The subject of Creation Care is becoming an important one within the Christian church. "Creation Care", rather than "environmentalism", is the term used by many evangelicals to refer to the responsibility that followers of Christ have to take care of God's earth.
Influential Christian thinker, Francis Schaeffer once said, "… nature: it is not our own. 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. We are to use them realising they are not ours intrinsically. Man's dominion is under God's dominion." [From his book Pollution and the Death of Man]
Issues such as the environment, ecology, pollution, and global warming should interest Christians, as we are called to be good stewards of God's earth.
For a good introduction to a biblical theology of Creation Care, click here for a free PDF of a chapter by Bret Stephenson and Stephen Bouma-Prediger from their book Living the Good Life on God's Earth.
Another very good book on this topic is: For the Beauty of the Earth: A Christian Vision for Creation Care. The Evangelical Environment Network also has an informative web site. Click here to access a website on Creation Care for pastors.
How very true Mark. Thanks for highlighting this serious issue. God has called us to be good caretakers/stewards of what he has given us including caring for the earth and environment. We need to read and take a fresh look at such texts as Revelation 11:18 “The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come,
And the time of the dead, that they should be judged,
And that You should reward Your servants the prophets and the saints,
And those who fear Your name, small and great,
And should destroy those who destroy the earth.”
“Creation Care” – Like the term.
Thanks for addressing this issue Mark.
In relation to our stewardship of all that God has given, may I suggest that CityLife reviews the resources involved in producing our bimonthly “glossy” magazine? I have had several comments regarding the ?necessity of such a production. Could we do better in “green” terms, ? recycled paper, ?fewer hard copies available (most people can now access the magazine online). Thanks for the links – most interesing.
Hi Anne. Thanks for your comment.
We decided to go to the bi-monthly magazine a few years back as we thought it was more cost-effective than the 1000s of weekly bulletins we were printing at the time. The nicer format tends to cause people to hang on to it much longer (it has a far greater ‘life span’ than the old weekly bulletins which usally got chucked away pretty quickly). It also is a nice attractive gift to give to a friend (some people even place them out in their community or medical centres). Thankfully, we have some good graphics designers and printing contacts who produce this for us at a very reasonable price.
Longer term, I agree, everything will probably move online. I have a friend who pastors a church of 37,000 people in Manilla and they stopped printing bulletins when the church hit 10,000 people!
I agree with you Mark. The magazine has it’s practical and useful merits and has proven to be less costly than the weekly bulletins. Actually, I’ve found the bi-monthly magazine to be a useful gift to give to unchurched people as a witnessing tool/gift to encourage/inspire them and stimulate their desire to come to church. I’ve shared it with people that I’ve met on my train/plane journeys many times. They have always been interested and open to receiving the informative magazine. It’s a great way to introduce people to the exciting concept of church life 🙂
I think it is interesting that many Christians seem to be ‘anti green’. Openly suspicious of the environmental movement, global warming et al. Of course we have a bigger cause -saving people from a Christless eternity, but looking after the planet is also a good cause. Of as long as I can still have all my mod cons…