Why Christians Should Care About Climate Change

Perhaps the most direct arguments in favor of Christian conservationism come from Genesis and the creation story.  It's a deep subject with many angles, but you can find some of my commentary on the subject in another post.  In this post, however, I'd like to approach the topic from other scriptural sources in an effort to broaden my argument and avoid redundancy.

In Luke 12:35-48 we find a familiar passage about the second coming of the Lord.  The passage analogizes the return of the Lord to the coming of a thief in the night.  The focus of the passage seems to be that we should have our hearts in the right place so that we might be ready for the Lord's return, and I don't dispute that focus.  But as with other passages, we Christians often have the tendency to extract the primary lesson from a passage of scripture while simultaneously ignoring all of the ancillary lessons.  We learn, one way or another, that a passage is "about" a particular topic or principle, and we start to ignore any other lesson it could teach us.

Such is the case with this passage.  The focus of the passage is about being ready, so it's easy to overlook the fact that Jesus explains how to be ready.   “A faithful, sensible servant is one to whom the master can give the responsibility of managing his other household servants and feeding them" (12:42 NLT).  Conversely, Jesus describes that "a servant who knows what the master wants, but isn’t prepared and doesn’t carry out those instructions, will be severely punished (12:47 NLT).  Following the specific analogy, we know that a "faithful servant" is one who is independent and responsible enough to manage the other servants; which to me means someone who teaches, leads, or manages other believers.  But I believe there is also a broader lesson to be gained here.

In a broad sense we see that the good servant is one who is "faithful, sensible," and responsible.  The servant who is punished is unfaithful and wasteful, shirking his responsibilities and spending his time on enjoyment before doing the Master's work.  Fundamentally, the core value that makes the difference between faithful and unfaithful is fulfillment of his duty.  We find the same core value in the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30).

Luke 16 gives us the Parable of the Shrewd Manager.  As the parable concludes, Christ wraps up his lesson with these words in verses 10-12; "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.  So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?  And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?"  Again, the focal point is duty.  In this parable, Christ makes duty involving physical property a spiritual issue.

It is certainly true that no passage or verse says, "Thou shalt prevent climate change."  No commandment is given that "it is a sin to have a large carbon footprint."  The Biblical call to faithfulness in duty, however, is unassailable.  Few Christians would dispute that the earth is the Lord's (1 Corinthians 10:26, Psalm 24:1)  Consider that the earth is God's property and that Luke 16 tells us that if we don't handle others' property in a trustworthy manner, then we will not be given property of our own; neither on earth nor in heaven.  For those Christians who believe in the principle of sowing and reaping, consider that the way we treat the Lord's land may impact how the Lord distributes his land back to us.  Luke 16 also tell us that what we do with little indicate what we will do with much.  How we manage the "little" of our own home, car, and yard indicates to God how we will manage the "much" that He could put under our charge.

For political reasons, many Christians seem to think it is their responsibility to deny climate change, as if their denial is some crusade against some greater liberal agenda that is somehow inseparable from other social hot topics like abortion and homosexual rights.  Perhaps our understanding that we are spiritual aliens in the world and our leaders' call to live counter-cultural lives has caused us to throw out the baby with the bathwater; turning us into rebels against secular climate science without a Biblical cause.  But consider the possibility that climate change is real (and not requisitely lumped with other aspects of a liberal agenda):  If our actions are actually leading to the waste of the earth and the organisms that live on it, then we have gravely transgressed against God's property, and so against God himself.

"But wait," you say, "the whole issue is that climate change isn't real and, therefore, is not the source of some sin against God."  The argument that climate change is occurring and is, at least predominately, anthropogenic in origin is another topic for another post and other people besides me are far more qualified to make that case.  But let's play that game for a minute and work under the assumption that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is not actually causing climate change.  Even if burning fossil fuels doesn't lead to climate change, obtaining those fuels does lead to massive water pollution through hydrofracking and oil spills.  Burning them to generate electricity and power our vehicles does lead to widespread air pollution in the form of particulate matter (soot), carbon monoxide, and VOCs.  Burning coal can lead to acid rain which destroys aquatic ecosystems and degrades forests.  None of that sounds like faithful stewardship of God's property.  Even if the tons of carbon dioxide produced by cars, industries, and power plants don't lead to climate change, developing more energy efficient automobiles, appliances, and buildings and developing alternative fuel sources helps conserve natural resources and reduces pollution.  That does sound like faithfulness to the governance duties God gave us.

And so the list continues: Anything climatologists say we should do to mitigate climate change is also beneficial for additional reasons that have nothing to do with climate change.  Christians need to embrace the fact that becoming ecologically-literate, ecologically-sensitive people is necessary if we are to take ownership of the responsibility and duty to which scripture calls us.  And that need is not contingent upon the accuracy of modern climate science.  "Buying in" to the strategies to mitigate climate change and being open to the message of secular climatologists is not a sacrifice of some conservative badge of honor; rather it is a guide to helping us become the global citizens that God asked us to be.

Yom Kippur Thoughts

Since today is Yom Kippur, I thought I would read through some of what the book of Leviticus has to say about the occasion.  Of course in English, we know Yom Kippur as the Day or Atonement, and while it is primarily celebrated by Jews it has great meaning for the Christian as well.  What many people may not realize is the connection between Yom Kippur and conservation.

In Leviticus 23 the Lord says to Moses that the Day of Atonement is meant to be a day of purification and rest.  What I find very interesting is there connection between rest and the Sabbath Year in Leviticus 25.  In general the Sabbath, the holiest day, is meant to be a day of rest.  Purity, rest, and holiness are all tied together on this day.  Of course, there is also the parallel between the Sabbath and the creation week, ending in the seventh day when God rested.  Wholeness is bound to holiness which is bound to rest.

The Sabbath Year was a seventh year in a cycle and, like the seventh day of creation, was meant to be a holy year of rest.  God told Moses that no one was supposed to work the ground.  Rather, the land would provide for the people out of the abundance of the sixth year.  In that year the Israelites were to eat whatever the land provided on its own from the seeds and plants remaining from the sixth year.  Today we recognize the wisdom of this principal: A year of rest would let the land recover from intensive farming.  The soil would regain nutrients from lying fallow.  Today sustainable farmers use forms of crop rotation to produce a similar effect.

After seven sevenths years of Sabbath came the Year of Jubilee; a fiftieth year of supreme rest and holiness.  In this year the Israelites were again prohibited from working the land.  This time, the abundance of the land from the sixth year would be so much that it would sustain the Israelites through the seventh year of Sabbath and the following year of Jubilee.  God says to Moses in Leviticus 25:23 "When you plant your fields in the eighth year, you will still be eating from the large crop of the sixth year. In fact, you will still be eating from that large crop when the new crop is harvested in the ninth year."

But the Jubilee year didn't stop with sowing and harvest.  In that year land was meant to return to its original owners based on tradition family claims.  Homes within walled cities reverted to their original owners.  Indentured servants were absolved of their work responsibilities and released to be independent citizens again.  The essence of the year was to ensure that the every Israelite had the provisions he or she needed to sustain their familys' livelihoods.  God recognized that a period of rest and restoration was needed to ensure the sustainability of His people.

And so we circle round to the connections between Yom Kippur and the mission of Domicile Ecophile.  We may not all celebrate the Day of Atonement, but we all need to recognize that the land on which we rely for the survival of the human race needs a sabbath.  Without a healthy planet we are all on the path to losing the air we breathe, water we drink, and food we eat.  Living sustainably means treating God's creation in such a way that it gets the rest that it needs to provide us with our livelihoods.

God provided the Sabbath Year and Year of Jubilee to ensure both the survival of His people and His creation.  In that way sustainability is the spirit behind the Sabbath and Yom Kippur.  Paul writes in Romans 8:20-21 that, "Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay."  Though humanity's imperfection and sin is the source of creation's decay, the redemption that comes through Christ will redeem not only people, but God's whole creation.  The day of Atonement is a symbol for that redemption.  As we who love God act in a way so as to see "Heaven on Earth" through our actions, let's not forget that God longs for a day when His entire creation will be whole.  Let's let our actions not only be an example of Christ-like character, but also an example of sustainable respect for God's creation.

Biblical Conservation

While I hope to appeal to every person, I have a special goal of reaching Christians with my message of backyard conservation.  Domicile Ecophile is certainly not an attempt to convert non-Christians nor is it an attempt in any way to convince non-Christians of Christian morals or doctrine.  I do not seek to be divisive in any way.  I do however, hope that Domicile Ecophile can help Christians see the connection between ecology and God's will and I hope that non-Christians will accept the occasional Christian-centered post with the understanding that I am trying to win more people to the causes of ecology.

Christians in American have traditionally been more interested in other voting issues and often side with conservative politicians who are not champions of the environment.  I don't think that Christians are against environmentalism, but I believe we prioritize other issues and vote according to them.  While I do not think that environmental issues should trump "human" issues, I don't believe that we have the right to ignore them either.  I hope Domicile Ecophile will help Christians see the importance environmentalism has in our Christian worldview.  In a sense, this is an ecologist's outreach to Christians!

So let's get down to business:  What is the connection between the environment and scripture?  The most basic answer is the first verse of the Old Testament, Genesis 1:1.  The verse reads, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."  The most basic argument is that the Earth belongs to God.  We are tenants on the earth and just like any landlord, our land-Lord expects that we will take reasonable care of our accommodations because these accommodations do not belong to us, they belong to Him.  This is why I for one get so deeply irked when I see native ecosystems being destroyed and abused.  Intact ecosystems are intricate, self-balancing systems that God has created to help sustain life on Earth and we contribute to the destruction of those systems with our taste for exotic plants and unsustainable consumer habits.

The rest of Genesis 1 tells an amazing story.  It doesn't matter if you accept evolution or not.  It doesn't matter if you are a young-earth or old-earth advocate.  It doesn't matter if the verses are literal or symbolic.  No matter what your stance, the fact of the matter is that the chapter lays out the care and detail God put into building a system, not just a static dwelling, but a self-balancing system with millions of individual components that interact and work together to sustain life.  When you consider the intricate detail put into Creation the idea of degrading it becomes increasingly tragic.

Verse 1:26 is particularly telling and, in my opinion, amazing.  It reads, "Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground" (NIV).  Notice, the verse says that we are made in God's image so that we may rule the earth!  It doesn't say we are made in His image so that we may have His character or even know Him.  It says we are made in his likeness so that we may rule the earth in the same manner He rules everything.  It's conviction time Christian homeowner: Do you know and care for your backyard dominion the way God knows and cares for His Creation, which includes you and all the people in it?   "Not quite," you say?  Well this is the very purpose for which you were made in His image.

Before the disciples, before the nation of Israel, and even before salvation or sin itself, there was God's desire that we manage, care for, and take care of the earth.  But are these principles still in effect in the New Testament?  I refer you to some difficult verses in Romans 8 for the answer.  Paul here writes about the condition of creation as a result of the curse of sin.  Christians are well acquainted with what the Bible says about the condition of people as a result of sin, but not so much when it comes to the condition of the earth itself.  Verses 20 and 21 say that "Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay."  Here we see that creation itself will share in the redemption of salvation just like God's children.

I will be the first to admit these are difficult verses and Paul is well known for making statements that are challenging to grasp.  Despite this, the fact that the earth will share in salvation in some way should be a strong indication that creation, including the earth on which we live, is very important to God.  The full meaning of these verses is too complex to explore here right now, but I hope readers will appreciate the significance of creation to God, even in the paradigms of the New Testament.

For my Catholic friends out there I would also like to add some commentary from our current pontiff, Pope Francis.  In May he gave a speech about our treatment of the earth.  Among other things the pope said, "But when we exploit Creation we destroy the sign of God’s love for us, in destroying Creation we are saying to God: ‘I don’t like it! This is not good!’ ‘So what do you like?’ ‘I like myself!’ – Here, this is sin! Do you see?"  I concur.  You may read more about this speech by following this link.

To conclude, the Bible is clear:  The earth is part of God's intricate creation and He cares for it very much.  He purposed us with its care and proper management and He made us in His image so that we might accomplish that purpose.  It's time we started to see the care of the earth as a moral mandate from God and the abuse of the earth as a sin.  We need to start thinking about the sustainability of our consumer habits, the way we use land and ecosystems, and the way we manage our home properties which are our own local fiefdoms over which God has given us authority.  The first step is to learn more about how we impact the earth with our individual actions and how we can make individual changes that can contribute to healthy ecosystems.  My mission is to enable anyone willing to make those changes by providing how-to's, information, and examples centered around landscaping and backyard ecology.  It's just a small part of a much bigger picture but I hope to make a difference by doing this one thing well.  This is Domicile Ecophile.