Environment vs. Christianity

There are many verses in the bible that talk about the protection of our environment. Christians therefore have some sort of responsibility of encouraging positive change for the benefit of the future. There is a way to be environmentally conscious while still maintaining a strong faith relationship between you and God. Christian environmentalists emphasize the ecological responsibilities of all Christians as being in charge of God's earth. However, “Much of the contemporary debate about Christian attitudes towards the physical environment has tended to devalue the importance of human beings in relation to the rest of creation.” Beginning with the Genesis 1:26-28, God instructs humanity to be responsible of his creation in different ways, “ And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.' In today’s more modern and current times some Christians focus on the widespread use of non-renewable resources, habitat destruction, pollution, and many other components that directly causes damage to the health of the ecosystem as well as climate change.

Nevertheless many conservative Christians choose to not be concerned with issues regarding the environment since many Christian environmentalists have disagreed with conservative political leaders as a result of what they believe in. They want to dismiss the environment as a less significant issue compared with the importance of the Gospel. The Bible says that “all things were made through Jesus and that without Him, there is nothing made that was made” which leads the more conservative Christians to believe that God will continue to sustain the earth and their harm will not affect the community around them. Climate change is currently happening yet over a third of evangelical Christians say there is no solid evidence that climate change is happening.

Moreover there are other Christians that believe climate change is causing this certain phenomenon called “eco-anxiety”. Eco anxiety happens when “climate change causes direct psychological and existential impacts to a vast number of people already experiencing indirect impacts in the form of depression, socio-ethical paralysis, and loss of well-being.” The author talks about how this can happen to anyone and add onto their already existing life problems. An example would be when a person feels depression coming on because first and foremost they lose their his job, but in the background is also anxiety about the state of the world and climate change. This source is not about how to ignore the effects of climate change but to address how it is affecting us mentally, physically, and even how it plays a role in the community. This means that when there is some sort of physical impact like the rising sea levels, stress on freshwater resources and other environmental problems it affects the human systems such as urban infrastructure, human security, and transportation networks, which in turn affects everyone in the community.

Conservative Christians may say things such as “We agree, we’re called to care for God’s creation,” or “we’re called to be stewards of the planet.” But that does not correlate to: “We should do something about it.” They seem to be really disconnected from the concern about climate change and politics has a lot to do with it. They believe that environmentalists as a whole are so unfriendly to humanity because they think humans are a menace to nature, which they see as best untouched by humans. Sin, for environmentalists, is interfering with nature which is the exact opposite of the Bible’s definition of “sin is unlawfulness”.

We as a society however trust environmentalists with some sort of authority on their knowledge of what we can do to take better care of our environment. Things such as “to decide the temperature at which to set our thermostats, the kinds of light bulbs we use, to dictate whether we’ll use disposable or cloth diapers, and plastic or cloth grocery bags, and many more things” that they emphasize we need to integrate into our lives. Many young people in our society are seeking an improved environment, yet they think that most Christians don't care about ecological issues and that most churches offer no opportunity for involvement. Since the beginning of the modern environmental movement, non religious environmentalists have claimed that historic Christianity is largely responsible for today's environmental problems. There are two relevant teachings in Scripture that establish a foundation for developing a theology of nature and environmental stewardship. Although God gave the family of man the authority to 'Rule over' creation, Scripture reveals that nature and wildlife are valuable to God independent of humanity. Numerous biblical passages reveal God's provision and care for wildlife as well as his concern for the treatment of domesticated animals.

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Something that relates to both Christ and animals that the general public knows about is the story of Noah’s Ark. As stated in this journal article,“While offering a dire warning about sin, disobedience, and their consequence—the destructive judgment of God, who sends a flood to cleanse the earth of human wickedness while preserving the obedient and righteous Noah and his family—it is also a story of hope, regeneration, and new beginnings.” The story of Noah’s Ark also proves to be an example of environmental consciousness, and showing the ideas of social and political agreeance. In Hong Kong they came up with this idea of combining the education of religion and environmentalism by creating a theme park based on Noah’s Ark. Complete with life size replicas of the actual ark itself along with animals, there are also many references to scripture throughout the park. There are also informational installations regarding environmental ideas such as solar energy and how much of an impact it can have politically.

However this theme park has been disregarded for the use of Christianity as a gimmick to attract as many people as they can to come to the park itself, as well as dismissing the significance of the story, “Noah’s Ark”. For example, one of the panels in the exposition hall interprets the Noah story as one of the “destruction of harmony” due to a human society “full of corruption, violence, family and social problems.” The pessimistic and apocalyptic note in the Noah's Ark's exhibits stands at odds with the more ideal hopeful and positive message embodied elsewhere in the theme park’s exhibitions and physical environment. In a way, this is because the whole Christian view of divine creation does not line up with environmental ideas. The resort's message of environmental responsibility is overshadowed by the negative and apocalyptic notes sprinkled in some of the galleries. The resort and park as a whole, while utilizing the environmentalism theme, actually create a bad setting whose project and ideology is only to promote pop environmentalism. It seemed like a great concept on paper but when it was actually put into action it turned out to be another great example of when environmentalism and evangelical Christianity begin to part in opposing views.

Christians also blame the use of technology as environmental damage. This article is about the author’s response to a man named Lynn White Jr. who blamed Christianity for the world’s environmental problems. White's article begins by describing the technological progress of Western culture since the mid-1800s, and its resulting in various problematic effects. White also argued Christians brought environmental destruction and crisis. It is the question of where the thought originated that caused White's article to provoke the Christian community. He routinely analyzed examples of thought and behaviour processes of Christians and secular people. For White, since the historical majority religion of both Europe and the Americas was Christianity, all of Western scientific discovery and ethics carried the impact of Christian theology.

On the other hand, there must be some way Christians and environmentalists can come together and use their good qualities to live in harmony. This journal proves how Christian faith can help us care for the earth by using some of its core beliefs “The Christian religion can with great traditional weight argue that we have a responsibility for planet Earth and life on it, because planet Earth has become our neighbour in the sense that we have received the commandment to love our neighbour. Your neighbour is the one who is in distress and needs your help. Planet Earth and life on it have become vulnerable to human activity; therefore, we have a responsibility to that which is within our domain.” Natural scientific ecology describes the natural world as made up of mechanical, impersonal systems. The ecological aspects of the natural world are described in terms “such as ''food chains'', ''biomass'', ''energy flows'' and so on.” Before taking a natural scientific view of humans, animals and plants, we see them as living, vulnerable creatures that are valuable in themselves. Nobody should destroy humans or animal or plant species without good reason.

Continuing with the idea that Christianity and environmentalism should coexist in harmony is that there are many practical reasons why Christians should care for the earth. It is increasingly clear that our use of oil and gas in the West is driving rapid climate change in the whole world. It may not have much effect on us in the short term, other than maybe giving us longer and hotter summers in the US, but the effects of more extreme weather events will fall disproportionately on the very young and very old, on the poor and the marginalised in places such as sub-Saharan Africa. One quarter of the planet's population lives in poverty and is extremely vulnerable to changes caused by drought or flooding, to the failure of agricultural crops or to rising sea levels. “If we take caring for our global neighbour seriously, we need to consider the impact of our lifestyles on them.”

In conclusion, some Christians however do not believe in environmentalism because of traditional values. There are many opposing views on the idea of environmentalism and Christianity but there also some that agree with each other. Christians will want to do all they can to tell others the good news of Christ. But we need to model that by caring for the world God has entrusted to us which means taking care of the environment.