Is God an Environmentalist?

by Tyler Zach

Is there such thing as a Christian environmentalist? Or should they be one in the same? Does loving the earth mean that you are a liberal hippie? Or does it mean that you are a true Christian?

Did you know that we are losing/destroying an acre and a half of rain forest every second?

Check out some other shocking statistics:

• 70% of the rivers in China are polluted (meaning unfit for human contact)
• World Health organization estimates that 4.6 million people died from air pollution diseases last year
• In any given year, we lose 50,000 different distinct species (plant, insect, and animal)
• In any given day, we produce enough trash to fill 63,000 dump trucks
• During the holiday season, we produce an extra 5 million tons of trash (4 million of that is shopping bags and wrapping paper)
• Last year, we dumped 14 billion pounds of waste into the ocean
• We produce 80% more trash than we did 15 years ago and we have 80% less landfills
  

One of the most fascinating statistics is about a product that we are all too familiar with. Diapers. We use 570/second. We use 49 million/day. We use 18 billion/year. To produce this product it takes 100,000 tons of plastic and 800,000 tons of tree pulp. We spent 350 million dollars last year just to dispose of this product. The problem - scientists say that it doesn’t decompose. That means that 300 years from now it will still be there in our landfills. Civilizations will come and go, but diapers will remain forever more!

Is this a problem? Should we care? Is there a good reason for taking care of the earth?

Many environmentalists have good reasons for taking care of the earth, but few of them start with God. We tend to view the earth as ours, not God’s.

God says to his people, “… the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants.” - Leviticus: 25:23

The earth is his land and we are to steward it well. Part of the stewardship process means to beautify, cultivate, and take care of. The word that Genesis 1:28 uses is subdue. We are to subdue the earth and all that is in it. The Hebrew word for subdue is Kabash which means to bring into bondage.

Our role here on earth is to bring order to chaos, to bring everything in the earth under the rule and reign of God.

One simple example of this is home gardening. In a weed saturated lawn, we go out to bring into bondage every area of grass that is in chaos. We tend to it, mow it, cultivate it, beautify it, etc. This is a visible sign of what we are to do with the whole earth.

Can we go beyond being environmentalists in our own yard to being global environmentalists? If we realize that our city, our neighborhoods, our lakes, our oceans, and our countries are God’s gift to us to steward well, then perhaps we will start to see some progress.

Let’s ask ourselves - Are Christians known for recycling more? (actually, Christians only recycle 10% of what is recycled). Are Christians known for using less gas? Are Christians known for living simply? Are Christians known for using less wrapping paper?

God is restoring lives and restoring the creation in which those lives live. Both are spiritual and both are on God’s heart.


*The statistics and questions (at the end of the blog) have been taken from Rob Bell’s talk from a Mars Hill Church series on God is Green