by Phil Mote, elder for Stewardship

How do you feel when asked, how do you care for the environment?

• Sigh. Add that to my should-be-doing list.
• I [recycle, give to Sierra Club, rode the bus last month], isn’t that enough?
• That’s for left-wing nutballs who chain themselves to trees.
• What does that have todo with my faith?

Scripture provides some guidance on attitudes toward God’s creation. First, “the Earth is the Lord’s and everything in it” (Psalm 24:1) - the stuff we’re using up belongs to Him. He gave Adam only certain edible plants (Genesis 1:28). Second, the purpose and function of the rest of creation is to glorify God (Psalm 19:1-6, Psalm 148) and to sustain life (Psalm 104) in perpetuity. Reading EO Wilson’s “The Future of Life”, I was astounded to learn how many pharmaceutical innovations come from studying and mimicking compounds made by rare species. Third, our place in the created order is above that of the rest of creation (Psalm 8, Genesis 1:28) and God told Adam to “increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it”. Guess we can check that one off the to-do list.

Tying these together , our role is clearly as stewards who are caring for someone else’s property, under fairly clear instructions to keep it functioning. Until recently the evangelical church has focused on the third point without much interest in the other two, which left the American consumerist culture unchallenged. We need bigger houses to fit all our stuff, and we need a bigger vehicle because our top priority is safety in a collision (never mind that safety is mostly about clever engineering and accident avoidance, not sheer mass). Americans’ rapacious use of resources is among the highest on the planet, yet our lifestyle by many measures is a failure - our health, happiness, and education are worse than most of the developed world.

Bethany recently added a statement about caring for Creation to its mission statement. A group of leaders last year held a well-attended series of films and discussions, and Mark and Janette Plunkett led a beach walk at Alki in June. Some at Bethany use their free time to beat back invasive weeds and replant native species. One couple regularly cycles 10 miles each way to church, and traveled to Port Townsend on public transit for a day trip. Many at Bethany own hybrid vehicles - I know at least two families who own two Priuses, and when the Leonards bought their Honda Insight, it seemed a radical choice: gas was headed down from $1.60 a gallon, and sales of the 3.6-ton Ford Excursion were booming.

What these people have in common is that these actions spring from a deep faith, and bring them joy. Caring for creation can be part of daily life, not an occasional afterthought when guilt gets the better of us.