A friend gave me a really neat book called Gardening Eden: How Creation Care will Change your Faith, your Life, and our World by Michael Abbate. This book is excellent and was recently on sale at Mardel's for about a dollar (a sad commentary about how little most evangelicals care about this issue.)
Abbate, an evangelical Christian and founder of Green Works, an environmentally friendly landscape architecture firm, proposes five biblical themes that argue for "spiritual environmentalism".
1. What God made is good.
2. God loves the world He created.
3. What God made is God's, not ours.
4. Everything was created to glorify God.
5. God appointed us stewards.
I would add a sixth theme: Believers will spend eternity "tilling" and reigning over the new earth. All too often Christians think of heaven as a disembodied ethereal space. The Bible is clear that God will redeem the earth, just like He's redeeming a people for Himself. He will destroy and remake the earth. Then we'll live.... on the earth. Not in the clouds. In other words, He's going to bring us full circle- back to the garden. Only this time, we won't sin, because He will have made us holy, like He is holy.
I'm going to be sharing my progress and struggles in this area of going green and would love to hear your success stories and suggestions, too. This is all new to me. I've never even recycled before! I'll share practical steps from Gardening Eden, as well as what we're doing around our house. I'm convinced now that the church should be leading the way in caring for God's creation. What do you think? I'm thinking of doing a weekly meme, but have to figure out how to do the linky deal. Would anyone be interested in linking to a meme on creation care?
I love this! I am so excited to learn more from these posts! Also, the title could not more capture my personal motivations towards going green. I despise the violence, the anger, and the hypocrisy of the "enviromental" movement, but I LOVE that God is creator, and we were commanded to "tend" and take care of Creation. It's what's driving me to make changes. That and the fact that we often develop healthy practices while "going green". And I love that fact that I can make changes that add to the health and vitality of my family.
ReplyDeleteI am really encouraged by your post. The "going green" movement has always left a bad taste in my mouth due to the fact that it is most commonly seems to be fueled by purposes that do not bring glory to God. However, My husband and I recently dove into the world of "going green" for the sake of creating less waste for ourselves and living healthier lives, but more recently God has moved my heart to consider how being a more wise steward of His creation could in fact bring Him much glory. I googled "Does going green glorify God" and found your blog. Thanks so much!
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