom into the liberty of the children of God.

11. From what has been said, I cannot but draw one inference, which no man of reason can deny. If it is this which distinguishes men from beasts, — that they are creatures capable of God, capable of knowing and loving and enjoying him; then whoever is “without God in the world,” whoever does not know or love or enjoy God, and is not careful about the matter, does, in effect, disclaim the nature of man, and degrade himself into a beast. Let such vouchsafe a little attention to those remarkable words of Solomon: “I said in my heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, — They might see that they themselves are beasts.” (Eccles. 3:18.) These sons of men are undoubtedly beasts; and that by their own act and deed; for they deliberately and wilfully disclaim the sole characteristic of human nature. It is true, they may have a share of reason; they have speech, and they walk erect; but they have not the mark, the only mark, which totally separates man from the brute creation. “That which befalleth beasts, the same thing befalleth them.” They are equally without God in the world; “so that a man” of this kind “hath no pre-eminence above a beast.”

12. So much more let all those who are of a nobler turn of mind assert the distinguishing dignity of their nature. Let all who are of a more generous spirit know and maintain their rank in the scale of beings. Rest not till you enjoy the privilege of humanity — the knowledge and love of God. Lift up your heads, ye creatures capable of God! Lift up your hearts to the Source of your being!

Know God, and teach your souls to know

The joys that from religion flow. Give your hearts to Him who, together with ten thousand blessings, has given you his Son, his only Son! Let your continual “fellowship be with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ!” Let God be in all your thoughts, and ye will be men indeed. Let him be your God and your All, — the desire of your eyes, the joy of your heart, and your portion forever.

[Edited by Sarah Anderson, student at Northwest Nazarene College (Nampa, ID), with corrections by George Lyons for the Wesley Center for Applied Theology.]
This document (last modified September 30, 1995) from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library server, at Wheaton College

Francis A. Schaeffer, 1912-1984

The Christian View of Ecology

In Romans 8 Paul looks ahead to what is going to happen when Jesus Christ comes back again. He writes, “For the earnest expectation of creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God [Christians]. For creation was made subject to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him who has subjected it in hope. Because creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now, and not only that, but ourselves also which had the first fruits of the Spirit [Christians], even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, that is, the redemption of the body” (Romans 8:20-23).

What Paul says here is that when our bodies — bodies of men — are raised from the dead, at that time nature, too, will be redeemed. The blood of the Lamb will redeem man and nature together, as it did in Egypt at the time of the Passover, when the blood applied to the doorposts saved not only the sons of the Hebrews, but also their animals. . . . As Christ’s death redeems men, including their bodies, from the consequences of the Fall, so His death will redeem all nature from its evil consequences, at the time when we are raised from the dead.

Now in Romans 6 Paul applies this future principle to our present situation. It is the great principle of Christian spirituality. Christ died, Christ is your Savior, Christ is coming back again to raise you from the dead. So by faith — because this is true to what has been in Christ’s death and to what will be when He comes again, by faith in the power of the Holy Spirit — you are to live this way substantially now. “Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him . . . . Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:9,11). So we look forward to this, and one day it will be perfect. But we should be looking now, on the basis of the work of Christ, for substantial healing in every place affected by the Fall.

Now we must understand that even in our relationship with God a distinction has to be made here. By justification our guilt was completely removed, in a forensic way, as God declared our guilt gone when we accepted Christ as our Savior. But in practice, in our lives between becoming a Christian and the Second Coming of Christ or our death, we are not in a perfect relationship to God. Therefore real spirituality lies in the existential, moment-by-moment looking to the blood of Christ, and upon the basis of the work of Christ seeking and asking God in faith for a substantial reality in our relationship with Him at the existential moment. I must be doing this so that substantially, in practice, at this moment, there will be a reality in my relationship with the personal God who is there.

Now this is also true in other areas, because the Fall, as the Reformation theology has always emphasized, not only separated man from God, but also caused other deep separations. It is interesting that almost the whole “curse” in Genesis 3 is centered upon the outward manifestations. It is the earth that is going to be cursed for man’s sake. It is the woman’s body that is involved in the greatly multiplied conception and pain in childbirth.

So there are other divisions. Man was divided from God first; and then, ever since the Fall, man is separated from himself. These are the psychological divisions. I am convinced that this is the basic psychosis: that the individual man is divided from himself as a result of the Fall.

The next division is that man is divided from other men; these are the sociological divisions. And then man is divided from nature, and nature is divided from nature. So there are these multiple divisions, and one day, when Christ comes back, there is going to be a complete healing of all of them, on the basis of the “blood of the Lamb.”

But Christians who believe the Bible are not simply called to say that “one day” there will be healing, but that by God’s grace substantially, upon the basis of the work of Christ, substantial healing can be a reality here and now.

Here the Church — orthodox, Bible-believing Church — has been really poor. What have we done to heal sociological divisions? Often our churches are a scandal: they are cruel not only to the man “outside,” but also to the man “inside.”

The same thing is true psychologically. We load people with psychological problems by telling them that “Christians don’t have breakdowns” . . . and that is a kind of murder.

On the other hand, what we should have, individually and corporately, is a situation where, on the basis of the work of Christ, Christianity is seen to be not just “pie in the sky,” but something that has in it the possibility of substantial healing now in every area where there are divisions because of the Fall. First of all, my division from God is healed by justification, but then there must be the “existential reality” of this, moment by moment; second, there is the psychological division of man from himself; third, there are the sociological divisions of man from other men; and last, there is the division of man from nature, and nature from nature. In all of these areas we should expect to see substantial healing.

I took a long while to settle on that word “substantial,” but it is, I think, the right word. It conveys the idea of a healing that is not perfect, but that is real, evident, and substantial. Because of past history and future history, we are called upon to live this way now by faith.

When we carry these ideas over into the area of our relationship to nature, there is an exact parallel. On the basis of the fact that there is going to be total redemption in the future, not only of man but of all creation, the Christian who believes the Bible should be the man who — with God’s help and in the power of the Holy Spirit — is treating nature now in the direction of the way nature will be then. It will not now be perfect, but it must be substantial, or we have missed our calling. God’s calling to the Christian now, and to the Christian community, in the area of nature — just as it is in the area of personal Christian living in true spirituality — is that we should exhibit a substantial healing here and now, between man and nature and nature and itself, as far as Christians can bring it to pass.

In Novum Organon Francis Bacon wrote this: “Man by the Fall fell at the same time from his state of innocency and from his dominion over nature. Both of these losses, however, even in this life, can in some part be repaired; the former by religion and faith, the later by the arts and sciences.” It is a tragedy that the Church, including the orthodox, evangelical Church, has not always remembered that. Here, in this present life, it is possible for the Christian to have some share, through sciences and the arts, in returning nature to its proper place.

But how is this to be achieved? First, as we have seen, it is by the emphasis upon creation. Then second, it is by a fresh understanding of man’s “dominion” over nature (Genesis 1:28). Man has dominion over the “lower” orders of creation, but he is not sovereign over them. Only God is the Sovereign Lord, and the lower orders are to be used with this truth in mind. Man is not using his own possessions.

A parallel is the gift of talents. They are to be used as God means them to be used. In the Parable of the Talents, told by Jesus (Matthew 25:15ff), the talents or money did not belong to the man with whom they were left. He was a servant and a steward, and he held them only in stewardship for the true Owner.

When we have dominion over nature, it is not ours either. It belongs to God, and we are to exercise our dominion over these things not as though entitled to exploit them, but as things borrowed or held in trust, which we are to use realizing that they are not ours intrinsically. Man’s dominion is under God’s Dominion and in God’s Domain. . . .

An essential part of a true philosophy is a correct understanding of the pattern and plan of creation as revealed by the God who made it. For instance, we must see that each step “higher” — the [mechanical], the plant, the animal, and man — has the use of that which is lower than itself. We find that man calls upon and utilizes the animal, the plant, and the [mechanical]. The animal eats the plant. The plant utilizes the [mechanical] portion of the universe. Each thing in God’s creation utilizes the thing that God has made under it.

We must also appreciate that each thing is limited by what it is. That is, a plant is limited by being a plant, but it is also limited by the properties of those things under it that it uses. So the plants can only use the chemicals on the basis of the boundary condition of the chemical’s properties. There is nothing else it can do.

But this is true also for man. We cannot make our own universe; we can only use what is under us in the order of creation. But there is a difference, and this is that the animal, for example, must use the lower as what it is. Man has to accept some necessary limitation of what is under him, but he can consciously act upon what is there. That is a real difference. The animal simply eats the plant. He cannot change its situation or properties. The man, on the other hand, has to accept some limitations, but nevertheless is called upon in his relationship to nature to treat the thing that is under him consciously, on the basis of what God has made it to be. The animal, the plant must do it; the man should do it. We are to use it, but we are not to use it as though it were nothing in itself.

Now let us look at it in another way. Man was given dominion over creation. This is true. But since the Fall, man has exercised this dominion wrongly. He is a rebel who has set himself at the center of the universe. By creation man has dominion; but as a fallen creature he has used that dominion wrongly. Because he is fallen, he exploits created things as though they were nothing in themselves, and as though he has an autonomous right to them.

Surely then, Christians, who have returned through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ to fellowship with God, and have a proper place of reference to the God who is there, should demonstrate a proper use of nature. We are to have dominion over it, but we are not going to use it as fallen man uses it. We are not going to act as though it were nothing in itself or as though we will do to nature everything we can do. . . .

So man has dominion over nature, but he uses it wrongly. The Christian is called upon to exhibit this dominion, but exhibit it rightly: treating the thing as having value in itself, exercising dominion without being destructive. The church should always have taught and done this, but she has generally failed to do so, and we need to confess our failure. Francis Bacon understood this, and so have other Christians at different times, but by and large we must say that for a long, long time Christian teachers, including the best orthodox theologians, have shown a real poverty here.

As a parallel example, what would have happened if the Church at the time of the Industrial Revolution had spoken out against the economic abuses which arose from it? This is not to suggest that the Industrial Revolution was wrong, or that capitalism as such is necessarily wrong, but that the Church, at a point in history when it had the consensus, as it does not have now, failed (with some notable exceptions) to speak against the abuse of economic dominion. So also the Church has not spoken out as it should have done throughout history against the abuse of nature.

But when the Church puts belief into practice, in man and in nature, there is a substantial healing. One of the first fruits of that healing is a new sense of beauty. The aesthetic values are not to be despised. God has made man with a sense of beauty, in a way no animal has: no animal has ever produce a work of art. Man as made in the image of God has aesthetic quality, and as soon as he begins to deal with nature as he should — as having dominion but not exploiting nature as though it had no value in itself, and realizing it is also a creature of God as man is — beauty is preserved in nature. But also economic and human value will accrue, for the problems of ecology that we have now will diminish.

Christians should be able to exhibit individually and corporately that, on the basis of the work of Christ, dealing with things according to the world view and basic philosophy of the Bible, they can produce something that the world has tried, but failed, to produce. The Christian community should be a living exhibition of the truth that in our present situation it is possible to have substantial sociological healings — healings that humanism longs for but has not been able to produce. Humanism is not wrong in its cry for sociological healing, but humanism is not producing it. And the same thing is true in regard to a substantial healing where nature is concerned.

So we find that when we begin to deal on a Christian basis, things begin to change; not just theoretical things, important as they are, but practical things. Man is not to be sacrificed, as pantheism sacrifices him, because, after all, he was made in the image of God, and given dominion. Yet nature is to be honored, each thing on its own level. In other words, there is a balance here. Man has dominion; he has a right by choice, because he is a moral creature, a right by choice to have dominion. But he is also by choice to exercise it rightly. He is to honor what God has made, up to the very highest level that he can honor it, without sacrificing man.

Christians, of all people, should not be the destroyers. We should treat nature with an overwhelming respect. We may cut down a tree to build a house or to make a fire to keep the family warm. But we should not cut down the tree just to cut down the tree. We may, if necessary, bark the cork tree in order to have the use of the bark. But what we should not do is to bark the tree simply for the sake of doing so, and let it dry and stand there a dead skeleton in the wind. To do so is not to treat the tree with integrity. We have the right to rid our houses of ants; but what we have no right to do is to forget to honor the ant as God made it, out in the place where God made the ant to be. When we meet the ant on the sidewalk, we step over him. He is a creature, like ourselves; not made in the image of God, it is true, but equal with man as far as creation is concerned. The ant and the man are both creatures. . . .

One does not deface things simply to deface them. One would not willingly with no reason deface the rock. After all, the rock has a God-given right to be a rock as He made it. If you must move the rock in order to build the foundation of a house, then, by all means, move it. But on a walk in the woods do not strip the moss from it for no reason and leave it to lie by the side and die. Even the moss has a right to live. It is equal with man as a creature of God.

Hunting game is another example of the same principle. Killing of animals for food is one thing, but on the other hand they do not exist simply as things to be slaughtered. This is true of fishing, too. Many men fish and leave their victims to rot and stink. But what about the fish? Has it no rights — not to be romanticized as though it were a man — but real rights? On the one hand it is wrong to treat the fish as though it were a human baby; on the other hand, neither is it merely a chip of wood.

When we consider the tree, which is “below” the fish, we may chop it down, so long as we remember it is a tree, with its own value as a tree. It is not a zero. Some of our housing developments demonstrate the practical application of this. Bulldozers have gone in to flatten everything and clear the trees before the houses are begun. The end result is ugliness. It would have cost another thousand dollars to bulldoze around the trees, so they are simply bulldozed down without question. And then we wonder, looking at the result, how people can live there. It is less human in its barrenness, and even economically it is poorer as the top soil washes away. So when man breaks God’s truth, in reality he suffers.

The hippies are right in their desire to be close to nature, even walking in bare feet in order to feel it. But they have no sufficient philosophy, so it drifts into pantheism and soon becomes ugly. But Christians, who should understand the creation principle, have a reason for respecting nature, and when they do, it results in benefits to man. Let us be clear: it is not just a pragmatic attitude; there is a basis for it. We treat it with respect because God made it. When an orthodox, evangelical Christian mistreats or is insensible to nature, at that point he is more wrong than the hippie who has no real basis for his feeling for nature and yet senses that man and nature should have a relationship beyond that of spoiler and spoiled. You may, or may not, want to walk barefoot to feel close to nature, but as a Christian what relationship have you thought of and practiced toward nature as your fellow creature, over the last ten years?

Why do I have an emotional reaction toward the tree? For some abstract or pragmatic reason? Not at all. Secular man may say he cares for the tree because if he cuts it down his cities will not be able to breathe. But that is egoism, and egoism will produce ugliness, no matter how long it takes. On this basis technology will take another twist on the garrote of both nature and man. The tyranny of technology will grow to be almost total. But the Christian stands in front of the tree and has an emotional reaction toward it because the tree has a real value in itself, being a creature made by God; and we can care for the animal, the tree, and even the [mechanical] portion of the universe, each thing in its own order — for we know it to be a fellow creature with ourselves, both made by the same God.

From Pollution and the Death of Man: The Christian View of Ecology ; chapter 5

Tyndale House Publishers; 1970

John Calvin, 1509-1564

On Genesis 2:15

The earth was given to man, with this condition, that he should occupy himself in its cultivation…. The custody of the garden was given in charge to Adam, to show that we possess the things which God has committed to our hands, on the condition that, being content with the frugal and moderate use of them, we should take care of what shall remain. Let him who possesses a field, so partake of its yearly fruits, that he may not suffer the ground to be injured by his negligence, but let him endeavor to hand it down to posterity as he received it, or even better cultivated. Let him so feed on its fruits, that he neither dissipates it by luxury, nor permits it to be marred or ruined by neglect. Moreover, that this economy, and this diligence, with respect to those good things which God has given us to enjoy, may flourish among us; let everyone regard himself as the steward of God in all things which he possesses. Then he will neither conduct him self dissolutely, nor corrupt by abuse those things which God requires to be preserved.

-from John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis. First Latin edition 1554. First English Edition 1578.

Present translation 1847, reprinted by Banner of Truth Publishers 1965.

On Creation’s testimony:

I.v.1 Since the perfection of blessedness consists in the knowledge of God, he has been pleased, in order that none might be excluded from the means of obtaining felicity, not only to deposit in our minds that seed of religion of which we already have spoken, but so to manifest his perfections in the whole structure of the universe, and daily place himself in our view, that we cannot open our eyes without being compelled to behold him. His essence, indeed, is incomprehensible, utterly transcending all human thought; but on each of his works his glory is engraven in characters so bright, so distinct, and so illustrious, that none, however dull and illiterate, can plead ignorance as their excuse. … Hence the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews elegantly describes the visible worlds as images of the invisible (Heb. xi. 3), the elegant structure of the world serving us as a kind of mirror, in which we may behold God, though otherwise invisible. …

I.v.6 …this method of investigating the divine perfections, by tracing the lineaments of his countenance as shadowed forth in the firmament and on the earth, is common both to those within and those without the pale of the Church. From the power of God we are naturally led to consider his eternity, since that from which all other things derive their origin must necessarily be self-existent and eternal. Moreover, if it be asked what cause induced him to create all things at first, and now inclines him to preserve them, we shall find that there could be no other cause than his own goodness. But if this is the only cause, nothing more should be required to draw forth our love towards him; every creature, as the Psalmist reminds us, participating in his mercy. “His tender mercies are over all his works” (Ps cxlv. 9).

I.v.15. But though we are deficient in natural powers which might enable us to rise to a pure and clear knowledge of God, still, as the dulness which prevents us is within, there is no room for excuse. We cannot plead ignorance, without being at the same time convicted by our own consciences both of sloth and ingratitude. It were, indeed, a strange defense for man to pretend that he has no ears to hear the turth, while dumb creatures have voices loud enough to declare it; to allege that he is unable to see that which creatures without eyes demonstrate; to excuse himself on the ground of weakness of mind, while all creatures without reason are able to teach. … no sooner do we, from a survey of the world, obtain some slight knowledge of Deity, than we pass by the true God, and set up in his stead the dream and phantom of our own brain, drawing away the praise of justice, wisdom, and goodness from the fountain-head, and transferring it to some other quarter. Moreover, by the erroneous estimate we form, we either so obscure or pervert his daily works, as at once to rob them of their glory, and the author of them of his just praise.

I.vi.1. Therefore, though the effulgence which is presented to every eye, both in the heavens and on the earth, leaves the ingratitude of man without excuse, since God, in order to bring the whole human race under the same condemnation, holds forth to all, without exception, a mirror of his Deity in his works, another and better help must be given to guide us properly to God as Creator. Not in vain, therefore, has he added the light of his Word in order that he might make himself known unto salvation… For, seeing how the minds of men were carried to and fro, and found no certain resting-place, he chose the Jews for a peculiar people, and then hedged them in that they might not, like others, go astray. And not in vain does he, by the same means, retain us in his knowledge, since but for this, even those who, in comparison of others, seem to stand strong, would quickly fall away. For as the aged, or those whose sight is defective, when any book, however fair, is set before them, though they perceive that there is something written are scarcely able to make out two consecutive word, but, when aided by glasses, begin to read distinctly, so Scripture, gathering together the impressions of Deity, which, till then, lay confused in their minds, dissipates the darkness, and shows us the true God clearly.

. . . In point of order, however, the knowledge first given was that which made them [Adam, Noah, Abraham, and the other patriarchs] acquainted with the god by whom the world was made and is governed. To this first knowledge was afterwards added the more intimate knowledge which alone quickens dead souls, and by which God is known, not only as the Creator of the world, and the sole author and disposer of all events, but also as a Redeemer, in the person of the Mediator.

Quotes from research by Calvin B. DeWitt; January 14, 1999

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 1918-2008

Repentance

It is hard to understand the arrogant insensitivity of the modern trend in the social sciences: why are the standards and demands so necessarily and readily applied to individuals, families, small groups, and personal relations, rejected out of hand and utterly prohibited when we go on to deal with thousands and millions of people in association?

Human society cannot be exempted from the laws and demands which constitute the aim and meaning of individual human lives….

Whatever feelings predominate in the members of a given society at a given moment in time, they will serve to color the whole of that society and determine its moral character. And if there is nothing good there to pervade that society, it will destroy itself or be brutalized by the triumph of evil instincts no matter where the pointer of the great economic laws may turn. And it is open to every one of us, whether learned or not, to choose — and profitably choose — not to evade the examination of social phenomena with reference to the categories of individual spiritual life and ethics.[He goes on to suggest that there must be both personal and national repentance of grievous sin before the world's societies can be set right.]

Whether the transference of individual human qualities to society is easy or difficult in a general way, it is immensely difficult when the desired moral quality has been almost completely rejected by individual human beings themselves. This is the case with repentance. The gift of repentance, which perhaps more than anything else distinguishes man from the animal world, is particularly difficult for modern man to recover…. The habit of repentance is lost to our whole callous and chaotic age….

The end of the world, so often foretold by the prophets only to be postponed, has ceased to be the particular property of mystics and confronts us as sober reality, scientifically, technically, and psychologically warranted. It is no longer just the danger of a nuclear world war — we have grown used to that and can take it in our stride. But the calculations of the ecologists show us that we are caught in a trap: either we change our ways and abandon our greedy pursuit of progress, or else in the 21st century, whatever the pace of man’s development, we will perish as a result of a total exhaustion, barrenness, and pollution of the planet. Add to this the white-hot tensions between nations and races and we can say without suspicion of overstatement that without repentance, it is in any case doubtful if we can survive. It is by now only too obvious how dearly mankind has paid for the fact that we have all throughout the ages preferred to censure, denounce, and hate others, instead of censuring, denouncing, and hating ourselves….

What way out remains to us? Not the embittered strife of parties or nations, not the struggle to win some elusive victory — for all the ferocious causes already in being — but simply repentance and the search for our own errors and sins. We must stop blaming everyone else — our neighbors and more distant peoples, our geographical, economic, or ideological rivals, always claiming that we alone are in the right. Repentance is the first bit of firm ground underfoot, the only one from which we can go forward not to fresh hatreds but to concord. Repentance is the only starting point for spiritual growth….

At the very beginning of our repentance we have been warned: the path ahead will bristle with such insults and slanders. If you are the first to repent, earlier and more fully than others, you must expect predators in the guise of penitents to flock around and peck your liver. Nonetheless, there is no way out, except that of repentance….”

Repentance is always difficult. And not only because we must cross the threshold of self-love, but also because our own sins are not so easily visible to us….

[re: The Balkans] If such states are to achieve internal stability and be held together by something other than coercion, the peoples who live in them cannot possibly manage without a highly developed capacity for repentance. Otherwise the fires will smolder forever beneath the ashes and flare up again and again, and these countries will never know stability….

Repentance is only a clearing of the ground, the establishment of a clean basis in preparation for further moral actions — what in the life of the individual is called ‘reform.’ And if in private life what has been done must be put right by deeds, not words, this is all the more true in the life of a nation. Its repentance must be expressed not so much in articles, books, and broadcasts as in national actions.”

Self-limitation

After repentance, and once we renounce the use of force, self-limitation comes into its own as the most natural principle to live by. Repentance creates the atmosphere for self-limitation….

We are always very ready to limit others — this is what all politicians are engaged in — but nowadays the man who suggests that a state or a party, without coercion and simply in answer to a moral call, should limit itself invites ridicule. We are always anxiously on the lookout for ways of curbing the inordinate greed of the other man, but no one is heard renouncing his own inordinate greed. History knows of several occasions on which the greed of a minority was curbed with much bloodshed, but who is to curb the inflamed greed of the majority, and how?? That is something it can only do for itself. The idea of self-limitation in society is not a new one. We find it a century ago in such thoroughgoing Christians as the Russian Old Believers. In the journal “Istina” (no. 1, 1807)… we read:

A people subjects itself to great suffering by its immoral

acquisitiveness…. The true and lasting good is that which

is attained by farsighted self-limitation.

And elsewhere:

Save through self-restriction, there is no other true freedom for mankind.

After the Western ideal of unlimited freedom, after the Marxist concept of freedom as acceptance of the yoke of necessity — here is the true Christian definition of freedom: Freedom is self-restriction! Restriction of the self for the sake of others! Once understood and adopted, this principle diverts us — as individuals, in all forms of human associations, societies, and nations — from outward to inward development, thereby giving us greater spiritual depth. The turn toward inward development, the triumph of inwardness over outwardness, if it ever happens, will be a great turning point in the history of mankind, comparable to the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance….

In the material sphere too this change will have conspicuous results. The individual will not flog himself to death in his greed for bigger and bigger earnings, but will spend what he has economically, rationally, and calmly. The state will not, as it does now, use its strength — sometimes even with no particular end in view — simple on the principle that where something will give, one must exert pressure, if a barrier can be moved, move it. No, among states too the moral rule for individuals will be adopted — do not unto others as you would not have done unto you: instead, learn to use to the full what you have. Only thus can a well-ordered life be created on our planet.

The concept of unlimited freedom is closely connected in its origin with the concept of ‘infinite progress,’ which we now recognize as false. Progress in this sense is impossible on our earth with its limited surface area and resources. We shall in any case inevitably have to stop jostling each other and show self restraint: with the population rapidly soaring, mother earth herself will shortly force us to do so. It would be spiritually so much more valuable, and psychologically so much easier, to adopt the principle of self-limitation — and to achieve it through prudent self-restriction.

Such a change will not be easy for the free economy of the West. It is a revolutionary demolition and total reconstruction of all our ideas and aims. We must go over from uninterrupted progress to a stable economy, with nil growth in territory, parameters, and tempo, developing only through improved technology (and even technical successes must be critically screened). This means that we must abjure the plague of expansion beyond our borders, the continual scramble after new markets and sources of raw material, increases in our industrial territory of the volume of production, the whole insane pursuit of wealth, fame, and change. No incentive to self-limitation has ever existed in bourgeois economics, yet the formula would so easily and so long ago have been derived from moral considerations. The fundamental concepts of private property and private economic initiative are part of man’s nature, and necessary for his personal freedom and his sense of normal well-being. They would be beneficial to society if only – if only the carriers of these ideas on the very threshold of development had limited themselves, and not allowed the size of their property and thrust of avarice to become a social evil, which provoked so much justifiable anger, not tried to purchase power and subjugate the press. It was [in] reply to the shamelessness of unlimited money grubbing that socialism in all its forms developed.

[In reference to Russia] We who boast so much about our lead over others have slavishly copied Western technical progress and unthinkingly become jammed in a blind alley, finding ourselves together with the West in a crisis which threatens the existence of all mankind.

From a book of essays by Alexander Solzhenitsyn and some of his fellow dissidents in the early 70′s: From Under the Rubble;

printed in the US by Regnery Gateway in Washington DC, 1981. The preceeding is from Solzhenitsyn’s essay

“Repentance and Self-Limitation in the Life of Nations.”

C. S. Lewis, 1898-1963

Only Supernaturalists really see Nature. You must go a little away from her, and then turn around and look back. Then at last the true landscape will become visible. You must have tasted, however briefly, the pure water from beyond the world before you can be distinctly conscious of the hot, salty tang of Nature’s current. To treat her as God, or as Everything, is to lose the whole pith and pleasure of her. Come out, look back, and then you will see: this astonishing cataract of bears, babies, and bananas; this immoderate deluge of atoms, orchids, oranges, cancers, fleas, gases, tornadoes and toads. How could you ever have thought this was the ultimate reality? How could you ever have thought that it was merely a stage-set for the moral drama of men and women? She is herself. Offer her neither worship nor contempt. Meet her and know her. If we are immortal, and if she is doomed (as scientists tell us) to run down and die, we shall miss this half-shy and half-flamboyant creature, this ogress, this [saucy girl], this incorrigible fairy, this dumb witch. But the theologians tell us that she, like ourselves, is to be redeemed. The ‘vanity’ to which she was subjected was her disease, not her essence. She will be cursed in character: not tamed (Heaven forbid) nor sterilized. We shall still be able to recognize our old enemy, friend, playfellow and foster mother, so perfected as to be not less, but more, herself. And that will be a merry meeting.

Miracles, conclusion of chapter 9:

Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1844-1889

God’s Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell; the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs-

Because the Holy Spirit over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

[Quotations collected by Fred Krueger]:

Martin Luther (1483 ? 1546)

The Incarnation Increases Appreciation of Creation

Now if I believe in God’s Son and bear in mind that He became man, all creatures will appear a hundred times more beautiful to me than before. Then I will properly appreciate the sun, the moon, the stars, trees, apples, pears, as I reflect that he is Lord over and the center of all things.

Sermons on the Gospel of John 496

God’s Power Sustains Creation

If God were to withdraw his hand, this building (the creation) would collapse….The sun would no longer return to its position and shine in the heavens, no child would be born; no kernel, no blade of grass, nothing at all would grow on earth or reproduce itself if God did not work forever and ever.

Sermons On the Gospel of John,

Luther’s Complete Works 22:26

Humanity Is Sustained by God’s Providence

I believe God has created me together with all that exists, that He has given me, and still sustains, my body and soul, all my limbs and senses, my reason and all the faculties of my mind, together with food and clothing, house and home, family and property…. All this He does out of His pure fatherly and divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness on my part.

Werke Kritische Gesamtausgabe 48:201

God Is the Creator

It is God who creates, effects, and preserves all things through His almighty power and right hand, as our creed confesses. For He dispatches no officials or angels when He creates or preserves something, but all this is the work of the Divine power itself. If He is to create it or preserve it, however, he must be present and must take and preserve His creation both in its innermost and outermost aspects.

Luther’s Works, Vol. 37, pg. 57.

God’s Other Gospel

God writes the Gospel, not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.

Quoted in

The Harper Religious and

Inspirational

Quotation Companion, pg. 120.

Earth is Innocent of Sin

The earth is indeed innocent (of any sin) and would gladly produce the best products, but is prevented by the curse which was placed upon man because of sin.

Lectures on Genesis 205

The power of God is present in creation

The power of God is present at all places, even in the tiniest leaf…. God is entirely and personally present in the wilderness, in the garden, and in the field.

Luther’s Works 37:57,61

The animals are God’s footprints

In a mouse we admire God’s creation and craft work. The same may be said about flies. Animals are the footprints of God. Adam and Eve derived the fullness of joy and bliss from their contemplation of all the animal creatures.

God’s Presence in Creation

God is wholly present in all creation, in every corner, behind you and before you. Do you think God is sleeping on a pillow in heaven? God is watching over you and protecting you.

Luther’s Works 51:43

Paracelsus (1493 ? 1541)

Knowledge of nature fortifies faith

The more cognition there is in a human being about God’s works, the greater is the belief, and the blissfulness is then accordingly…. Blissful and more than blissful may be those human beings… which have this grace and heaven. We are really talking about Christum Jesum, the eternal wisdom.

Aphorismus IV

The effect of knowledge of the mysteries

When a person knows and understands many of God’s works and secrets, his belief is greater and deeper, he is more stable and moral in the rules and virtues, therefore he is in blissfulness, compared to a wise understanding person who is only merciful.

De perfecto homine in Christo Iesu et contra de perdito animale homine in Adam, qui lunaticu dicitur, 1

The path to blissfulness

Human beings cannot achieve blissfulness unless they recognize God as their Creator completely and thoroughly in all of his works and in all of his creatures, as well as knowing themselves.

De perfecto homine in Christo Iesu et contra de perdito animale homine in Adam, qui lunaticu dicitur, 3

John Calvin (1509 ? 1564

The Beauty of Creation Reflects the Divine Glory

The creation is quite like a spacious and splendid house, provided and filled with the most exquisite and at the same time the most abundant furnishings. Everything in it tells us of God.

Institutes 1:14

A Duty to Reflect on the Creatures

While we contemplate in all creatures, as in a mirror, those immense riches of his wisdom, justice, goodness, and power, we should not merely run them over cursorily, and, so to speak, with a fleeting glance, but we should ponder them at length, turn them over in our mind seriously and faithfully, and recollect them repeatedly.

Institutes 1:14

Every Part of Creation Reflects the Creator

In every part of the world, in heaven and on earth, he has written and as it were engraven the glory of his power, goodness and eternity…. For all creatures, from the firmament even to the center of the earth, could be witnesses and messengers of his glory to all men, drawing them on to seek him and, having found him, to do him service and honor according to the dignity of a Lord so good, so potent, so wise and everlasting….For the little singing birds sang of God, the animals acclaimed Him, the elements feared and the mountains resounded with Him, the river and springs threw glances toward Him, the grasses and the flowers smiled.

Opera Selecta 9:273

The Overwhelming Beauty of the Universe

You cannot in one glance survey this most vast and beautiful system of the universe in all its wide expanse, without being completely overwhelmed by the boundless force of its brightness.

Institutes 1:5.1

Paul and the Creatures: Commentary on Romans 8:21

Paul does not mean that all creatures will be partakers of the same glory with the sons of God, but that they will share in their own manner in the better state, because God will restore the present fallen world to perfect condition at the same time as the human race…. Let us therefore be content with this simple doctrine their constitution will be such, and their order so complete, that no appearance either of deformity or of impermanence will be seen.

Institutes 1

The Conditions upon Man’s Stewardship of the Earth

The earth was given to man with this condition, that he should occupy himself in its cultivation…. The custody of the garden was given in charge to Adam, to show that we possess the things which God has committed to our hands, on the condition that, being content with the frugal and moderate use of them, we should take care of what shall remain.

Commentary on Genesis, 1554,

from the English translation of 1847,

reprinted by Banner of Truth Publishers, 1965

and in Calvin DeWitt, Earth-Wise, CRC Publications,

Grand Rapids, 1994, pg. 9

Responsibility for the Future of the Land

Let him who possesses a field, so partake of its yearly fruits, that he may not suffer the ground to be injured by his negligence; but let him endeavor to hand it down to posterity as he received it, or even better cultivated. Let him so feed on its fruits that he neither dissipates it by luxury, nor permits it to be marred or ruined by neglect. Moreover, that this economy, and this diligence, with respect to those good things which God has given us to enjoy, may flourish among us, let everyone regard himself as the steward of God in all things which he possesses. Then he will neither conduct himself dissolutely, not corrupt by abuse those things which God requires to be preserved.

Commentary on Genesis, 1554,

from the English translation of 1847,

reprinted by Banner of Truth Publishers, 1965 and

quoted in Calvin DeWitt, Earth-Wise, CRC Publications,

Grand Rapids, 1994, pg. 9

A disposition toward God’s gifts

We are not our own…. we are God’s; all the endowments which we possess are deposits entrusted to us for the very purpose of being distributed for the good of our neighbor…. Moreover, the only right mode of administration is that which is regulated by love.

Institutes III, vii, 1 and 5 (1559),

translated by Henry Beveridge, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1957

A Theology of Nature

The little birds singing are singing of God; the beasts cry unto him; the elements are in awe of him; the mountains echo his name; the waves and streams cast their glances at him; the herbs and flowers laugh out to him. Nor indeed do we need to labor to seek him afar, since each of us may find Him within himself, inasmuch as we are all upheld and preserved by his power dwelling within us.

Translated from “Praefationes biblis gallicis Petri Roberti Olivatani,” CO 9:791

as quoted in Susan Schreiner,

The Theater of His Glory: Nature and Natural Order

in the Thought of John Calvin,

Baker Books, Grand Rapids, 1995, pg. 106.

Those who are wise search out God’s works

For it is said that it is the wisdom of men to search out God’s works, and to set their minds wholly upon them. And God has also ordained the world to be like a theater upon which to behold his goodness, righteousness, power, and wisdom.

Sermon on Ephesians 3:9-12, CO 51:462, as quoted in Susan Schreiner, The Theater of His Glory: Nature and Natural Order in the Thought of John Calvin, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, 1995, pg. 113.

Opening our eyes to the grandeur of God in creation

We are inexcusable when we have not at all considered God in His works. He does not at all leave himself without witness here…. Let us then only open our eyes and we will have enough arguments for the grandeur of God, so that we may learn to honor him as He deserves.

Sermon on Job 5:8-10

The works of God are everywhere

Let us not be ashamed to take pious delight in the works of God open and manifest in this beautiful theatre…. Wherever we cast our eyes, all things they meet are works of God, and at the same time (we should) ponder with pious meditation to what end God created them.

Institutes I:14:20

Seek to know God through His creation

The most perfect way of seeking God. . . is not for us to attempt to penetrate His essence, but for us to contemplate Him in His works whereby He renders himself near and familiar to us, and in some manner communicates himself.

Institutes 1:5.9

St. Teresa of Avila (1515 ? 1582)

Nature as an Aid to the Remembrance of God

It helped me to look at fields, or water, or flowers. In these things I found a remembrance of the Creator. I mean that they awakened and recollected me and served as a book and reminded me of my ingratitude and sins.

The Way of Perfection

Detachment from the Creation

Believe me, the whole manner of life we are trying to live is…. leading us to detachment from all created things.

The Way of Perfection

Robert Bellarmine (1542 ? 1621)

Knowing God Through His Creatures

God wanted man to know him somehow through his creatures, and since no creature could fittingly reflect the infinite perfection of the Creator, he multiplied his creatures and gave a certain goodness and perfection to each of them so that from them we could judge the goodness and perfection of the Creator, who embraces infinite perfection in the perfection of his one and utterly simple essence.

The Mind’s Ascent to God 2:2

The Beauty of Created Things

Certainly everything that God has made is beautiful as well as good, if we rightly reflect on it…. So my soul, if the Creator has lavished such beauty on created things, how great and marvelous do you think is the beauty of the all?beautiful Creator? The greatness of God’s beauty not only is known with certainty from the fact that the beauty of all creatures is gathered together and found on a higher level in Him, but also from the fact that since He is invisible to us while we are pilgrims far from Him and is known only by the testimony of Scripture and to a degree in the mirror of his creatures, still many saints so burned with love for Him that some hid themselves in desert places, wishing to devote themselves entirely to contemplation….

Look up in wonder my soul, at the infinite goodness of your Creator, who carries and conserves all things so lovingly despite His not needing their works…

The Mind’s Ascent to God 2:5

William Shakespeare (1564 ? 1616)

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.

In nature’s infinite book of secrecy, a little I can read.

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stone,

And good in every thing. As You Like It

Jacob Boehme (1575 ? 1624)

God’s Truth in nature

Everything we see in nature is manifested truth; only we are not able to recognize it as such, unless truth is manifest within ourselves… Look at the flowers of the fields; each one has its own particular attributes. Nevertheless they do not wrangle and fight with each other. They do not quarrel about the possession of sunshine as is daily provided by the philosophers who are disputing about the attributes and the will of God, and who nevertheless do not know God, because they do not listen to the word of God within their souls.

The Aurora

The world as a manifestation of God

Referring to a profoundly transforming experience which came to him while in the woods, he writes, “In this light my spirit suddenly saw through all, and in and by all, the creatures, even in herbs and grass, it knew God, who He is and how He is and what His will is. And suddenly in that light my will was set on by a mighty impulse to describe the Being of God.

The Aurora, xix, 7-11

Reflection on Human Responsibility

In this world we have nothing of our own, and we ourselves are not our own. We are only workers and foreign guests in this world for a short time. We are only managers for our God over His creation and creatures. What we work and produce we do not only for ourselves but for our God and our neighbor, and that all together we are one in Christ (who is) our salvation, (and) who is Himself in all of us. We are to heartily and willingly wish to share the gifts that God gives us through our prayer, be they heavenly or earthly, and to keep ourselves as the tree does its branches, or the earth does, giving itself willingly to all its fruits, loving and bearing all of them.

The Way to Christ 3:7

The Word of God in the world

The visible world with its host of creatures is nothing else than the emanated Word which has disposed itself into qualities.

The Aurora

Grasping God in creation

If you consider the depth of heaven, the stars, the elements, and the earth, you will, of course, not grasp with your eyes the pure and clear Godhead, although God is there and within it; but if you rise up in your thoughts and direct your mind to God, who in His holiness rules within the All, you are then penetrating through heaven and grasping the very sacred heart of God himself.

The Aurora, xxiii, 11

How creation is a manifestation of God

The creation of the whole creation is nothing else but a manifestation of the all-eternal, unsearchable God; all whatever he is in his eternal unbeginning generation and dominion, of that is also the creation, but not in the omnipotence and power, but like an apple which grows upon the tree, which is not the tree itself, but grows from the power of the tree: Even so all things are sprung forth out of the divine desire, and created into an essence, where in the beginning there was no such essence present, but only that same mystery of the eternal generation, in which there has been an eternal perfection.

The Signature of All Things

chapter 16, para. 1

The greatest challenge in understanding the mysteries of creation

The greatest obstacle in the understanding of the doctrines in regard to divine mysteries is that the student imagines that they are dealing with things existing outside of himself and with which he is not concerned. But these doctrines are called “secret,” not because they are not to be revealed, except to a few favorites, but because they cannot be understood unless the reader can free himself from that delusive conception of self which causes him to fancy that he is something separated from the rest of the world, not only in regard to his bodily form, but also in regard to his real foundations.

“The Restoration of Nature and the Generation of Man,”

as quoted in

The Doctrines of Jacob Boehme,

the God-taught Philosopher, Franz Hartmann,

Macoy Publishing Co., NY, NY, 1919, pg. 131.

William Penn (1644 ? 1718)

How little we learn the lessons of the world

The world is certainly a great and stately volume of natural things, and may be styled the hieroglyphics of a better one, but, alas, how very few leaves of it do we seriously turn over!

Some Fruits of Solitude (1692

The Creator’s Face in creation

It would go a long way to caution and direct people in their use of the world that they were better studied and known in the creation of it. For how could man find the confidence to abuse it, while they should see the Great Creator stare them in the face, in all and every part thereof?

Some Fruits of Solitude (1692)

Cotton Mather (1663 – 1728)

The Twofold Book of God

Chrysostom, I remember, mentions a twofold book of God: the book of the creatures, and the book of the Scriptures: GOD having taught us first of all by his works, did it afterwards, by his Words. We will now for a while read the former of these books; ’twill help us in reading the latter. They will admirably assist one another.

The Christian Philosopher, pg. 104

John Wesley (1701 ? 1791)

Creation’s Restoration

In the new earth, as well as in the new heavens, there will be nothing to give pain, but everything that the wisdom of God and goodness of God can create to give happiness.

Sermon: The General Deliverance

Each Creature has a Share in the Heavenly Life

The whole brute creation will be restored, not only to the vigor, strength, and swiftness which they had at their creation, but to a far higher degree of each than they ever enjoyed. They will be restored, not only to that measure of understanding which they had in paradise, but to a degree of it much higher than that of as the understanding of an elephant is beyond that of a worm….

In that day all the vanity to which they are now subject will be abolished; they will suffer no more either from within or without; the days of their groaning are ended…. and they shall enjoy happiness suited to their state, without alloy, without interruption, and without end.

One more excellent end may undoubtedly be answered by the preceding considerations. They (the creatures) may encourage us to imitate Him whose mercy is over all His works. They may soften our hearts toward the meaner creatures, knowing that the Lord careth for them. It may enlarge our hearts towards these poor creatures to reflect that, as vile as they appear to our eyes, not one of them is forgotten in the sight of our Father which in heaven.

Sermon: The General Deliverance

Love Creatures for the sake of God, not for their own Sake

Deliver me, O God, from all idolatrous love of any creature. I know infinite numbers have been lost to you by loving those creatures for their own sake, which you permit, nay, even command, to love subordinately to you. Preserve me, I beseech you, from all such blind affection; be a guard to my desires, that they fix on no creature any farther than the love of it tends to build me up in the love of you.

Prayers for Every Day of the Week:

Sunday evening, 1733

Jesus Christ leads us to creation concern

I believe in my heart that faith in Jesus Christ can and will lead us beyond an exclusive concern for the well-being of other human beings, to a broader concern for the well-being of the birds in our backyards, the fish in our rivers, and every living creature on the face of the earth

Quoted by Rev. Finley Schaef, in “Earthkeeping News,”

Newsletter of the NACCE, January, 1997, pg. 2.

Human dominion over the creatures

To this creature, God said, “Have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” … So man was God’s vice-regent upon the earth, the prince and governor of this lower world; and all the blessings of God flowed through him to the inferior creatures. Man was the channel of conveyance between his Creator and the whole brute creation. …

What makes the barrier between man and brutes? The line which they cannot pass? It was not reason. … But it is this: man is capable of God; the inferior creatures are not. … This is the specific difference between man and brute — the great gulf which they cannot pass over. And as a loving obedience to God was the perfection of men, so a loving obedience to God was the perfection of men, so a loving obedience to man was the perfection of the brutes. …

As all the blessings of God in paradise flowed through man to the inferior creatures; as man was the great channel of communication between the Creator and the whole brute creation. When man made himself incapable of transmitting those blessings, that communication was necessarily cut off. … And then it was that ‘the creature,’ every creature, was subject to vanity, to sorrow, to pain of every kind, to all manner of evils. …

As man is deprived of his perfection, his loving obedience to God, so the brutes are deprived of their perfection, their loving obedience to man.

Sermon 60, “The General Deliverance,” 1:2-2:3,

as quoted in The Works of John Wesley, Vol. 2,

edited by Albert Outler,

Abingdon Press, Nashville, 1985

A reflection about the purpose of the animals

In reflecting upon the purpose of so many species of animals, Wesley offers the following thought: “They may encourage us to imitate him whose mercy is over all of his works. They may soften our hearts towards the meaner creatures, knowing that the Lord cares for them. It may enlarge our hearts towards those poor creatures to reflect that, as vile as they appear in our eyes, not one of them is forgotten in the sight of our Father which is in heaven. … Yea, let us habituate ourselves to look forward, beyond this present scene of bondage, to the happy time when they will be delivered therefrom into the liberty of the children of God.

Sermon 60, “The General Deliverance,” 10,

as quoted in The Works of John Wesley, Vol. 2, edited by Albert Outler,

Abingdon Press, Nashville, 1985, pg. 449.

Jonathan Edwards (1703 – 1758)

God’s Excellency Dwells in Every Thing

God’s excellency, his wisdom, his purity and love, seemed to appear in every thing in the sun, moon and stars; in the clouds, and blue sky; in the grass, flowers, trees; in the water, and all nature; which used greatly to fix my mind. I often used to sit and view the moon for continuance; and in the day, spent much time in viewing the clouds and sky, to behold the sweet glory of God in these things.

quoted in Anne Fremantle, The Protestant Mystics, pg. 126.

from C. Cummings, ocso, pg. 54

Reflections of God’s Glory

We have shown that the Son of God created the world for this very end, to communicate Himself in an image of His own excellency…. So that when we are delighted with flowery meadows and gentle breezes of wind, we may consider that we see only the emanations of the sweet benevolence of Jesus Christ. When we behold the fragrant rose and lily, we see His love and purity. So the green trees and fields, and singing of birds, are the emanations of His infinite joy and benignity. The easiness and naturalness of trees and vines are shadows of His beauty and loveliness. The crystal rivers and murmuring streams are the footsteps of His favor, grace, and beauty. When we behold the light and brightness of the sun, the golden edges of an evening cloud, or the beauteous (rain)bow, we behold the adumbrations of His glory and goodness; and in the blue sky, of his mildness and gentleness.

Observations, pg. 94 as quotedin Alexander Allen,

Jonathan Edwards, New York, Burt Franklin

Reprints, 1975) pg. 355.

John Woolman (1720 ? 1772)

Tenderness toward All Creatures

I believe that where the love of God is verily perfected and the true spirit of government watchfully attended to, a tenderness toward all creatures made subject to us will be experienced, and a care felt in us that we do not lessen that sweetness of life in the animal creation which the Great Creator intends for them under our government.

quoted in C. W. Hume, The Status of Animals in the Christian Religion,

London, 1957, pg. 59

William Blake (1757 ? 1827)

Every cell opens into eternity

And every space smaller than a globule of man’s blood opens into Eternity of which this vegetable Earth is but a shadow.

Milton, Book 1,31

In the elements of the world are hid the whole of creation

To see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour

from Auguries of Innocence

St. Seraphim of Sarov (1759 ? 1833)

The State of Adam in Paradise

Everything was subject to Adam as the beloved of God, as the king and lord of creation, and everything looked up to him, as the perfect crown of God’s creatures. Adam was made so wise by this breath of life which was breathed into his face from the creative lips of God, the Creator and Ruler of all, that there never has been a man on earth wiser or more intelligent than he, and it is hardly likely that there ever will be. When the Lord commanded him to give names to all the creatures, he gave every creature a name which completely expressed all the qualities, powers and properties given it by God at its creation. Owing to this very gift of the supernatural grace of God which was infused into him by the breath of

St. Theophan the Recluse (1815 – 1894)

All things in creation witness to the Father

Everything, with no exception, is a source from which you can distill a higher and more celestial knowledge that is both valid and useful. Yet this understanding will alter from one person to another, depending upon their power of penetration, their degree of attention, and their faith and devotion. Those who relentlessly and enthusiastically pursue these exercises will in time feel enriched by the wealth of knowledge that is yielded. Then they will start to reinterpret everything around them and all that they meet with.

We can start with the house in which we live, and reinterpret all that it contains: the house itself, its walls, its roof and ceilings, its foundations, its windows, stoves and chimneys, the furniture that fills it: tables, chairs, beds and mirrors and all the rest…. Then we can pass on to the inhabitants of the house…. We can also reinterpret the ordinary activities of daily life…. In the Old and New Testaments we will find many keys to show us how to do this in a wise way….

When we can do so successfully, the world will be like a holy book filled with uncountable and wonderfully different paragraphs; they any fixed object, any changing event, will refer us to God, so that our thoughts will be directed toward Him. Every activity and every movement will be made in His presence. We will walk and act inside the field of the senses and materiality, yet in reality, we move in the real of the Spirit. Everything will unveil its divine dimension for us, and this will reinforce the power with which our attention turns towards Him.

This text is fertile beyond anything we can conceive. If everything in daily life can be spiritually reinterpreted, it is because everything is a symbol of the invisible realm, but reflected within time and space. This is why it has been said that whatever exists on earth is modeled on an archetypal essence that is actually present on another plane of God’s creation. Do we not say in the Creed, “Creator of all that is, visible and invisible.”

The Heart of Salvation, pg. 16-17.

The narrowing effect of specialization on spiritual sensitivity

There is nothing more destructive of the spirit of Christian life than an exclusive concern for empirical learning. It casts one into a coldness one can stay in forever. In some conditions it leads to an immoral life…. This unhappy trend has led to today’s narrow specializations that prevent man from developing his growth into maturity which makes full spiritual growth possible. So it makes him a slave to the machine.

The Heart of Salvation, pg. 19

A Test for Spiritual and Secular Literature

To a student who asked him about which books to read, Theophan gives this enduring counsel: “Some books of human wisdom nourish the spirit; for instance, those that point out to us through nature and history the proofs of God’s wisdom, His truth, and His great care for us. Read this kind of book, because God reveals Himself in nature and history, as well as in His Word. Nature and history are God’s books for those who know how to read them.

“But test them when you are in a good mood. Start reading a book of human wisdom, but if the good mood begins to go away, discard the book. Apply this as a general rule.

“It is easier to say read such books than to tell you where to get them. Nowadays, many books on science attempt to explain the origin of the world without God, and explain moral, religious and other manifestations in our lives without the soul of spirit. Do not touch them….

It is good to understand the structure of plants and animals and especially man, as well as the natural laws which are manifested in them. The wisdom of God is in all these things.

The Heart of Salvation, pg. 67

Contemplation of creation makes the mind sober

The world, with its concepts, principles and rules, in general its entire system made into immutable law, lays a heavy, authoritarian hand on each of its offspring. As a result, no one dares even to think of rebelling against it or renouncing its power. Everyone… adheres to its rules with such timidity. A violation of these rules is considered as a criminal act. The world is not a person, but its spirit in some way stands firm on the earth, influences us, and holds us as if with bonds. …

Experience shows how frequently the mind, obscured by worldly ways, becomes sober through contemplation of divine creation….

Visible nature and the temple of God have not only often brought sense and sobriety to indifferent and sinful Christians, but have converted even pagans to true worship of God and devotion to Him. … The contemplation of the beauties of the visible creation of God converted the Great Martyr Barbara from the ways of the flesh. Their power and influence come from the fact that they vividly and perceptibly offer the best, most blissful way of life for a spirit that is wearied, exhausted, fatigued and tortured by the vanity of the world.

The Path to Salvation, St. Herman of Alaska Press,

Forestville, CA, 1996, pg. 114-11

Henry David Thoreau (1817 ? 1862)

Seeing God through Nature

Blessed are they who never read a newspaper, they shall see nature, and through her, God.

Journal

The Wealth of the Natural Philosopher

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but to love wisdom and to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust.

Journal, August 28, 1851

The Need to prevent Usurpation of Nature

Most men, it seems to me, do not care for nature and would sell their share in all her beauty, as long as they may live, for a stated sum, and many for a glass of rum. It is for the very reason that some do not care for those things that we need to continue to protect all from the vandalism of a few.

Journal, January 3,1861

Fyodor Doestoyevski (1821 ? 1881)

Love reveals the mysteries of creation

Love all of God’s creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light! Love the animals. Love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will soon perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.

The Brothers Karamazov

Love the whole earth

You are working for the whole, you are acting for the future. Seek no reward, for your reward on this earth is already great: the spiritual joy which is only vouchsafed to the righteous man. Fear not the great nor the mighty, but be wise and serene. Know the measure, know the times, study them. When you are left alone, pray. Love to throw yourself upon the earth and kiss it. Kiss the earth and love it with an unceasing, consuming love. Love all men, love everything. Seek that rapture and ecstasy. Water the earth with the tears of your joy, and love those tears. Don’t be ashamed of that ecstasy; prize it, for it is a gift of God and a great one.

The Brothers Karamazov

Love the animals

Love the animals. God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Do not trouble their joy, do not harass them, do not deprive them of their happiness do not work against God’s intent. Man, do not pride yourself on superiority to animals; they are without sin, and you, with your greatness, defile the earth by your appearance on it, and leave the traces of your foulness after you ?? alas, it is true of almost everyone of us!

The Brothers Karamazov

All parts of creation bear witness to the mystery of God

It was a bright, warm, still July night; a cool mist rose from the broad river and we could hear the splash of fish, the birds were still, all was hushed and beautiful, everything praying to God…. Every blade of grass, every insect, ant, and golden bee, all so marvelously know their path; though they have not intelligence, they bear witness to the mystery of God and continually accomplish it themselves.

I saw the dear lad’s heart was moved. He told me that he loved the forest and the forest birds. He was a bird catcher, knew the note of each of them, could call each bird. “I know nothing better than to be in the forest,” said he, “though all things are good.”

“Truly,” I answered him, “all things are good and fair, because all is truth. Look,” said I, “at the horse, that great beast which is so near to man; or the lowly, pensive ox, which feeds him and works for him; look at their faces, what meekness, what devotion to man, who often beats them mercilessly. What gentleness, what confidence and what beauty! It’s touching to know that there’s no sin in them; for all, all except man, are sinless, and Christ has been with them before us.”

“Why,” asked the boy, “is Christ with the animals too?”

“It cannot but be so,” said I, “since the Word is for all. All creation and all creatures, every leaf is striving toward the Word, singing glory to God, weeping to Christ, unconsciously accomplishing this by the mystery of their sinless life….”

The Brothers Karamazov, as quoted in “The Life of the Elder Zosima,” in The Gospel in Doestoyevsky, edited by Hutterian Brethren, Plough Books,

Farmington, PA, 1988, pg. 179-180.

Love as a teacher

Brothers, love is a teacher; but one must know how to acquire it, for it is hard to acquire, it is dearly bought, it is won slowly by long labor. For we must love not only occasionally, for a moment, but forever. Everyone can love occasionally, even the wicked can.

My brother asked the birds to forgive him: that sounds senseless, but it is right; for all is like an ocean, all is flowing and blending; a touch in one place sets up movement at the other end of the earth. It may be senseless to beg forgiveness of the birds, but birds would be happier at your side –a little happier, anyway– and children and all animals, if you yourself were nobler than you are now. It’s all like an ocean, I tell you. Then you would pray to the birds too, consumed by an all-embracing love in a sort of transport, and pray that they too will forgive you your sin.

The Brothers Karamazov, as quoted in “Conversations with Father Zosima,” in The Gospel in Doestoyevsky, edited by Hutterian Brethren, Plough Books,

Farmington, PA, 1988, pg. 247-248.

From Entropy: Into the Greenhouse World

by Jeremy Rifkin

Bantam Books, 1980 (revised in 1989)

From the chapter titled “A Second Christian Reformation”

Sin is people’s hubris in believing that they can treat God’s creations differently than God does; namely, manipulate and exploit them for purposes other than what they were created for. Sin is also people’s hubris in believing that they can reorder this world and redefine its purpose to suit their own whims and fancies. The Christian life must be one of conserving wholeness over fragmentation, balance over imbalance, and harmony over disharmony. A Christian must love God’s creation and treat it with respect because God created it with love.

God, then, has a covenant with humanity. Men and women are to act as His stewards on earth, preserving and protecting all of God’s creations. This covenant puts human beings in a special relationship to God. Since people are a creation of God, just like all of God’s other creations, they are equal to them in their finite nature; only God is infinite. While all creations are equal in that they owe their existence to the same source – God – human beings are nonetheless different. The difference, as Francis Schaeffer points out in his book Pollution and the Death of Man, is that human beings are made by God in his image and are given the responsibility to act as stewards over the rest of God’s creation. Therefore, people are both part of nature, equal to and dependent on all other living creatures, and at the same time separate from nature with a responsibility to protect and take care of it. As long as people accept both relationships, they are faithful to God’s purpose and are carrying out the covenant God made with them. However, when people take advantage of their special relationship by taking over God’s creation as their own, using it for their own ends rather than God’s glory, they have broken the covenant and are rebelling against God.

Creation Quotations

Vigen Guroian

Aldo Leopold

Alister McGrath

Carl F.H. Henry

Wendell Berry

Katharine Hayhoe and Andrew Farley

A Climate For Change

C. S. Lewis

Annihilating Space

Brian McLaren

Consider The Turtles Of The Field

McGuffey and His Readers

From Entropy: Into the Greenhouse World

Declaration on Creation Stewardship
and Climate Change

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