Earthkeeping

Despite years of heightened awareness of global environmental threats, with scores of international efforts to address specific problems and thousands of national and local laws and regulations adopted to protect the environment, the life-supporting ecosphere of our planet remains gravely and severely threatened. First, humanity now possesses the power to destroy the creation. Jonathan Schell in The Fate of the Earth correctly identifies this as an ecological peril: "The nuclear peril is usually seen in isolation from the threats to other forms of life and their ecosystems, but in fact it should be seen as the very center of the ecological crisis."

Second, humanity is coming to possess an unprecedented power to create and manufacture new forms of life. This is not simply a neutral technological development. Rather, humanity's ability to alter the basic design of living things and bring into being totally new forms of life marks a watershed in our relationship to the creation. Society's dominant understanding of nature and metaphysical view of reality is being transformed by the ability to create and market life.

The parameters to future possibilities in bioengineering are being set not by moral or theological judgments, nor by governmental guidelines, but simply by economic feasibilities. Rather than name the species created by God, and care for them two by two, ensuring life's continuity, humanity has decided it will now create the species of life to satisfy its own selfish whims.

Thus, in its contemporary technological ability to destroy and create life, humanity strives to replace God, in belief and in practice, as the ruler over creation.

In addition to the extremes of humanity's power over life and death of creation, the global environment evidences a continuing deterioration that results in large part from drains on its resource base by the lifestyle of an affluent minority. The prevailing model of economic development assumes that the resources of the earth have value only in their exploitation, that their supply is abundant, that humanity's role is to conquer the earth, and that the riches which result belong to those who do the exploiting. Global resource scarcity and threats to the earth's life-supporting capacity stem from this distortion in humanity's relationship to creation.

Is Christianity failing the world? Has it driven a wedge between humanity and the rest of nature, condoning the desecration of creation? What can our faith offer to shape and redeem humanity's relationship with creation? What theological questions have we left unattended, and what biblical resources lie untapped and unexplored?

God's Covenant With The Earth
First, we must look freshly at the Genesis account of the world's beginning and the relationship between God, creation, and humanity. In Genesis, the account of God's relationship with creation, and humanity's role, begins with the creation story and continues on through the ninth chapter, culminating in the story of Noah and the flood.

Recall that following Adam's sin, the ground was cursed (Genesis 3:16), and that after Cain's murder of Abel, he is "cursed from the ground," which no longer is fruitful, and is consigned to wander rootlessly in the land of Nod. Obviously, if the story stops there, we have problems for a biblically based ethic of respect for the earth. And indeed, countless Christians, when asked about their responsibility for earth-keeping, respond that the earth, after all, is cursed.

But in Genesis 5:29, when Noah is born, the promise of relief from the hard labor resulting from God's curse upon the ground appears. And it is fulfilled after the flood. The Lord smells the soothing odor of the sacrifice Noah has made and declares, "Never again will I curse the ground because of man.... While the earth lasts, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall never cease" (Genesis 8:21-22).

So the curse is lifted. The water of the flood purifies and cleanses the earth, and its fruitfulness is promised to humanity—that is how Genesis ends its account of the world's beginning.

Another troubling point from the beginning of Genesis is clarified in the account of Noah—the famous, or infamous, "subdue the earth" of Genesis 1:28. This injunction was given to humanity before the fall, and different injunctions to till and keep the earth are given in Genesis 2:15. But after the fall, and after the flood, when God in effect starts over with Noah and his family, he again repeats the command of Genesis 1:28—"Be fruitful, and increase, and fill the earth"—omitting the injunction to "subdue it" (Genesis 9:1).

Noah is told that animals can become food for him ("I give you them all, as I once gave you all green plants," Genesis 9:3), but the whole troubling sense of harshly subduing the earth is simply no longer present. (The command to fill and increase is repeated again in verse 7. A few translations add on "rule over it," but this is an incorrect translation, assuming the author meant to repeat Genesis 1:28. The Hebrew refers only to being fruitful and increasing.) Thus, the story of Noah decisively eliminates any notion that God intends for a fallen humanity to "subdue" or conquer the earth.

The central point in the story of Noah and the ark, however, is the covenant established by God with "living things of every kind." Here is where God's covenant promises first begin. And God's covenant is established not just with people; it is a covenant with all creation.

Five times in Genesis 8 and 9, the scope of God's covenant is repeated—a covenant between God and every living creature, with "all living things on earth of every kind." God's faithful love extends to and includes all that has been made. The rainbow is the sign of this promise.

In Genesis, the story of creation is completed with the assurance of God's faithful and saving relationship to the world. Indeed, some modern theology argues that creation can only be understood through covenant. From the outset of the biblical account, then, we are cautioned against any view which assumes that the created world is nothing more than the stage on which the drama between God and humanity takes place. The rainbow reminds us that the creation is central to that drama, and that the promises given by God are directed not only to humanity, but to the creation that upholds all life.

Rebellion Against God and Violence Toward Others
Second, in the biblical understanding, rebellion against God and violence toward others imperils the whole created order. Fellowship with God, love toward one another, and harmony with creation are all parts of an interdependent web of relationships. Brokenness at one point affects the other parts.

Adam's rebellion against God results in his alienation from the earth (Genesis 3:17). When Cain murders Abel and then asks if he is his brother's keeper, the Lord replies, "Your brother's blood that has been shed is crying out to me from the ground. Now you are accursed, and banished from the ground which has opened its mouth wide to receive your brother's blood" (Genesis 4:10-11).

Enmity and violence escalate following Abel's murder, and infect all of creation. By the time of Noah, God declares, "The loathsomeness of all mankind has become plain to me, for through them the earth is full of violence" (Genesis 6:13).

This theme of humanity's violence and rebellion marring creation continues in the Old Testament. In Isaiah 24:4-5 we read:

The earth dries up and withers, the whole world withers and grows sick; the earth's high places sicken, and earth itself is desecrated by the feet of those who live in it, because they have broken the laws, disobeyed the statutes and violated the eternal covenant.

Similarly, the prophet Hosea announces,

The Lord has a charge to bring against the people of the land:
There is no good faith or mutual trust,
no knowledge of God in the land,
oaths are imposed and broken, they kill and rob;
there is nothing but adultery and license
one deed of blood after another.
Therefore, the land shall be dried up,
and all who live in it pine away,
and with them the wild beasts and the birds of the air;
even the fish shall be swept from the sea. (Hosea 4:1-3)

Biblically speaking, then, violence toward others and rebellion against God alienate us from creation—and can even destroy the earth's fruitfulness and life-supporting capacity. Our misuse of the creation breeds enmity between us and other people, and alienates us from God.

What are some implications of this interdependent relationship between God, humanity, and creation?

For one, these insights help place global environmental problems in their proper context. Our tendency is to compartmentalize environmental issues into a separate category of problems. Often, this means such questions get relegated to matters of less importance than, for example, the global division between rich and poor, or the threat of nuclear destruction. In reality, these issues are deeply intertwined. Divisions between humanity deepen threats to the global environment. Solutions to the threats facing our ecosphere must encompass political responses. The globe's environment cannot be made more whole in isolation from overcoming division, hatred, and the lack of mutual trust on the face of the earth.

Also, the biblical insight that violence against others imperils our relationship to all creation finds a startling expression in the nuclear threat. For the Christian, this can never be a separate issue from environmental problems. The stewardship of the planet is nearly lost because of our alienation from the earth, our hatred toward one another, and our rebellion against God the Creator. Abolishing nuclear weapons, eliminating hunger, and saving the ozone layer are all part of a biblical call to earthkeeping, and should be addressed by the church not as individual political issues, but as indivisible dimensions of our response to God's love.

Third, we must reconsider traditional Western Christian explanations concerning God's act of creation. Our thinking about how and why God created the world carries implications for what God's relationship to the earth is now, and what it ultimately will be.

The commonly accepted explanation of how the creation came into being is creatio ex nihilo—the world and all that is was created by God out of nothing, as a free act of God's will. Interestingly enough, no scripture can be cited to support this view.

The effect of this teaching is to underscore God's separation from the creation. As if almost by a whim, God creates the world, and suspends it in the universe (which was also created out of nothing). Then, God places humanity on this scene.

If creation comes from nothing, it has no intrinsic relationship to anything outside of itself. One can see how well this doctrine fits the scientific and mechanical view of the world, which reduces creation to nature, objectifies it, and seeks control over it. The analogy of God as a clock maker, who starts the world ticking and lets it go, flows easily from the idea that God first created the world out of nothing.

Though creatio ex nihilo was constructed as a teaching to emphasize God's freedom and transcendence, its durability, in my judgment, is due to its compatibility with the worldview developed by the enlightenment and the rise of modern science. For very different reasons, these also sought to remove the notion of God's ongoing identification with the workings of nature.

However, other understandable ideas and models of creation can be found, and biblical support for some of them seems clear. Most of these ideas stress the relationship between the creation and God. The most foreign to traditional Western theology is emanation, which would suggest that the creation flowed forth naturally from the life of the Creator. Traditionally, theologians have argued that this obscures the distinction between Creator and creature, and can lead to a pantheism. Yet it need not. Emanation underscores that God, rather than nothingness, is the source of creation. The distance of the creation from the Creator may be great, just as light bears only a dim reflection of its origin when far from its source. Yet in this model, creation is held in an intrinsic relationship to the Creator.

God so Loved the Cosmos
The strongest biblical passage to mold our understanding of creation is the prologue to the gospel of John. This declares that creation is an expression of God, and came into being through Christ. The act of creation is linked to the incarnation. The Word (logos), present with God, goes forth from God, and returns to God. This Word is the means of the world's creation. "No single thing was created without him. All that came to be was alive with his life" (John 1:3-4).

This passage, and others as well, emphasize the intimacy of relationship between the Creator and the creation. God's life is the source of all created life; the creation came into being through God's act of self-expression in Christ. The purpose, destiny, and fulfillment of creation is to be found in its relationship to the Creator.

This does not equate the creation with God. But it is a far cry from teachings like creatio ex nihilo, which so sever God from creation that the source of the created world remains unknown, and its future appears incidental and unimportant. That hardly provides the grounds for the practice of earth-keeping.

Given that God has established a covenant with all creation; that God, humanity, and the creation are bound together in an interdependent relationship; and that the creation is an expression of God and its destiny lies in relationship to God, it follows that God's work of redemption through Christ extends to the creation.

Sin breaks the intended fellowship and harmonious relationship between God, humanity, and the creation. The reign of sin and death alienates God from humanity and the creation, and propels the earth toward self-destruction. But in Christ, the power of sin and death is confronted and overcome. The creation is reconciled to God. This, I believe, is the full meaning of Paul's statement that "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself" (2 Corinthians 5:19).

Consider John 3:16-17. "God so loved the world that he gave his only son..." "World" here is cosmos in the Greek, meaning the whole created order. This is what God loved. Further, John tells us that God sent God's Son to the world—to the whole created order—not to judge it, but that "through him the world [cosmos] might be saved" (John 3:17).

Our Western ears have heard and read this passage as if "world" means "people." And when people are saved, they are saved from the world. Our concept of salvation consists of God plucking people up and out of a world headed for destruction, like a rescue helicopter sending down a line for passengers on a burning, sinking ship to grab onto and be hoisted to safety. But this is not what Jesus says in John's third chapter. Rather, he has been sent by God to save the whole world—the entire creation. Salvation means saving our ship.

Our difficulty stems from thinking that humanity exists apart from, and independent of, the rest of the world. By thinking of humanity as separate from the rest of creation, we assume that we can be saved while creation is destroyed. Further, we think of salvation as a spiritual reality divorced from physical reality; our souls are saved though our bodies are destroyed.

But Christianity preaches the resurrection of the body and the salvation of the world.

The theology of the Eastern Orthodox church can greatly enrich us on these points. In general, Eastern thought—including most non-Christian Eastern religions—has never assumed the dichotomy between humanity and nature so prevalent in the consciousness of the West.

Christianity, we must recall, is also in its origins an Eastern religion. Our brothers and sisters from the Eastern Orthodox tradition bring to their theology a far richer—and I suspect more biblical—understanding of how God's redemption extends to the creation. They have always asserted that in the incarnation, God in Christ acts to restore the world and call it back to himself. Redemption is the promise of creation, as well as our own lives, being made whole and new.

Many questions remain, of course, including when and how the redemption of creation is actually realized. There are two responses. First, the truth of God's work of redemption is known through the experience of faith. We know this is the case in our personal lives. Christ's triumph over the reign of sin and death in the creation also is known by faith. It is a proclamation of creation's destiny; its course is not dissolution, but rather a fully restored relationship to God. And while this is only fulfilled completely at the end of time, its first fruits can be experienced now. This brings us to the second response.

The church is that part of creation which has accepted God's redemption and salvation. Therefore, the church's life is to evidence signs of a restored relationship between humanity, the creation, and God. The redemption of the whole creation begins to be known, then, in the church. That is why Paul writes in Romans that the whole created universe yearns with eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. As the body of Christ, the logos of creation, we are to live out a new and restored relationship to the creation, which itself has been won back to God by Christ's redemptive death and resurrection.

Redemption promises that God's intentions for the creation will be fulfilled. The people of God have continually been given this promise, which lies in the future, as a means of judging their actions in the present and calling them to faithful obedience to the Lord. The covenant with creation given to Noah is restated and reformulated through the Old Testament, and culminates in the work of Christ.

The holistic nature of this covenant promise is powerfully presented in Hosea 2:18-23:

Then I will make a covenant on behalf of Israel with the wild beasts, the birds of the air, and things that creep on the earth, and I will break bow and sword and weapon of war and sweep them off the earth, so that all living creatures may lie down without fear. I will betroth you to myself for ever, betroth you in lawful wedlock with unfailing devotion and love; I will betroth you to myself to have and to hold, and you shall know the Lord. At that time I will give answer, says the Lord, I will answer for the heavens and they will answer for the earth, and the earth will answer for the corn, the new wine, and the oil, and they will answer for Jezreel. Israel shall be my new sowing in the land, and I will show love to Unloved, and say to Not-My-People "You are my people," and he will say, "Thou art my God."

In Isaiah 11 the promise of a restored relationship with God, God's people, and the creation includes even a new peace within the world of nature, where the lion lies down with the lamb. At the end of Isaiah, the Lord declares, "For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth" (Isaiah 65:17). This newness is described as the absence of oppression and exploitation: "People shall build houses and live to inhabit them, plant vineyards and eat their fruit; they shall not build for others to inhabit, nor plant for others to eat" (Isaiah 65:21-22). The fruits of creation liberate the oppressed and serve the needs of all people.

This new work of God is inaugurated in Jesus Christ. He announced the coming of the kingdom of God. Followers are called to accept this new reign of God in their lives, and to expect it, and work for it, in the world.

Our prayer is for this kingdom to come, and God's will to be done, on earth as in heaven. Those whose lives become incorporated into Christ's discover this new creation as a present, in-breaking reality. Paul writes, "For anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation. The old creation has gone, and now the new one is here. It is all God's work" (2 Corinthians 5:17-18).

The new creation, as described in this passage, is not internal (that is discussed elsewhere by Paul) but external. That which divided humanity into Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, has been overcome. And that which drove the creation away from God has been defeated; the world has been reconciled to God.

Though we know this by faith at present, its actual consummation comes in the future. Revelation 5:13 describes this in part as follows: "Then I heard every created thing in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, all that is in them, saying, 'Praise and honor, glory and might, to him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb forever.' "

Revelation 22, describing the new heavens and new earth, states, "Then he showed me the river of the water of life, sparkling like crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, down the middle of the city's street. On either side of the river stood a tree of life, which yields twelve crops of fruit, one for each month of the year; the leaves of the trees serve for the healing of the nations. Every accursed thing shall disappear" (Revelation 22:1-3). The vision recalls creation in Genesis 2, with a river flowing out from Eden to water the four corners of the earth, and a tree of life. Creation is brought back to God, the Alpha and Omega.

Many believe all this is to happen only in a future millennial era. Until then, things can only get worse. And the worse they get, the more excited these Christians become, anticipating that the end is nearly here. The logical consequence, in Tom Sine's words, would be to torpedo the grain boats so more people will starve. Or to change the metaphor, we would try to deplete the ozone layer.

But the Bible suggests that this new creation begins now, both in our lives and in the whole created order. And just as the redemption of our lives is to promote the work of sanctification, transforming our lives into the life of Christ, so the redemption of the creation should promote works of sanctifying the earth, transforming it through the sovereignty of Christ.

This new creation comes through judgment. The pattern is not a gradual, upward evolutionary ascent to the Omega point. Rather, it is death and resurrection. The old is judged and defeated in order for the new to come. And any survey of the contemporary perils facing the creation demonstrates how much of the old—the power of death—must die. Yet the God who makes all things new does not sit back and delight in watching a cosmic crescendo of evil. And neither should we. God has already begun the new creation, and we are called to the work of global sanctification.

Within a Christian framework, ethical concerns are commonly grounded in love for one's neighbor. In the "New Testament, Christ dramatically expands the definition of neighbor in teachings such as the Sermon on the Mount and the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Western thought, and our academic disciplines, commonly suppose that how we treat our fellow human beings is one matter, and how we treat our environment is another. And if we are forced to make either/or choices, a person, of course, has more value than a tree. An Old Testament writer like Isaiah, however, would find it strange to consider right behavior toward a neighbor apart from the land, water, vineyard, crops—in short, the fruitfulness of creation which ensures his neighbor's livelihood. And biblically, the definition of neighbor expands not only across geographical and racial boundaries, but through the boundaries of time, from the present into future generations.

Love for our neighbor carries with it, directly, a mandate to care for the creation. However, we are left with another question. Is the creation to be kept only because of its support for human life? The biblical answer is no. The creation was pronounced good in Genesis by God before human life was created. The psalms call us continually to marvel and revere the creation simply because it testifies to God's glory.

Our call to earthkeeping, and our perspectives on the global environmental crisis, are further illuminated by the biblical concept of shalom. As usually translated, this Hebrew word appears in the Bible as "peace." But its meaning is far richer than a mere absence of war.

Peace, biblically defined, means a state of wholeness, and is the completeness of God's covenant. There is no rigid distinction between peace among nations, economic justice, bodily health, and a spiritually right relationship with God. All this is encompassed in God's shalom. Thus, we read in Psalm 147:14, for instance, "He has brought peace [shalom] to your realm, and given you fine wheat in plenty."

Shalom means humanity is living in a proper relationship to the creation. Attempting to seize and possess the land for selfish ends, and trying to rule over the creation—to be like God—are actions which break God's shalom.

God's action, faithful to his covenant, is continually directed toward re-establishing this shalom. And the outpouring of God's spirit yearns to establish a people living in harmony and peace with God's creation. In Isaiah we hear this word:

Once more will be poured on us the spirit from above;
then shall the wilderness be fertile land and fertile land become forest.
In the wilderness justice will come to live and integrity in the fertile land;
integrity will bring peace [shalom],
justice give lasting security.
My people will live in a peaceful home,
in safe houses,
in quiet dwellings
Happy you will be, sowing by every stream, letting ox and donkey roam free. (Isaiah 32:15-20)

Isaiah's prophecy of the coming Messiah (Isaiah 9:6) refers to him as the "Prince of Shalom." His rule will establish the shalom of God. And in the New Testament, the word "peace" does not refer to a state of mind, but usually to the overcoming of divisions, and creation of a new humanity. Thus, Paul writes of Christ, "He is himself our peace" (Ephesians 2:14).

Therefore, the peace which Christ promises to us, and the peace of Christ with which we greet each other, refers to God's shalom—the fulfillment of all creation.

This becomes the hope and the vision of our task of earthkeeping. The resources of creation are God's gift, to serve the well-being and the joy of all people and all creatures. Restoring the harmony to the creation, and preserving its ecological balance, is the means for establishing true security. God's peace is God's shalom, filling all creation.

Wesley Granberg-Michaelson lived in Missoula, Montana, and was an associate for global resources and environment for the Reformed Church when this article appeared. This article was based on a talk given at the AuSable Forum in June 1982.