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volume ten

issue three

march 2009

stewardship

thoughts on an issue

a community of stewards

no child left inside?

Christian Action in God’s Environment

A Community of

StewardsBy Tim Sansbury

12 | 10.3

Environmental questions take many forms: local and global, wealth-driven and survival-driven, short-term and long-term.

Should I drive an SUV? Should DDT be used to prevent malaria? Should Christians buy organic tomatoes? Should developing countries curb CO2 emissions? Should I fertilize my lawn so that it will be extra green and free of bugs and weeds?

A Community of Stewards | 10.3 | 13

master. Likewise, we should be using what God has giv-en us to work for God and His kingdom. This concept of stewardship is reflected in our roles relative to the environment. It is different only in that the world is too massive to be under the stewardship of individual peo-ple. Stewardship of the environment is different from individual stewardship because it is the cumulative effects from large groups that are most significantly af-fecting the environment. Therefore, stewardship of the environment is not as individualized as, for example, stewardship of our monthly incomes. Community stewardship requires that we value the question, What would happen to the earth and its people if everyone behaved as I am behaving?

Human Value, the Fall, and Popular EnvironmentalismBefore expanding further on the notion of community stewardship, I want to point out three major differ-ences that Christians should find when comparing their view of the environment with popular, or secular, environmentalism. I find two ideological influences on the modern environmental movement. The first is the rejection of religion and transcendent values, a rejec-tion that leaves us with no means to value humans differently than we value other creations. Thus, hu-man interests cannot be justified as superior to those of

apes, pigs, or even earthworms. The second influence comes from pagan or Eastern religion, rather than from the rejection of religion altogether. In this case, people spiritualize or deify nature, even identifying it with the very being of God and therefore concluding that it has a pure goodness that is contrary to biblical teaching about the effects of the Fall. Because of these influences, Christians will probably be at odds with popular environmentalism because that movement frequently fails to recognize the high value of human life, the responsibility of humans as stewards of God’s creation, and the effects of the Fall on creation.

I imagine every reader will agree that as Christians we have a responsibility to protect the world that God has created. At the same time, determining the scope and degree of this responsibility is a difficult task. For all the ethical and moral instruction provided in the Bible, we can directly apply little to questions of the environment without significantly departing from the clear intent of Scripture. As a result, no environmental ethic can claim the immediate, inspired authority of Scripture. At the same time, we can and should seek to develop biblically rooted beliefs about our roles and responsibilities with respect to the environment, and we should then use those beliefs even if they suggest undesirable changes to our current lifestyles.

Does Scripture Address This Topic?I believe that the Bible offers several truths from which Christians can draw principles that they can apply to this topic. In this article, I will focus on two particular ideas from the book of Genesis. First, we learn in Gene-sis not only that the world is God’s creation and is good but also that it was affected by the Fall. Thus, we can surmise that we ought to respect and love the natural world as God’s creation but that we cannot regard na-ture as pure, entirely good, or somehow self-sufficient. Second, in Genesis 1:26–30, God explicitly grants humans a position of authority over the animals and the earth, giving the com-mand to fill the earth, to subdue it, and to rule over the other creatures. Humans have a special value com-pared with other creatures, and special responsibility in the universe. I believe that these two principles lead to a Christian environmental ethic that we can sum up under the term community stewardship.

Stewardship refers to our role with respect to everything that God gives us. As Christians, we understand that God is the source of all we have and that we are not owners but caretakers and managers. In the parable of the talents, all three men understood they had their master’s money; they understood they were not own-ers. But only two were good stewards. The third man buried the money and thus did nothing with it for his

Although Christians may recognize much good in the popular environmental movement, they need to be discriminating in their examination of it.

to live a life of respect towards the gifts that God has given us.” I think he has captured the first and most important part of Christian environmentalism: our in-dividual responsibility to act. Christians struggle with stewardship even with respect to their everyday pos-sessions and finances. We may not be able to make all the changes we want to make, but we can work to add

stewardship of the environment to our consciousness of the impact of our decisions. We ought at least to pause to consider whether the reason we drive an SUV is a good reason, whether we could recycle more, and whether we could live with a little less to reduce our impact on the environment. Most of us in developed countries can make a tremendous number of sacrifices in the name of respecting the gifts that God has given to us, sacrifices that are painful only because we have become accustomed to affluence. We can begin by asking questions such as, Is not being seen in a station wagon worth buying an SUV that requires 50 percent more gas?

The second part of acting out Christian environmen-talism regards the word community in the term com-munity stewardship. We will always be individuals, but to know what to do individually, we need to be conscious of the tremen-dous impact that people as a group have on

Although Christians may recognize much good in the popular environmental movement, they need to be discriminating in their examination of it. Christians should seek to build an environmental view that arises from and is part of a coherent, Christian worldview. Thus, Christians must question popular environmental positions to see whether God’s revealed truth supports

those positions. As the principles from Genesis indicate, our view of environmentalism must regard creation as good but fallen. Christians must accept both the special value of humans as God’s image bearers and the authority that God has granted to them. They must also recognize not only the dignity and goodness of the world as God’s creation but also their roles as God’s image bearers on the earth. In thinking about environ-mentalism as community stewardship, we see differ-ences from a purely preservationist environmentalism. Stewardship implies the right to make use of the world, although it does not imply ownership. That is, we are right to derive benefits from the earth’s resources, but we cannot reap those benefits as if the earth is ours to do with—or away with—as we please. Community implies not only stewardship by the community but stewardship for the community; human interest and value are included in the concept, and decisions must benefit all people, not just select groups.

Living as Stewards: Taking Action in God’s WorldTheory must give way to action. In discussing this topic, my brother remarked, “The question of Christian environmentalism in my mind is what we are doing

To know what to do individually, we need to be conscious of the tremendous impact that people as a group have on God’s world —thus the question, What would happen if everyone did this?

14 | 10.3 | A Community of Stewards

A Community of Stewards | 10.3 | 15

God’s world—thus the question, What would happen if everyone did this? Consciousness of the cumulative impact of human beings can help us understand why we make small, individual sacrifices, and it can help us understand what sacrifices to make. From there, we can join together and support community efforts in the name of legitimate environmental causes. For example, Christian groups and organizations, such as this magazine or the schools where its readers serve, can make public efforts at stewardship. They can also teach these principles to young Christians who are still forming their lifelong habits of actions and lifestyle expectations. A school garden and compost pile can teach stewardship as students receive benefit from God’s world and reuse the leftovers for the future. Schools can adopt a highway, teach students to recycle, or simply buy more efficient AC units even if the units might not make up the difference in energy savings. Schools making such choices can explain how their actions arise from their understanding of God’s Word and from a commitment to being good stewards of God’s world.

Community stewardship also implies that we must differentiate between impacts resulting from lifestyle choices and impacts resulting from human survival; our stewardship needs to be for other human beings as well as for God and preservation of the world. For example, I believe that the prohibition of the pesticide DDT in the United States is absolutely correct. Even

though I despise having mosquitoes in my backyard and bugs in my garden,

DDT’s use is environmentally costly, and for me the

benefits would be largely financial. At the same time, I believe that hindering DDT use in developing countries is downright immoral. DDT is a remarkably effective and affordable preventative against the mosquitoes that carry malaria, a disease that kills more than one million people per year. In the United States, DDT use does not affect human survival at a high rate, but it does in countries that have malaria problems (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2008). Therefore, the biblical teaching that humans are God’s image bearers requires both that we consider human life a greater value than the environment and that we support an action that may have significant environ-mental consequences. At the same time, community stewardship implies we ought to support efforts to find a better solution to the malaria problem, a solution causing fewer human and environmental side effects.

As we apply a biblical view to stewardship and consider our reasons for making a particular choice, we can be-gin to answer questions such as those that introduced this article. The world is fallen and is awaiting restora-tion. Our commitment to spreading the gospel must come before any effort to save the physical world, but environmental concerns can still play a significant and meaningful role in our relationship with God’s world. We as Christians can choose to take good care of the great gift that God has given to us in His world. We can live as a community of stewards.

ReferenceCenters for Disease Control and Prevention. 2008. Malaria. http://

www.cdc.gov/malaria.

Tim Sansbury, PhD, is a Miami, Florida, native and a longtime Christian educator of students from grade eight through seminary. He re- ceived a bachelor of science in physics from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and he has recently completed a doctorate in theology and philosophy from Princeton Theological Seminary. He lives in Houston, Texas, with his wife, Tesa, and their three children—seven-year-old Anna, five-year-old Emily, and four-year-old Paige. Tim serves as the headmaster of Westminster Christian Academy, which enrolls two-year-olds through sixth graders.