We each need to go on a learning journey that enables us to take care of our planet and God’s good creation. When I came to faith over fifty years, ago I was taught that human beings were to have dominion over the earth. The result of which has been ever-increasing destruction and depletion of the planet and its resources. Other Christian people hold to a false eschatology that says that this world will burn and be destroyed, and so we can do with it what we like. Yet, when the Bible speaks of the new creation, it is not referring to a totally new creation but rather the restoration or recreation of this present world or universe in the new heaven and new earth. N. T. Wright wisely says that “God is the Creator God, he doesn’t want to say, ”Okay, creation was very good, but I’m scrapping it” He wants to say, “Creation is so good that I’m going to rescue it.””
We as Christian people should above all people be good guardians and stewards of God’s creation and the resources that he has placed at the disposal of us. John Stott stated that “God intends . . . our care of Creation to reflect our love for the Creator.” Thus, we should be right at the forefront of the environmental movement instead of lagging behind as we have been for the past fifty years or more. As we move out of winter, let each of us take positive and active steps to care for God’s good creation actively. We need to work both at a personal, local, national, and global level to be part of a movement that cares for creation. In so doing, we need to work alongside people of faith and no faith respecting and caring for one another at this moment of increasing environmental crisis.
