Creation Care

Al Gore recently went into a rant over climate change. Someone’s use of profanity in their argument has never been particularly persuasive for me, but, in my opinion, it does not matter so much if one believes if climate change is human caused, naturally cyclical, or occurring at all, we still have a responsibility for creation care. Even if one believes that the world will go from bad to worse in every way until Christ returns, since we do not know when Christ will return, why not strive to live in a world that is moral, pleasant, and healthy?

A few years ago The Wesleyan Church, presented a Position Statement on Creation Care. One thing I think is particularly good about this document is that is does not stand alone, but is part of a series of positions on Faith and Public Life. Creation care also means taking care of people, an idea that is lost on some extreme environmentalists, but that is not the point of my post today. I had a conversation with Dr. John Drury on tending the earth, and we agreed on the following points:

Subduing the earth does not mean destroying or exploiting, but can imply tending and organizing.
Humans had to work at subduing creating before the fall (Gen. 1:24-31).
After the fall, the work got more difficult (Gen. 3:17-19).
Jesus easily subdues creation in the following examples: causing a tree to wither (Mark 11:20-21), controlling fish or knowing where they are swimming (Matt. 17:27; Luke 5:1-10), controlling storms (Matt. 8:23-27), and walking on water (John 6:19).

I found it interesting that something we find so difficult to do, Jesus simply does with his voice, not relying on his own power or deity. Creation care is something he sees his Father in heaven doing (Matt. 10:29-31), so he too does it (John 5:19, Col. 1:17). I wonder if creation care is not as difficult as we make it out to be. Do we spend more time and money trying to legislate instead of just doing the right thing? (Admittedly, some people will not do the right thing unless they are forced.) I pick up trash and put it in the receptacle because I do not want my daughter to play in a dirty park and I am too cheap to pay someone else to pick up trash, but not because I am required by law to pick up someone else’s litter. People will work on the things they are passionate about. Perhaps we are more passionate about ourselves or our sin, than others or the world.