Christians and the Earth

by David Shay

“The books of Sacred Scripture contain much more than what is written in them. Our soul also has depths unknown to us. On the sacred pages and in our soul, there are melodies we do not hear. In the spaces of the world there are melodies which no one catches because no one listens.”

—Eugenio Zolli

“The Earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof.”

—Psalm 24:1

It’s 2009, and I’m at a large Christian conference. This is my senior year at a private Christian university, and I'm beaming with confidence as I start to be immersed in the Western Christian culture that is so prominent at Christian conferences in the US. I understand what attracts this sub-culture and what enrages and disgusts it. Having spent the last few years in a Christian university, I'm eager to hear the controversial hot topics of Western Christian culture discussed and debated. I also look forward to being in community with other semi-progressive Christian young adults, who want to push the communities of their faith forward.

This specific conference has a large variety of workshops to choose from. The workshops are the place to hear to tough questions answered, or at least to hear an attempt to answer the tough questions. The workshops are where a lot of the challenges of our faith come out and are tackled. Before I even know all the workshops that are on offer, I decide to go to whatever environmental workshop I can find, because I really care about the environment and want to hear what my fellow Christians are saying about it. I see that there are a few such workshops, and I go to the first one on the list, alone yet still very excited to learn. I’m not too surprised when none of my friends or fellow church members joins me.

However, I do feel a bit surprised at the small amount of people who show up for the workshop. It was a rather large ball room for such a small audience. (Technically, I’m sure now that there must have been more than two of us, but the only person I can recall is this girl with a large dreadlock—yes, singular—and bandana and then of course myself, sitting an aisle away from each other. So I have this kind of terrible mental image of the workshop being me and the single-dreadlock girl alone in a huge room listening to this topic I really care about.)

The workshop begins and I feel my excitement slowly deflating as I realize that the speakers are not touching on anything I haven't already…thought of myself? I feel bad thinking that these speakers are not very good, because they seem like great people. They are a young 30-ish-year-old couple and they talk about how having a healthy environment has made them feel better and helped them raise their children. That’s the thesis of the workshop. I get no new, fascinating knowledge to take away and share with my friends and fellow believers. No ideas to discuss with people. Nothing.

But still, I remain optimistic as I have seen that in a few days a speaker will address the issue of environmentalism and Christianity in the main conference session. This means she will be responsible to give a message on this topic for 20,000+ people to hear. Surely she will have something groundbreaking and important to say. However, when the message comes I have that same experience of excitement deflation as before. What I take away from the message is this: Trinidad is a beautiful country. And Christians should love each other.

I hear some of my fellow conference attendees talking about this message at the main session being the weakest one of the entire conference. I become even more deflated. The agenda that was so important to me is being overlooked and forgotten by my peers and fellow believers. I ask myself if my passion for the natural world is unimportant. Is the fulfillment I get from time praying in the forest preserves of suburban Chicago simply romanticized and irrelevant to the larger Christian picture? Why doesn't anyone seem to care about this?

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Ever since that conference, the more I’ve thought about it, the more compelled I’ve become to make the case for the natural world and our place within it, from a Christian perspective. I don’t think even progressive and environmentalist Christians are really grasping or communicating the full picture.

Let’s start at a material level. Our relationship with this planet is necessary for our existence to continue. Photosynthesis, the process by which plants take carbon dioxide and give off oxygen is amazing and awesome to witness. We give off a gas we do not need and in return receive oxygen.

Also, you have heard it said that money doesn't grow on trees. But I tell you the truth, that the sustenance you need to survive literally grows on trees. Money is something that we added.

The Christian environmentalist argument is usually that God created the Earth,; therefore we are obligated to love it and take care of it. But what if we changed the word “obligated” to “designed?” We have learned through the word of God that loving one another is what we were designed for. When we love one another and express that love by caring for each other, it is healthy for our spirits. What if the same could be said about our relationship with the Earth? It's not that we have to love the Earth, but that loving it and caring for it is what is good for us.

I'm not trying to use 1 John 4:12 to say that we need to love trees. If you ever have to choose between a human life and a tree, by all means choose the human. But perhaps when we hear that Yosemite is burning and ancient trees are dying, we should feel sorrow because we have a relationship with this Earth. Is it healthy for children to want to destroy ant hills instead of study them? Is it healthy for us to see the ways God's creation provides for us and exploit it? When God delivers manna, we take what we need for the day and leave it at that. Yet it's engrained in our culture to take more than we need.

At the start of this post, I placed a quote that speaks about "melodies we do not hear...because no one listens." There are unheard melodies—that is, untapped meaning and depth and beauty—both in sacred scripture and in the world around us. I feel like Christians already know that there are new meanings and beauty to be discovered in scripture, and that it is very precious to us in part because of that. Is it not also possible that our world—a place much larger, more poorly understood, and less explored than scripture, and created by the same God—is equally precious?

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Photo sources:
1. https://secure.flickr.com/photos/pagedooley/3650600124/
2. https://secure.flickr.com/photos/pleeker/139418540/ 
3. https://secure.flickr.com/photos/peddhapati/9703395209/
4. https://secure.flickr.com/photos/vkreay/6195960810/
5. https://secure.flickr.com/photos/80901381@N04/7950216844/