Three years ago when I heard an African head of state making a public speech on the dangers threatening world environment, I wondered how relevant such a discourse was for the African context. I was not quite sure that the health of our natural environment was to be considered a high priority in the African agenda. I failed to realize that there are some global realities which should be matters of concern for all: pollution, desertification, global warming, chemical wastes etc. The environmental crisis is a global threat which affects “mother earth” [i] [1] and all its population. Nobody can escape from it.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss whether Christians should be more concerned today than others about the health of our natural environment. In order to answer this question, I will single out some basic elements of Christianity which can help us to understand our ecological responsibility. Starting from salvation history, I will stress the connectedness of creation and redemption. Both creation and redemption are God’s gifts to his creatures, and they are intimately related. Secondly I will talk of respect for nature and respect for human life. Lastly I will discuss the theme of human solidarity as it appears in Christianity.

Creation and redemption

The book of Genesis teaches us that creation came to be because God wished it to be. There was no necessity on God’s part, but creation came to be as a result of God’s will. After establishing light and darkness, a dome in the middle of waters, dry land and vegetation, sun and moon, fish and birds and animals, God created human beings “in his image and likeness” (Gn 1:26). As Richard Clifford puts it, “the universe that arises in Genesis 1 is in a special sense a system, a network in which the elements of the world are hierachized and assigned value” (R. Clifford, “The Bible and the Environment”, p. 4). Unlike the rest of the creatures, human beings are “a statue[s] of the deity, not by static being but by action, who will rule over all things previously created.” [ii] [2]

Human beings are invested with a certain authority over creation. Anne Clifford suggests that “the creation of humans is not for the service of demanding gods but rather for the service of living creatures with whom humans share an earthly kinship” (D. Christianen and W. Grazer, eds., And God Saw That It Was God, p. 26). Human service in Genesis has nothing to do with “an anthropocentrism tolerant of the exploitation of nonhuman nature” (D. Christianen and W. Grazer, eds., And God Saw That It Was God, p. 27). Humans should inhabit the land that God gave them, and transform it into a home where He can be praised and worshiped. They are to care for the environment, “to protect the balance of life that God’s ordering word has built into the earth and to promote continuation of all species having a place in that delicate balance” (D. Christianen and W. Grazer, eds., And God Saw That It Was God, p. 28).  

Human offenses, however, potentially imperil the entire creation. As Pope John Paul II rightly expresses it in his message for the celebration of the world day for peace, January 1, 1990, “when man turns his back on the creator’s plan, he provokes a disorder which has inevitable repercussions on the rest of the created order. If man is not at peace with God, then earth itself cannot be at peace: therefore the land mourns and all who dwell in it languish, and also the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and even the fish of the sea are taken away (Ho 4:3)” (D. Christianen and W. Grazer, eds., And God Saw That It Was God, p. 217).

God’s work of redemption through the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, is to be seen as a continuation of his creative activity. Redemption brings about “a new creation” (2 Cor 5: 17-19). The Christ event does not concern only human beings. It touches the whole universe. It is the universe as a whole which has been freed from its chaotic history. Thus the intrusion of God into chaotic world history brings about newness.  Humans are not only related to the rest of creation but are called to live in harmony with it. They should have an ecological concerned in virtue of their relatedness to the whole creation and because all that exists has been created and redeemed by God.       

Respect for nature and for human life

Life is a gift that every creature has received from God. That gift cannot flourish in a hostile environment.  Our human responsibility toward creation is to protect and enhance life on earth.  The earth is the ecosystem which sustains life. Care for life implies care for the earth. A Christian’s respect for nature is rooted in the Holy Scriptures. “The earth, the Bible reminds us, is a gift to all creatures, to all living beings – all mortal creature that are on earth (Gn 9:16-17). People share the earth with other creatures. But humans, made in image and likeness of God, are called in a special way to cultivate and care for it (Gn 2:15). Men and women therefore, bear a unique responsibility under God: to safeguard the created world and by their labor even to enhance it” (D. Christianen and W. Grazer, eds., And God Saw That It Was God, p. 228).

The idea of responsibility is connected to the Christian notion of stewardship. It implies that “we must both care for creation according to standards that are not our own making and at the same time be resourceful in founding ways to make the earth flourish”( D. Christianen and W. Grazer, eds., And God Saw That It Was God, p. 231). Stewardship places upon us the responsibility for the well being of creation.

Christian idea of solidarity

To seek for the well being of creation is a noble task. It implies a deep sense of solidarity. In his social encyclical Sollicitudo Rei socialis (December 30, 1987), Pope John Paul II speaks of this solidarity in terms of virtue, a moral and social attitude:  “This then is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all.” [iii] [3]  In virtue of the principle of solidarity, humans should act in such a way that their actions are neither destructive of world peace and security nor burdensome for the generations to come. 

Concern for the good of every human person has to include a genuine concern for God’s creatures.  We live in an interdependent world where our actions have an impact on the rest of the universe. We cannot be blind or just refuse to acknowledge that it is a Christian duty to carry out the mission entrusted to us by God, our creator and Lord. But we will not be able to respond positively to our God given mission unless we grow in the understanding of our relationship to God, to ourselves, to our neighbor and to the nature.

Christians everywhere should foster a deep understanding of this fourfold relationship and develop a theology which takes into account not only the good of the individual and the human community but also that of the natural environment. We cannot divorce ourselves from the planet. Our call finds its foundation in God’s love for his creatures. Can we truly love God without loving his creatures?

 

Bibiography

1. Richard J. Clifford and Roland E. Murphy, “Genesis” in New Jerome Biblical Commentary, eds. Raymond R. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer and Roland E. Murphy, London: Geoffrey Chapman, 2000, pp. 8-43.

2. John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei socialis, December 30, 1987.

3. Drew Christianen and Walter. Grazer, eds., And God Saw That It Was God: Catholic Theology and the Environment, U.S. Catholic Conference, 1995.

4. Richard Clifford, “The Bible and the Environment” in Preserving the Creation: Environmental Theology and Ethics, ed. K.W.Irwin and E. D. Pelligrino, Georgestown University Press, 1994, pp. 1-26.