Creationcare.org

In Laura's comment to my last post, she referenced a website that I have been perusing lately. CLICK HERE to read about the work this group is doing in promoting Biblical care and stewardship of God's creation. Here is an excerpt from their FAQ page:

What about nature worship?

As a biblically orthodox Christian organization EEN totally rejects nature worship and pantheism. Nothing is clearer in Scripture: we are to worship only the Creator - never His creation. There is only one God in three Persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - to whom all praise, glory, and honor are to be given. EEN's Evangelical Declaration puts it well: "Our creating God is prior to and other than creation, yet intimately involved with it, upholding each thing in its freedom, and all things in relationships of intricate complexity. God is transcendent, while lovingly sustaining each creature; and immanent, while wholly other than creation and not to be confused with it."

At the same time that we condemn nature worship, we must not let our zeal to avoid idolatry prevent us from our biblical call to care for all of creation. Indeed, one cannot fully worship the Creator and at the same time destroy His creation, which was brought into being to glorify him. Worshiping the Creator and caring for creation is all part of loving God. They are mutually reinforcing activities. It is actually unbiblical to set one against the other.



How are we to treat non-human creation? Are not people more important?

Our relationship to the rest of creation is to be based on God's relationship to it and how God wants us to behave towards it. The Bible proclaims that in the beginning God blessed the rest of creation and called it good (Gen. 1:20-25; 31). It exists to praise and glorify Him (e.g. Ps. 19:1-6). Christ sustains all of creation and died to reconcile all of creation to God (Heb. 1:3; Col 1:16, 20). In Christ's future Kingdom the rest of creation will be transformed into a new earth (Rev. 21:1). Thus, the Bible clearly teaches that God values the rest of creation tremendously.

At the same time the Bible also proclaims that human beings have a special role and a special responsibility in God's creation since they are created in God's image and have free will. Human beings are called to care for the rest of God's creation, not abuse or destroy it.

It is clear from Scripture that God does not want situations where humanity is seriously pitted against the rest of creation (e.g. extinction of a species; cf. Ps. 104). This works against the reconciliation wrought by Christ's blood. Indeed, we are hard pressed to think of a situation where our call to image Christ would result in such a situation. The power of God's grace, combined with human creativity and intelligence and our responsibility to fulfill the task of creation-care, provides us with the capability to find peaceful resolutions to what appear to be serious unavoidable conflicts with the rest of creation. Furthermore, environmental problems that harm the rest of creation usually harm human beings as well (e.g. air pollution). Thus, the task of creation-care is part of loving one's neighbor, i.e., loving what God loves and therefore loving God.