A Christian View of the Environment
As Christians, our faith guides everything we do. Every thought, action, interaction, motive, and belief is to be driven by Scripture. We simply are not to segment our life into a Christian side and a secular side.
But we are living in times where it seems that everything has to be viewed in extremes. You’re either on “this” side or “that” side, and it seems that we cannot even try to find middle ground. While that is not always the case, it seems to come across that way more and more.
And that is true when it comes to how a Christian views the environment. Too many in our culture want people to get into camps of either extreme environmentalism or, basically, seeing the world as something to consume with reckless abandon.
Where should Christians be on this issue? As is so often the case, the Biblical view is found in a healthy balance of these two extremes. The fact is, both sides have some level of merit, but must be held in balance.
There are two sides to the Biblical view that need to be considered.
Side 1: Dominion
From the very beginning, God put humans over the natural world. After all, He set the very first pair in a garden with the specific command to take care of it (Genesis 2:15).
But at the close of the creation week, God set forth the timeless principle of how humans were to have dominion over the rest of creation:
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion ever the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28)
God would go on to state that He gave plants, animals, birds, and “everything that has the breath of life” under the dominion of this first couple (Genesis 1:29-30). They had dominion.
The same continues today. Humankind is to till the ground and grow food. We are to enjoy hunting for food. We are to use plants to make medicines. We are to use wood to build things. We have dominion over the natural world by order from God.
Side 2: Stewardship
However, there is another principle that runs throughout the Bible that is true in all areas of life, including this one. God has never given humans dominion and just told them to run roughshod over everything. We are managers (stewards) for His glory in all things.
Yes, we can cut down trees to build houses, but we must think of generations to come, so we do not destroy all the trees on earth just to build stuff. We hunt and fish for food, but we do not destroy every animal in the world just because we could.
Think about it this way: God has dominion over us, yet He always is thinking of what is best for us and for all who are around us and for all who will come after us. Since He has, in essence, delegated dominion over the natural world to us, we should exercise that dominion in the same way. We should enjoy what God has given, but also think of others–even generations to come–and manage it all to the glory of God.
Conclusion
So, who is right? Well, in a sense, both sides are right. It is fine to hunt or to cut down a tree or to go fishing or to dig an oil well, so long as we are also thinking that we are not the only person on the planet, so we might want to also plant a tree or tend a garden or not kill every animal we see or take a walk instead of driving everywhere.
While this is not a full discussion (it is a blog post, not a scholarly article, after all), maybe these thoughts can help Christians avoid extremes and stay with the truth on a very difficult and highly charged issue.
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AUTHOR: Adam Faughn
