Many Christian’s today have a very weak or no theological understanding of creation and its connotations for us as the people of God. We fail to recognise the full implications of the reality that God created us in his own image and likeness and that he desires that in Christ that image has been summed up and reiterated for all humanity and shared with us, his people so that we can be reformed in Christ’s image and likeness. Consequently, we frequently fail to adopt key components of human culture, which are good, beneficial, and life-giving, as well as being stunning echoes and manifestations of the image of the triune God. We are too often disposed to protectionist traits that isolate us from the world and cause us to be disengaged from people and their culture. Thus, we fail to encourage the pursuits of the creational or cultural mandate that was bestowed upon all humankind at the beginning.
Far too many of us are frustrated and unfulfilled because we don’t have an adequate theology that speaks to the things we spend most of their lives doing, such as work and play, etc. This hinders our overall sense of joy and peace in many aspects of our lives. It diminishes the naturalness of our lives and the holistic nature of our being because it leaves little room for creativity and enjoyment of the good things in life that God has given us to enjoy and in which we should delight. It also hampers the effectiveness of our missional engagement in and for the world that we are called to serve, because, it causes us to seek after and take unhelpful opportunities for evangelism, which end up being counterproductive in their clumsiness causing us fail miserably in our representation the life-giving reality God as on offer. Consequently, we, as the people of God, need to discover or rediscover a holistic theology of creation and a meaningful way of participating in the creational or cultural mandate, which God’s as called us to participate as part of the reign of God and for the wellbeing of his good creation.