Lesson 06 - What is the Church’s Responsibility on the Environmen

Lesson 06 - What is the Church’s Responsibility on the Environment?

Introduction

Good morning, and welcome back! This week we’re getting back into a normal routine, with our Sunday topic and then our Wednesday night discussion.
We also want to do a survey for y’all on how things have gone so far - we want to get input on the things we’ve been talking about in these classes and also the different events we’ve done so far. I know we talked about that some when we talked about community and doing life together, but we want to get some input from y’all about what you’ve liked, what you’ve hated, and how we can do better planning in the future.
This week, we’re going to get into a topic that may initially sound boring, but I think we’re going to have some fun talking about it and learning together.
That topic involves the environment and the more recent buzzword of “creation care.”

Environmentalism v. Destroying the Planet - a false choice

A lot of people, when we’re approaching environmental topics, focus on one of two options.
It’s like these two light bulbs. People approach these “green” issues with a thought that we have one of two choices: either you can be environmentally responsible and use the CFL or you can hate the planet and destroy it.

For some reason, we as people just love to make issues like this where we think it’s always either this position or that position and never anything in between.
Bumper stickers illustrate this beautifully:

Earth First v. Earth First, We’ll Strip-Mine the Other Planets Later.
Save the Dolphins v. Save the Dolphins - what did the cows do wrong?
Fight Global Warming v. Fight Global Warming - turn on the air conditioning
Save the Whales v. Save the Whales - Collect the Whole Set
Save Trees v. Save a Tree - Eat a Beaver

I don’t know what it is about us as humans, but we love to have it be us versus them, this versus that, these kinds of you’re with us or against us type of things.
But in reality, when it comes to environmental issues, we too often create these false choices. What we want to talk about this morning is that it isn’t always either this or that, but rather something in between.

Wrong approaches Christians take toward Green issues

In looking at these issues, I thought it might be helpful to raise the issue of why this is even an issue. In the last few years, Christians have really been focused on environmental issues.

Why is that? In 2005, the Washington Post did a big write-up on evangelical Christians beginning to embrace the environment as an issue.
Much of this idea is rooted in the desire to give a more “complete” view of life by Christians particularly to a younger generation.

Those who are 30 and under tend to take a broader approach to dealing with problems that older generations have fought.

So as an example, while our parents’ generation focused primarily on fighting abortion through rallies, those under 30 tend to focus more on ministry to mothers with unexpected pregnancies and ensuring they get the care they need so that they will keep their babies.

As a result, lots of people are beginning to discuss these types of issues.

So first, let’s talk about some various wrong approaches to the issue of the environment from Christians.
First, let’s talk about the view that Environmentalism is the Gospel.

Recently, the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities distributed a booklet called “Green Awakenings,” focusing on stories from Christian colleges about “stewardship and sustainability” and the renewed focus by Christians on issues of the environment.
As we’ll discuss later, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this, but the problem is that this booklet takes the gospel and turns it into an environmental message.
To quote one critique of this booklet notes that the foreword ends “with exalted language: ‘I pray that God’s Holy Spirit continues to pour out upon this rising generation of leaders, and that they will turn to the Bible for. . . .’ How might the Bible itself lead one to end that sentence? Perhaps with ‘the way to know the Lord Jesus Christ and make him known’? No, Sleeth ends his sentence with: ‘solutions to today’s most challenging environmental problems.’
The booklet also talks about sins against the environment. The booklet talks about going into all the world to share, not the gospel, but “our stories of a simpler life.”
Going back to the article discussing this booklet, the author notes that in Green Awakenings, “the emphasis is consistently on what we can and must do to restore the planet—not on what God has done to redeem it. Multiple references to our current environmental ‘crisis’ call for repeated human actions to avert this crisis. One wonders whether it would help simply to read just a bit farther in Genesis, to recall why and how all of creation is fallen. [The correct answer isn’t that] We human beings are not the solution; we are the problem—and not because we have misused creation, but because we have disobeyed our Creator.”
One more quote: “Ultimately, what is missing in a vision of renewal such as we find in Green Awakenings is a clear, openly stated understanding of the centrality of Jesus Christ. Such a vision can never clearly articulate the beginning of the story without the starting point of the second person of the Trinity as the one through whom and for whom all things were created. Such a vision can never clearly articulate the story’s climax of redemption without celebrating the Redeemer promised from the beginning, the Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world. Such a vision cannot conceive of the true crisis looming ahead, which is the coming of Jesus Christ to judge the world. That coming will indeed bring an environmental crisis, as ‘the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed’ (2 Peter 3:10). That coming will also bring the eternal realities of both the new heaven and earth . . . and hell.”
So this view of the true message of the gospel is what is lost by this approach to the environment. Christians can go wrong by trying to replace a true approach to creation care as the gospel itself, and just completely missing the main point.

The second error Christians tend to fall into is this idea that God is somehow creation itself and creation is God.

So instead of viewing God as separate and apart from his creation, this view adopts the pantheistic view

You’ll remember that theism says God exists.
Atheism is “a” (no) theism - there is no God.
Pantheism is “pan” (everything) theism - everything is God

So this pantheistic view says that God is his creation and the creation is God.
The idea behind this view is that in order to connect to God, we don’t do it through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, but instead through some type of connection to the earth.

Let me give you an example - if you go on a hike, and really enjoy a beautiful view of a waterfall with a bunch of trees around.
A Christian approach looks at all of that beauty, turns our attention to God, and thanks God for the beauty of what he’s made, and is so grateful that we have a relationship through Jesus Christ with him.
A pantheistic approach would feel more spiritual as you breathe in and absorb the view. Your basis for feeling closer to God isn’t based on gratitude and your relationship with Jesus Christ, but instead based on your spiritual feelings from connecting to God’s creation.

We’ll talk about this more in a few minutes about the Biblical approach, but God’s creation is beautiful and wonderful, but it isn’t God. God made all of these wonderful things, but he is separate and apart from all of it, and one day it’s all going to be destroyed because of sin.
So it’s an error for Christians to slip into this view of the environment that God is everything and everything is God, because that’s simply unbiblical.

Third is kind of on the other side, other Christians reject any sort of environmental awareness completely.

There are several reasons why Christians tend to reject environmental awareness, but the biggest is probably because many times, environmental issues are led by more liberal thought leaders and are presented as articles of faith in the culture war.

This gets back to the “you’re with us or you’re against us” issues.
So as an example, many people who are very concerned about saving baby whales really have no concern about unborn children. So Christians look at that and say dude, you’ve totally got your priorities out of whack, and we tend to reject that approach.
Also, the issue of climate change is widely mocked among Christians, primarily because it’s presented in a large context as an article of faith - you either believe or you are an unbeliever.

And then because the idea is often proposed by more liberal leaders who then demand that people agree completely, Christians reject that.
And often because, for example, climate change is used to try to advance things like more government control and higher taxes, Christians tend to try to push it away.

Then Christians look at all environmental issues with a lot of suspicion as a result..

Another big issue is that a lot of times environmentalism is deeply tied in with what is often referred to as the New Age movement, which is basically the renewed focus on pantheism that we talked about earlier.

Because so many people are concerned with “hugging trees” and things like that to get in touch with the God of the Earth, Christians rightly are concerned about the theology of the movement.
And so whenever someone raises the issue of taking care of the environment, Christians immediately reject it as rooted in this idea of the earth is God, and something is seriously wrong with it.

Another reason Christians tend to reject it is because of this historical approach that focuses only on the end instead of this life as much.

We’ve talked some about this idea that many Christians tend to focus only on heaven and eternal destiny instead of this world.
As a result, what happens with this world usually isn’t too much of a concern, especially compared with the seriousness of the issues of eternity, and we reject all things focused on this world as a result.

So those are some wrong approaches when it comes to the environment. So what is a Biblical approach? I’ve written down seven things that are relevant to approaching this correctly.

A Biblical Approach to Environmental Issues

So in trying to think about this correctly, let’s start with the basics.
First, God created everything and he created it good.

We know from Genesis 1:1 that “God created the heaven and the earth.”
We’re told in Genesis 1:31 that “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” We’re told that each day what God had made was very good.
Part of this process was the interdependence of how God designed things to work. You know, animals eat certain plants, there’s a cycle that holds things in check.
And God’s design is precise. The earth is tipped slightly and doesn’t spin straight-up. Moving that just a few degrees either way would eliminate seasons and make some parts of earth uninhabitable.
Earth is spinning at just the right speed to keep the oceans sloshing around, about a 1,000 miles an hour at the equator.
Everything God has made fits together very, very precisely.

Second thing when we think about how to approach environmental issues is that God is involved in his creation, but he is NOT the creation.

This involves two big theological words - transcendence and immanence.
They’re pretty easy definitions, though: transcendence means that God is majestic, holy, far greater than all of the things he created.

This is what we’re told in Psalm 113:4-6: “The LORD is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens. Who is like unto the LORD our God, who dwelleth on high, Who humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth!” Another way to read this is “Who is like the Lord our God, who is seated on high, who looks far down on the heavens and the earth?”
God is distinct from his creation - we talked earlier about how God is not the creative order, but he is above and distinct from it.
He is on high, looking down on earth - he is distinct from and far above everything he made.

At the same time, though, there’s almost this tension in us trying to understand God, because not only is he so high and above his creation, but also he is immanent - not imminent like he’s about to be here, but immanent, which means he is near and present, and fully involved with what he created.

An example of this is in the chapter Pastor has been talking to us about from Acts 17: 27-28, which can be read “Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’”
So even though God is so high, we know he’s very close to us - he’s close to the humble we’re told in Isaiah 57:15.

So we understand God made everything, and even though he’s not the creation, he is still very involved with his creation.

Third thing to remember when thinking about these issues is that God has given us as human beings responsibility over his creation.

In Genesis 1:26, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”
We talked about the idea of the image of God a few weeks ago, but part of this responsibility as image-bearers involve the idea of us having some responsibility over the creative order.
We’re told later in Genesis 2:15 that God put Adam in the garden to dress it and keep it - to cultivate the creation.

It’s interesting to note that this is before the Fall - so even though we often don’t like to do work, God designed for us to be working even before sin came into the world.
But it’s also interesting to note that the garden needed cultivating - it wasn’t that you could just leave all of these created things to their own devices - they needed someone to help take care of them along the way.

So it’s not like we never had any responsibility toward things related to taking care of the earth - even before the fall that was our responsibility, and we were given dominion over what has been created and were given responsibility to take care of it.

Fourth thing, is to remember that sin broke all of creation, not just us.

When sin entered the world in Genesis 3, everything changed. For the first time, man was separated from God. We all know that part and we know the reason Jesus came is to redeem us from that brokenness.
But remember, sin broke the rest of creation - death entered the world for all animals, not just for us as humans. Shelley wanted me to mention that spiders were part of the creation, but they only got creepy after sin entered the world.

We’re told in Romans 8:18-22: “For I reckon [or consider] that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared [are not worth comparing] with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation [waits with eager expectation] of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together [groaning together in the pains of childbirth] until now.”

Now that’s a lot to say, but Paul is emphasizing that all of creation is groaning as a result of sin, as if they’re having a baby. All of the creative order is affected by sin, and all of it can’t wait for Jesus to return, for us to be revealed as the sons of God completely and for Jesus to restore everything back the way it was supposed to be from the start.

Fifth thing - along that line, this restoration is going to happen - God is restoring all things to himself and Jesus will reign on this earth.

So Colossians 1:20 tells us that Jesus “having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.” We’re told a few verses earlier in verse 16 of that chapter that “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:”
Jesus made all of this earth, and he’s going to reconcile everything back to himself.

Now, no matter what you think about end times or about those whole issues, the doctrinal statement of our church emphasizes the dispensational approach we take, which affirms that Jesus is going to reign for 1,000 years on this earth after the tribulation is over. That’s referred to as the millennial kingdom.

So I know people tend to dismiss a lot of things about this earth, but Jesus is going to do a full restoration of creation.

We read about how in the millennial kingdom, animals are no longer going to be attacking each other - the predator and the prey will be snuggled up to each other. There will be a restoration back to what things were supposed to be before sin.
And during that time, Jesus is going to be reigning on this earth.

Sixth, even when we think about taking care of the world we’re in, we have to remember that one day, this entire world is going to be destroyed.

Did any of you ever see the movie trailer for the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? It opens with Louis Armstrong singing “I think to myself, what a wonderful world” and then the entire earth just blows up.
That’s not the same thing, but is similar to the concept of what is being talked about in II Peter 3:10, talking about the day when Jesus comes back after the millennial kingdom: “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”

Now, some scholars debate whether this means that the earth will actually be destroyed or whether this means that the earth will be remade - apparently the Greek can be translated either way.
But regardless of the translation, it is clear that the earth as we know it won’t be quite the same - it’s either going to be destroyed or remade the way it was supposed to be.

So when we approach “creation care” we have to remember that what lasts is people not this earth.

Finally, we should be responsible stewards of God’s creation while we’re here.

So in light of all of these things, what should we be doing? We should remember that we’re not owners, but we are people who take care of something for someone else - what used to be called a “steward.”

Basically steward is an old word for manager - someone who is manager but doesn’t own the thing.

We should seek to be good managers of what we’ve been given - our time, our possessions, and the earth.

Part of being a good steward can involve saving money, obviously.
A lot of times, taking care of creation can be the same thing as saving money.

So for example, we use fluorescent lights in this classroom - it saves money but also saves electricity - we don’t have to use as much electricity and burn as much coal or use other things to create electricity.
Hybrid cars use less gas, generate less emissions, and generally can help people save money overall.

Now I realize that until they make hybrid 15-passenger vans, it may be a while before we have a lot here at the church.
And I realize that a lot of times maintenance is more expensive. Just trying to help us think here.

Other times, creation care can also be similar to helping protect those in need.

For example, there are studies that indicate that high levels of mercury in an environment can result in death for unborn children.
High levels of pollutants in the air can affect those with asthma or other problems.
So maybe sometimes fighting pollution can actually be helping those with fragile health and those in need.

And in any case, mocking those who are concerned about issues related to the earth probably isn’t the best thing for us as believers.

So let me throw this out there just to be controversial - on the topic of climate change, everyone agrees on a few points:

First, everyone agrees that there has been a general warming trend in overall temperatures on the earth.
Second, everyone agrees that carbon dioxide levels have changed significantly from what they were before the Industrial Revolution.

Now, people disagree on whether those two things are related or not.

But in either case, instead of so quickly dismissing, maybe we should be willing to do some additional research and look into the issue.

Let me give you another example - sometimes it’s easy to laugh or dismiss the extinction of some type of animal.

But remember, God designed the various earth processes to work together. So losing one type of animal can result in a change, because now there isn’t some bird to eat that type of insect that eats that type of bacteria.
It could be the same way when we think about processes - although the ocean creates and plants process a lot of carbon dioxide, changing the balance of things might have an impact.

What we’ve tried to do today is give you a lot to think about.

Why do we talk about topics like this? Because they’re part of what God is doing in this world around us.
Remember, sin broke all of the world - it broke us just like it broke the creation.
Jesus came to restore us to himself, to sacrifice himself for us so that we can have access to a wonderful relationship with the Lord who created all that we see around us.
Part of walking in that relationship, though, involves thinking about what it means to live in the world around us, including how we approach these types of issues.
We should approach them Biblically, with prayer, and thoughtfully, knowing that it matters how we live in this world.

So that’s what I have to say for this morning. We’re going to do something a little different as we leave today. We’ve got two articles by Dr. Russ Moore on this “creation care” issue and how it relates to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico several months ago. Dr. Moore is from the Gulf Coast, so it’s very personal for him.

Pick up a copy as you’re leaving this morning, and take some time just to read through the articles - they aren’t super-long.
Then in our small groups on Wednesday, we’ll be talking about the topics covered in the articles and the things we’ve discussed this morning.
And if you have some time this week, instead of Facebook stalking, I’d encourage you to do some research on these issues.

We all want to walk wisely, and walk with a gospel understanding of the world - let’s go ahead and pray and be finished up for this week.