Tree-Hugging Honors God: 

Why I Am an Eco-Christian and Why You Should Be

I have always wondered why it is that Christians don’t take more care of and responsibility for the condition of our environment.  Scripture repeatedly speaks of the glory of God’s creation.  In the story of creation in Genesis, God himself declares each phase of his creation good.  Over and over the psalmist refers to the wonders of creation.  Paul even speaks of creation when he proclaims that if we do not praise God, that even the rocks will cry out in praise.

Now I am no Biblical scholar, but it seems clear to me that creation is important to God.  When he created humans, and placed them in the Garden of Eden (literally or figuratively as a perfect world), the only job he gave them to do was to name and care for the animals and to work the garden and “take care of it.”  This charge is reiterated in Psalm 8, paraphrased in The Message as, “ You put us in charge of your handcrafted world, repeated to us your Genesis-charge . . . ”  This creation seems to mean a lot to its Creator who labored to create it.  Whether the 6 days of the creation story are twenty-four hour days or representative of a time-frame we don’t understand, God worked hard enough in those six days to need or want to take a rest afterward.  If anything can be hard work for the God of the Universe, this act of creation seems to qualify.  Generally, that which we put so much energy into is of great value to us.  I think the same goes for God.

God’s creation also reflects so much of his personality.  From our human perspective, the natural world is awe inspiring.  No human endeavor – not Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, not Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, not the cathedral at Notre Dame – begins to compare with the complexity, variety, imaginativeness, or resilience of God’s creation.  No human creation can reproduce itself and adapt itself to new conditions.  Like Paul’s rocks, the breathtaking beauty of our mountains, waterfalls, streams, rocks, trees, cries out praise to the creator.  Some people worship nature.  I think they are close to getting it right.  But what they are worshiping is merely a reflection.  The glory and beauty of nature is a reflection of God’s personality.  Worshiping nature is to worship the creation.  Respecting nature is to honor the Creator.

So if God values his creation, and it is a reflection of his glory, why do so many Christians insist on exploiting and devaluing it?  Why has the interpretation of Genesis so often been that God gave us creation for our use to rape and destroy for our own comfort and temporary pleasure?  Even if you go back to the King James version of Genesis 1:26 (“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth”) I don’t believe that God meant exploitation.  Dominion means “ruling power.”  But let’s look at God’s way of ruling.  God is a ruler of love, justice and empowerment.  God doesn’t bring destruction in our lives, we bring it on ourselves.  God’s dominion over us is one of love, discipline, and growth.  Our dominion over creation should be a reflection of that model.

But I also believe there is a larger way to look at what Scripture tells us about creation (or any subject), and that is through the heart of God.  I don’t believe our divinely inspired Scripture was meant to be picked apart, using one lifted-out passage to wield as a weapon of truth and conviction.  When the Bible tells us to commit its words to our hearts, I believe that those are the living breathing words of God that as a whole, reveal the essence of God’s mind and personality.  And I believe that God gave us Jesus as a revelation of the divine heart.  Jesus’ model was one of love and nurture, not exploitation for comfort and convenience.  Jesus also told us that the Kingdom of God is here and now.  I have come to believe that that Kingdom is not just an abstract spiritual condition, but should be the way we live right now on this planet.

That is why I care about creation.  I believe it is God’s masterpiece, and that his model of ruling is one of caretaking.  Aside from the common sense of wanting to breathe clean air, drink pure water, and eat genetically unaltered food, I believe that it honors God to take care of his magnificent world.  So I care about animals having habitats in which to live and fish swimming in non-toxic waters.  I care about keeping trees on our mountainsides so they aren’t left bare and susceptible to landslides and erosion.  I care about preventing dumping of toxins into our waterways.  I care about living lightly on the planet and minimizing waste going into our landfills.  I care about reducing carbon emissions to prevent air pollution and warming of the planet.

I care enough to recognize that I am the problem, and that I must be part of the solution.

When Margaret Vestal lived in Asheville for a couple of years in the mid-90s, she felt a bit like Goldilocks looking for just the right church.  If a church was Christ-focused, it seemed to lack social conscience and compassion.  The churches that cared about the poor, the environment, peace, and other social justice issues seemed to forget Jesus or put him on equal footing with all other religious figures.  She could find no church that fit the needs of a new generation of Jesus' seekers and followers who wanted to experience genuine worship and live as Jesus did in radical faith.  After marrying Jimmy and sharing Quaker adventures with him in other parts of North Carolina, the couple felt that God was calling them to start a new and different sort of church in Asheville.  City View was born in the winter of 2000.

Photos: all photos were taken by Jen Fraser.