Holistic Stewardship
The Good News in Caring for God’s Creation
For every year that I have ministered to college students, climate anxiety has become a more prominent topic of conversation. Climate anxiety, also known as eco-anxiety, is the chronic emotional experience of worry and insecurity in response to the global climate crisis. In the face of an overwhelming barrage of news about all kinds of environmental disasters — not to mention the remarkable resistance of politicians, CEOs, and other global leaders to do anything about it — young adults are increasingly disturbed by the state of the planet that they and their children will inherit
For many college students I work with, their religious experiences only exacerbate their anxiety about the environment. Young adults who identify as Christian often feel like their concern for the planet is not welcome in the churches they love. Students who don’t identify as Christian often express that their interest in justice, including issues like the climate crisis, is among the reasons they have no interest in church or religion.
To put it briefly: Many young people do not see how Jesus is relevant to the most pressing concerns of their present or future.
Most churches at least tacitly confirm these suspicions. Even if a community isn’t overtly hostile to the idea of climate change, by choosing not to respond to environmental challenges, we imply that there is no place for creation care in the church. Many young people assume that if Jesus’ followers don’t even care enough about the earth to mention it, then it must be because Jesus doesn’t care either.
And if that were true, that would be terrible news. Many young people have internalized awful messages from and about their Christian faith: that this world doesn’t matter to God (or that it is even an obstacle to deep spirituality), that the climate crisis is nothing to worry about (if it is even recognized as a scientific reality), that the gospel is only for humans (and sometimes more specifically, only for humans who believe and behave the right way). As these young people have grown up, they have discovered that these messages have borne rotten fruit.
And they’re right. These messages are not good news.
But thankfully, these messages aren’t true. The truth is that, when it comes to the planet, Jesus brings good news. Jesus is good news.
Jesus, the Good News, and Our Planet
However, we cannot insist merely with our words that Jesus is, indeed, relevant to the most pressing concerns of our lives and our world. We have to embody it in the way each of us as disciples of Jesus — and each of our churches as bodies of Christ — live and love.
When I share with college students that I care deeply about the planet because I’m a Christian, they light up. They ask questions to learn more. When I share some of my spiritual practices that I do as a way to care for creation in small ways through my daily choices, they are thrilled. They are curious. They hear it as genuinely, holistically, comfortingly good news.
And then they ask: “How? How can I also have a posture of love and compassion toward creation when all my church seems to care about is where my soul goes when I die?”
There are many ways to explore this question, but I often start with one of my favorite passages in the Bible:
15The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16For in Christ all things were created: all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17Christ is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in all things he might have the supremacy. 19For God was pleased to have all the fullness of God dwell in him, 20and through him to reconcile to God’s self all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Col 1:15-20, emphasis added)
The college students I work with are relieved to hear that I—as a disciple of Jesus and a minister of the church—care about the earth, not because merely caring solves all the world’s problems. (I, too, have moments of profound climate anxiety.) But rather, because caring for creation helps resolve the profound cognitive dissonance they have inherited. If Jesus is pure love, pure compassion, pure gentleness, pure self-sacrifice, pure purity, then of course that would extend to the way his followers interact with the earth, its creatures, and its ecosystems.
The truth is, Jesus is good news to all things.
If the gospel we live is bad news to anything, then it can’t be of God. If the way we follow Jesus is bad news to the microorganisms that make the soil nutritious, to the vegetation that makes this world beautiful, to the insects that pollinate the flowers, to the diverse array of animals that share our planet, then it is bad news for humans, too. For news to be truly good, it must be good news to all things.
If we believe all creation was designed intentionally, then we should be first in line to respectfully tend to it. We should be first to see and celebrate the works and wonders of God in the ecosystems and organisms around us.
That is a good starting point for deconstructing some of the unhelpful messages many Christians have come to believe about the world. This starting point also leaves room to replace those inaccurate and harmful messages with authentically good news that is consistent with the character of the God we know and trust.
The good news is that God cares about the world more than we could ever hope or imagine.
For young people experiencing climate anxiety, it is good news that God creates this earth with intentionality, orderliness, and delight. Setting aside questions about the science and historicity of the creation narrative, we can trust wholeheartedly what Genesis reveals about God’s character. We only need to skim Genesis 1 and 2 to be confident that God sees creation as good, and that God loves to delight in the diversity and delectability of the world.
Even Genesis 3 narrates God’s lament for the brokenness that humanity has introduced into the world, not just for the sake of the humans, but also for the sake of the garden, as a representative for all creation. The plants, the animals, and the soil itself all suffer from the animosity that the humans’ destructive choice brings into the world. Yet that brokenness does not change God’s love for creation any more than it changes God’s love for us.
However, the reality that God loves the planet does not dismiss us of our responsibility to care for it. We can’t just do whatever we want with the earth because God will fix it. (Our churches certainly don’t accept such a fallacious conclusion when it comes to personal or social choices.) It’s just the opposite. If we love God, then we love what God loves. If we love Jesus, then we love what Jesus loves. And love in the way of Jesus is not a nice feeling, but a holistic lifestyle.
The good news is that Jesus invites us to participate in the healing of the environment.
For young people experiencing climate anxiety, it is good news that God empowers and entrusts humans to participate in the reconciliation that Jesus is bringing to all things. Often, conversations about Christians’ relationship with the earth start with the first commandment in the Bible: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground” (Gen 1:28). Unfortunately, many Christians throughout history, known as dominionist Christians, have mistaken this commandment as blanket authority to abuse creation for whatever we perceive to be human advancement in the moment.
But this calling to rule that God gives to humanity is couched in the identity that God gives to humanity in the preceding verse: “So God created humankind in God’s own image, in the image of God, God created them; male and female, God created them” (Gen 1:27). The way we “rule over” must mimic how God “rules over,” which means, if our rule is to be godly, then our rule must be free of greed, violence, gluttony, selfishness, or a mindset of scarcity. Instead, our use of power must look like Jesus’ use of power: generous, gentle, temperate, self-sacrificial, and with a mindset of abundance.
And of course, all commandments must be interpreted through the lens of the Greatest Command, according to Jesus: Love God, and love your neighbor (Matt 22:37-38; Mark 12:30-31; Luke 10:27; John 13:34-35). The health of the planet determines the health of humans. To love our human neighbor, both locally and globally, we must make choices that nurture the planet on which we depend. Choices that abuse the earth, even for temporary human convenience or gain, are ultimately to our detriment as a species.
Furthermore, we are dependent on plants, animals, and soil for our existence and health. Clearly, the earth’s ecosystems treat us as neighbors by providing us with daily needs and joys. Why wouldn’t we view creation itself as our neighbor in turn?
When we follow in the way of Jesus, we embrace our role as a part of the ecosystems we inhabit, which ultimately means that the relationship between humans and creation is not lopsided in either direction. It is mutually beneficial. We nourish the planet that nourishes us. We cultivate the ecosystems God envisioned so that evermore life — human and non-human alike — can flourish. Love begets love, and life begets life. And the earth returns what we invest a thousandfold. Through this relationship of respect and mutuality, we experience God.
The good news is that the Spirit of God permeates all things.
For young people experiencing climate anxiety, it is good news that God encounters us through the beauty of creation and of our bodies. Our embodied creatureliness and our material planet are good and worthy and lovable. No matter the religious background or the current faith identity of college students I talk to, they all have experienced transcendence through nature. God encounters us through the blooming flowers and the colorful sunsets; through the spider spinning her web and the lion prowling his plain; through the vastness of the ocean and the intricacy of the atom. God is all around us, in the mundane and the magnificent. Every breath we take is a miracle. The air we share with every other creature is a gift.
Many young adults love nature, and they long to connect with and care for the earth. But their churches have not given them a framework to do that within the Christian faith, and so, many have left. That is an oversight on the part of religious leaders, not a sinful desire on the part of young people. Their inclination to love what God creates is holy and good. We have missed the mark by making them choose between loving nature and loving Jesus.
It is heartbreaking and harmful that Christians in the United States are known far more for being hostile to environmental justice than anything else. If we believe all creation was designed intentionally, then we should be first in line to respectfully tend to it. We should be first to see and celebrate the works and wonders of God in the ecosystems and organisms around us.
Ultimately, the good news of Jesus to all creation is missionally impactful to young people and to the earth itself.
If we trust Jesus’ command to love God and love our neighbor, if we obey Jesus’ invitation to proclaim and share God’s kingdom, and if we mimic Jesus’ example of humility and self-sacrifice, the reputation of our tradition will change. I hope it happens soon. The environmental justice movement needs the rich resources of the Christian story. The next generation — the whole world — needs the graceful guidance of God, the healing hands of Jesus, and the radical restoration of the Spirit. Caring for God’s creation is one powerful way that God’s people can bring the good news to all people — and all things.
Falon Barton is the Campus Minister for the University Church of Christ at Pepperdine, focusing primarily on the spiritual formation of college students. She also co-hosts a podcast called Emerge: Questions that Matter for Young Adult Spirituality. She has her Doctor of Ministry from the Hazelip School of Theology at Lipscomb University, as well as an MA in Religion and BAs in Journalism and Hispanic Studies from Pepperdine University. She is especially interested in the calling on disciples of Jesus to love our neighbors by caring for God's earth.