Care of Creation @ Urbana09

Why Creation Care Counts as Missions

( This post originally appeared on the Intervarsity Urbana site at this address: http://www.urbana.org/articles/green-mission. It was written by the Director of Care of Creation — Ed Brown)

Last October, Manila, Philippines was hit by two massive typhoons. According to some reports, 80% of the city experienced flooding, much of it severe. Homes were inundated to the top of the second floor that had never been flooded before. Over 1500 people lost their lives.

On the heels of these storms, an environmental seminar, “Hear the Call to Care for Creation” was held that had been planned almost a year earlier. From homes still damaged by flood waters, more than 70 people spent two days together seeking to understand what God might be saying through what was generally understood to be an environmental disaster.

“This is God’s timing,” said Alice Pineda, director of the sponsoring organization. “We are experiencing the results of sins against the environment, [and] it is time for the Philippine church to address this problem more intentionally and concretely.”

Sins against Creation

Many of the world’s ills – from poverty to political instability – arise from a rapidly intensifying environmental crisis, or to put it in theological terms: sins against God’s creation. Church leaders in the Philippines understood that their recent trials were not due to an ‘act of God’. Typhoons are not pleasant, but they are an indispensable part of God’s creation. However, God has also provided forests to absorb rainfall and wetlands to act as flood barriers when typhoons come.

With most of the forest removed (the Philippines has less than 16% of its original forest remaining), with wetlands replaced by culverts channeled through the middle of Manila, whose population is now more than 10 million, and the storms’ intensity aggravated by climate change, the consequences of accumulated ‘environmental sin’ are obvious.

The Philippines are not alone. Mudslides in Haiti, drought in Kenya, failing wells in India: all signs that environmental abuse increases human suffering. And it is not possible to alleviate that suffering without dealing with that underlying cause. We cannot truly ‘love our neighbor’ without addressing environmental issues.

A God-centered Response

There’s another, just as compelling reason for making the environmental crisis a priority of Christian missions and ministry: As with most human problems, this crisis is rooted in sin. Ecological disaster is a result of human behavior that is selfish, prideful and greedy. A crisis that is caused by sin cannot be solved by science. A problem created by pride will not be corrected with policies.

The environmental crisis is the number one problem in the world for most people outside the church, but it is a crisis that cannot be solved without reference to God. As Paul says in Romans 9:14, ‘How can they call on the One they have not believed in?’ This is one crisis that will not and cannot be resolved without the leadership of the church. It is a sin problem, and there is only one answer to sin.

‘Environmental missions’ is, quite simply, an effort to connect the problem of the environmental crisis with the solution of God’s redemption. Further, it is an opportunity for people in the church who love God’s creation to connect that love with love for God and love for people.

Good Theology, Sound Science, an Integrated Plan

What might a God-centered response to the environmental crisis look like? First, it has to be rooted in good theology. That is, we need a solid biblical understanding of God’s redemptive plan that understands that God’s goal goes beyond human salvation to include all of creation (see Colossians 1:15-20 and Romans 8:18-24). Second, our response has to bring the best environmental and ecological science available to the task. God’s world is complex. We have learned to our regret that simple solutions which do not adequately understand how the world works can make things worse instead of better. And third, our response has to be integrated in every way – across geography, politics, disciplines and organizations. When a problem like deforestation in rural Kenya is driven by poverty in the slums of Nairobi, neither will be solved unless both can be resolved together.

A Call to this generation

If the church is to respond to this environmental crisis, we will need a massive mobilization of people like you: theologians who can articulate the Biblical call to full redemption to the worldwide church. Environmental scientists who can help us understand the problems and who can propose effective workable solutions. And yes, missionaries who can integrate and implement those solutions effectively through local church bodies around the world.

As one of the participants in the Manila seminar said, “My eyes have been opened to what we as God’s children have not done, but praise God we can still do!”

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Ed Brown is executive director for Care of Creation Inc. and author of Our Father’s World: Mobilizing the Church to Care for Creation. He will be leading two environmental stewardship seminars at Urbana 09.

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So what does a toothbrush and renewing of the mind have to do with each other? Plenty. Stay with me a minute and I’ll explain.

In Romans 12, Paul give us some excellent advice about what to do with our knowledge of God and His ways when we become Christ followers and when we listen to what the Holy Spirit tells us as we go about our daily lives.

Paul says that we are to “renew our minds” so that we can “test and approve what God’s will is”. In other words, Paul is telling us that as believers and followers of Christ, we have to start to think differently than we used to think if we are going to fulfill the purposes that God has for us.

Most of us can easily see how this applies (or should apply) to our daily lives. For example, most of us know that we need to think differently and renew our minds when it comes to loving our neighbor. We realize that anger, impatience and prejudice are examples of “unrenewed” ways of thinking and, although we would like to get it right all the time, we know that the right thing to do is to consistently and constantly try to put this “renewed mind” into practice as it applies to our daily lives.

Around us, we can see some evidence that results from “renewed thinking” – things like global and local missions, neighborhood food-banks, and neighborhood outreach are such examples. If you are working on changing your aggressive driving habits, if you are burdened to care more for your neighbors or you are convicted when facing dishonesty at work or cheating at school then you know what I mean by “renewed thinking”.

“But what about that jump from renewing your mind to a toothbrush. What’s the connection?” you’re saying.

OK, here goes.

The other day, my wife purchased two new toothbrushes (no … not the electric kind!). That in itself, is usually no big deal. However, these were toothbrushes that I had never seen before. In the package, each standard toothbrush was packaged with three replaceable heads. That’s right; the package came with one complete handle and three heads. When one wore out, you popped it off of the handle and popped in a new one. Change the head, keep the handle because the handle doesn’t wear out. It’s a small thing but a big illustration of how thinking differently can help us use God’s resources a bit more wisely.

I looked at these toothbrushes and it didn’t take me long to realize that someone who cared about the world we live in stretched their mind a bit and thought differently. It’s probably not too far from the truth to thing that sometime during the design of this product, someone said “Hey, what we have been doing just isn’t right. We need to do something different. We need to think about what we are making here and make it better”.

From this, it was a small jump for me to realize the connection between thinking differently, renewing our minds and caring for God’s creation.

First of all, thinking differently is a good thing. In this case, it is an illustration of the first thing we are going to have to do if we are going to care for God’s creation. Thinking differently means that we have to look around us at all the habits we’ve acquired (for example, how we consume, how much we consume, how we treat the wilderness) and start to think differently about them. (And yes, it’s true that old habits die hard!) But thinking differently needs to go beyond that. See, the problem with thinking differently is that it can be a one- time action. For real change, we have to take this one time action, nurture it and grow it to make permanent changes in how we look at God’s creation. These permanent changes can only come through renewal – that is by “making new” our minds so that we act in new ways that are driven by what we believe and how we think about creation.

See, that’s why Paul didn’t tell us to “change what we do” but he told us to “renew” or “make new”. He wasn’t telling us to change our actions; he was telling us to act bigger – to renew our minds. What Paul was talking about is change that is permanent and long lasting. He was telling us that renewal has a major affect not only on us but on the world and the people around us.

It’s this permanent change that is the type of change each of us needs to deeply ponder and consider if we are going to eventually change how we care for the gift of creation that God created and gave us.

In a way, I am hopeful that the message of thinking differently about where we live is starting to get thorough to people. Small things like “environmentally kind” toothbrushes, “green” cleaning products, healthy, locally grown foods and paper coffee cups in themselves are not going to save this planet. They are, however making inroads into making restless that long suppressed part of the mind that says “resources are unlimited and I don’t have to care about the world around me”.

I am also confident that Christ followers can be real leaders in this area as they renew their minds and hearts. After all, from your minds and hearts come actions. And those actions — consistently living out what you believe – whether it is related to loving your neighbor or caring for creation – becomes a witness to those who don’t know God and the gift that he gave us in His son and His creation.