Creation Care

Review: Beyond Stewardship

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Cover image of "Beyond Stewardship" edited by David paul Warners and Matthew Kuperus Heun

Beyond Stewardship

Beyond Stewardship: New Approaches to Creation Care, edited by David Paul Warners and Matthew Kuperus Heun. Calvin Press (ISBN: 9781937555382) 2019.

Summary: Essays exploring alternative ways to define the relationship with the non-human creation beyond stewardship.

Words matter. For the Christian environmental movement, “stewardship” has been the term Christian environmentalists use to describe the human relationship with the non-human creation. More recently, questions have been raised by a newer generation of Christian environmentalists as to whether this is the best way to understand this relationship. It doesn’t reflect the full scope of biblical teaching. Stewardship implies separation from both creation and God. Also, it implies an instrumental relationship of creation existing for human use. Then the association of this term with finances implies resources owned by another, and this is too limiting of God’s relationship to creation. Finally, stewardship tends to be individualistic when the scope of challenges require acting in concert.

The editors of this essay collection lay out this argument in their introduction. The essays that follow explore how then we might think about our relation to the non-human creation. Given this enlarged understanding, what wise actions are then implied? The book is organized in three parts.

Part One: RETHINKING: Expanding Awareness

Matthew Kuperus Heun, in “Smashing Prototypes,” likens what we’ve done to creation to what it would be like as a professor to take a chainsaw or sledgehammer to his students’ engineering prototypes. We need to recognize our complicity in the damage done creation, lament, and determine to act differently. Following this, Kathi Groenendyk cautions that not only do our words matter but so does our audience. She observes that while stewardship is helpful with some audiences, like farmers and ranchers, other terms like creation-care or earthkeeping will relate better to others. Therefore, know thy audience!

Part Two: REIMAGINING: How Things Could Be

Kyle Meyaard-Schaap opens this section proposing that the idea of kinship overcomes the gap between humans and the rest of creation Jesus, in the incarnation became kin with us. kinship changes how we view things like species loss. Then Clarence W. Joldersma proposes seeing ourselves as earthlings. We are earthy beings, sharing much in common, charging us with a vast responsibility while also giving an independent moral standing to the non-human creation. Not only do we have much in common with the rest of creation, we exist in a symbiotic relationship with it according to Aminah al-Attas Bradford. Consider the microbes in our gut that aid in crucial ways in digesting food, or even mitochondria as an independent organism in every human cell.

Steven Bouma Prediger reiterates the critique of stewardship from the Introduction as both limited in scope and confusing. He makes the case for the term “earthkeeping.” He argues for it as a better reflection of the biblical charge to tend and keep in Genesis 2. Finally in this section, James R. Skillen, argues that stewardship paradigms often overlook human finiteness and fallenness, engaging in hubristic activity. Rather, he advocates the humble posture of those seeking God’s kingdom.

Part Three: REORIENTING: Hopeful Ways Forward

Debra Reinstra argues that creation care begins with knowing the names of species or inorganic things. Then we proceed to understanding their basic ecologies and enter into delight, care, and suffering with those whose names we’ve learned. Matthew C. Halteman and Megan Halteman Zwart apply the idea of kinship to human-animal relationships, especially farm animals, and how this challenged a particular student’s thinking about using animals for food. However, this new perspective also implies a new worldview of whole systems. Neglect of this combined with human arrogance contribute to environmental disasters like the Dustbowl.

Racial injustice manifests in caring for creation as well. When certain groups are disenfranchised from environmental decisions, racism flourishes and the environment does not, especially in urban spaces. Dietrich Bouma reinforces this idea, arguing against barriers that prevent some people from having their voices heard. Then Mark D. Bjelland adds urban spaces, cities, and their watersheds to what counts as creation care. He calls for placemaking and placekeeping. Finally, David Paul Warners commends the idea of recognizing that we walk through a world of gifts. He calls us to respond with reciprocity, restraint, relationship-building, and remembrance.

Conclusion

This book harks back to a similar essay collection, Earthkeeping, from the 1970’s. This book concludes with an afterword from three of the original contributors: Loren Wilkinson, Eugene Dykema, and Calvin DeWitt. It’s a wonderful generational handoff and blessing of these younger scholars’ efforts. This is followed with a rendering of several pages of No More Room, a children’s book written by three students in one of David Paul Warners’ classes. A discussion guide for each of the chapters in this book is also included in “Additional Resources.”

Robin Wall Kimmerer is an ecologist from the Native American Indigenous Peoples and has mined that worldview for its wisdom. She has captivated the imagination of many with her sense of our kinship with other creatures and plants and the sense of our interdependent mutual relationship with it. The fact that she has captured the attention of many Christians reveals the shortcomings of our own theology of creation and our relationship with it. The ideas here reflect a similarly rich way of seeing without the latent animism in Kimmerer’s writing. One hopes that the contemporary disregard for environmental matters in the American church will be a temporary lapse into environmental unconsciousness. One hopes for revival that will wake us to be on the forefront of caring for God’s creation. For now, this work offers rich resources for those who will teach and disciple when people have “ears to hear.”

Review: Abigail and the Waterfall

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Cover image of "Abigail and the Waterfall" by Sandra L. Richter, illustrated by Michael Corsini

Abigail and the Waterfall, Sandra L. Richter, illustrated by Michael Corsini. IVP Kids (ISBN: 9781514008928) 2025.

Summary: Abigail’s family hikes to a waterfall, sees the creatures that live there, and learns to care for their home.

Abigail’s family hikes in the nearby forest on the first Saturday of the month. This Saturday, they are hiking to Abigail’s favorite place! They walk through a thick forest, noticing the birds and animals that make their home there. Then, she notices the mist in the air and dragonflies flitting about. They are getting close!

But as they run ahead, mom encourages them to stay on the trail. Creek banks are fragile environments, and creatures shelter under vegetation, which also filters the water. Finally, Abigail’s favorite place comes into view, a freshwater creek with a waterfall! The darters in the water are a sign of the creek’s health.

Then they enjoy the delicious lunch mom packed while enjoying the sound of the water, the coolness of the air and the way the sun’s light filters through the trees. Butterflies and ducks look on. Afterwards, they are careful to pick up all their trash, remembering the time they rescued three darters caught in a plastic bag.

After lunch, it’s time to climb the rocks by the waterfall. As they peek over the top of the rocks, they see something “slimy and scary with BIG googly eyes!!” Dad identifies the creature as a Mountain Dusky Salamander. Abigail gets eyeball to eyeball but doesn’t touch and notices how beautiful is this creature who loves the waterfall.

Then it’s time to leave. As they return to their car and look over the forest valley, their hearts are full of thanks to God and a resolve to care for the home of all the creatures they’ve seen–especially the Mountain Dusky Salamander!

This delightful story invites us all to care for God’s world and the creatures who make it their home. Implicit in the story are things like limiting plastic use, caring for creek banks, and the self-purifying mechanisms of waterways. The author mentions these in the back.

The text is set against the lush, verdant illustrations of Michael Corsini. Children may be encouraged to look for creatures on each page, which are identified. The one thing you’ll have to watch if you read this with your children is that they may want to go on a hike like Abigail’s family takes. Prepare to plan one together!

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: The Gospel of Jesus Green

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Cover image of "The Gospel of Jesus Green" by Neil J. Whitehouse

The Gospel of Jesus Green, Neil J. Whitehouse. Wipf & Stock (ISBN: 9798385200245) 2024.

Summary: Weaving scripture, theology, systems thinking, and science, concludes that Jesus is Green and preached a home for all.

Neil J. Whitehouse is trained both as a zoologist and a theologian and is the minister of a United Church of Canada congregation in Montreal. In this book, Whitehouse weaves all of this training and thought and experience together to make a startling assertion. It is not simply that the gospel is Green or that Jesus is Green. He will propose substituting Green for Christ to identify Jesus as Jesus Green. Just as early believers saw him as the Anointed of God, Whitehouse believes Jesus Green expresses our emerging consciousness that our planet is a home for all, not just humans. This epitomized Jesus’ message and mission.

Whitehouse takes us on his own journey toward embracing this conclusion. He explores the different “Jesuses” of contemporary theology. He elaborates what he means by “Green” which combines energy, movement, choice, and consciousness. This brings together biological systems, or what he calls biophilia, political life, human choice in work and play, and a consciousness that combines awareness and praxis. He explores what evidence we might find of a Green Jesus in scripture in his references to nature, his formation in the wilderness, and in his prophecies and parables.

Perhaps the most intellectually stretching chapters are four and five, in which he thinks about the interrelatedness of all things. Then he posits Jesus as the ultimate systems thinker as he articulates a vision of the realm of God. He acts on this vision in his attack on the temple, corrupted by the religious leaders, who then killed him. For many, this will be their first introduction to French biologist-theologian Teilhard de Chardin.

For me, the most illuminating chapters are the last two. In concluding, Whitehouse sees the cross as the culmination of Jesus Green. Specifically he gives his life upon a tree that has already given its life. This is the same Jesus through whom, as Paul says, all things were created. He is the one who reconciles all things to Godin the cross.. Hence, truly, the gospel of Jesus Green is one of a home for all and not just humans.

It is clear that Whitehouse himself is a big picture, systems thinker. His attempt to incorporate his wide reading and experience makes for a dense and hard to follow discussion at times. As well, his theology is more “progressive” than mine. From what I can tell, he doesn’t believe in Jesus’ bodily resurrection but that this was simply a belief of early Christians, that Jesus rose “spiritually” in their faith. I think this weakens Whitehouse’s claim for Jesus Green. It is the Christian hope of the one who will return and renew creation that sustains Christians in care for that creation, proclaiming in our praxis our expectation of that day.

That said, Whitehouse offers us not only a deep look at Jesus and a striking meditation on the significance of the cross for all creation that I can fully affirm. He models a posture of learning not only from scripture but many other fields and how each may illuminate the others that is a model of integrative thought.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author for review. I’m grateful for his initiative to introduce me to a unique perspective on Green!

Review: Hope for God’s Creation

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Hope for God’s Creation: Stewardship in an Age of Futility, Andrew J. Spencer.Brentwood, TN: B & H Academic, 2023.

Summary: A theology of creation care that grounds an ethic of stewardship and hopeful practice, anticipating the new creation.

Many Christians in the evangelical community are either cautious or even skeptical of concern for the creation. They think of it as either a re-arranging of the deck chairs on the Titanic, or grounded in a pagan belief system. So it was interesting to read this account of creation care written by a Southern Baptist educated supervisor of training at a nuclear power plant. I found it an account tempered by caution against excess while actively advocating for our responsibility as God-appointed stewards to care for creation and proposing active steps one may take. Most of all, I found an account that grounded creation care ethics and praxis, not in the urgent cries of the moment, or the current findings of science, but in a theology for creation care.

Spencer begins with the idea that we care for creation for the glory of God. He addresses the idea of “creation subject to futility” by observing what follows, the hope of redemption for our bodies and all of creation. That hope means we live in hope, leading to actions that anticipate that renewal without the illusion that we will accomplish it, actions that in some cases bring substantial cleanup, as has been seen in many of the rivers, skies, and resurgence of some endangered species. This hope counters the despair in much of the environmental movement.

With that, Spencer contends both for the necessity of care for creation and against the danger of environmentalism becoming an all-encompassing ideology, supplanting the gospel of the kingdom for Christians, stifling evangelical proclamation and other worthy concerns. He weigh’s Lynn White’s classic article blaming Christianity for exploitation of the environment, arguing that while aspects are accurate, the story is far more nuanced, and much environmental depredation may be traced to a modernity that removed God from the picture. He traces environmentalism in the US, how evangelicals both engaged in environmental efforts and how environmentalism became entwined with the culture wars, resulting in increasing evangelical suspicion

The second part of the work focuses on theology. He proposes four doctrinal questions that serve as the basis for creation care ethics and practice:

  1. What are the sources of authority for environmental ethics?
  2. Why does creation have value?
  3. What is the human role in creation?
  4. What is the end goal or final state of the created order, and how does it come about?

The following four chapters discuss each of these in turn. As one might expect, scripture is the Christian’s final authority, and yet we may learn from science as a form of general revelation without being compelled to accommodate scripture to science or undermine its authority. We learn from science without succumbing to scientism. He turns to the value of creation, which he argues has both instrumental value for its use and inherent value as good because God made it so. Only God has intrinsic value and is worthy of worship. Spencer traces the effects of the fall and what has, is, and will be restored in redemption, the value of which is signaled to us in the incarnation. Given this framework, we are warned against both pantheism and dualism.

Humans are called to steward creation for God’s glory. Spencer challenges the anti-human bias in some strands of environmentalism. Despite our limitations and failures, we have a role as God’s redeemed to point toward the healed and restored contours of the new creation. As we look toward new creation, we pursue the substantial healing both in our own life and the creation while realizing that only Christ will purge all evil from the world and fully renew all things. Spencer argues on the basis of word studies that all will not be burned but rather disclosed–a judging and purifying prior to restoration.

So how then does this theology say we ought live? First he addresses the church and environment. He is careful not to allow the environment to usurp the mission of the church but argues, a la Francis Schaeffer, for the church as a “pilot plant” in which creation care is part of the holistic discipleship that encompasses all of life. The aim is not to allow green practices to take over church life but rather to ask how God may be glorified in all things including our facilities and grounds management.

He then turns to conspiracy thinking and political conflict, both of which undermine the gospel. Rather than contend about climate change, he uses a “Pascal’s Wager” argument that a life of restraint will be good for us and the creation even if climate models don’t prove out. Rather than becoming embroiled in political conflict at the national level, he calls for a localism that brings people together to solve ground level problems that often is much less divisive and corrosive.

Finally he addresses how we may live hopefully in our own practices: thinking about the costs, environmental and otherwise of missions, sharing resources (do we all need snowblowers?), considering our landscapes and the suburban ideal of emerald lawns, living with wonder, leading quiet lives, exercising restraint on consumption, care in purchasing and growing food, and sabbaths, which give us and our infrastructure a rest.

While some environmentally-minded readers will balk at his warnings about mission drift and the risk of a big ideology of environmentalism usurping the church, what Spencer does is lay a basis for churches that are suspicious or concerned about such things to take steps of creation care. He invites us to do so not because it is culturally relevant or that “science tells me so” but because the Bible tells us so and it glorifies God and is part of following Jesus.

While some would consider this insufficiently “progressive,” it would be a great leap forward for many churches to so theologically form their members and instruct them in whole life discipleship. I think he wisely de-centers our hyperfocus on national politics to think about the old axiom that “all politics are ultimately local.” Noting the push for example toward electric vehicles, he raises the question of local charging sites in our communities–where will we put them? Spencer moves us away from the memes and soundbite debates to the kind of thoughtful and nuanced thinking and praxis that Christians must become better at both to honor God, win others, and serve the common good.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Creation Care Discipleship

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Creation Care Discipleship: Why Earthkeeping Is an Essential Christian Practice, Steven Bouma-Prediger. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2023.

Summary: A discussion of why and how earthkeeping is integral to following Christ, drawing upon scripture, Christian theology and Christian thinkers throughout the breadth of the church.

Steven Bouma-Prediger is a professor of theology at Hope College who also overseas the environmental studies program at his college. In this work, he brings those seeming disparate worlds together in framing a comprehensive argument about why Christians should care for creation. He argues for the term “earthkeeping” as the best term to express our call as disciples, going back to the call in Genesis to “serve and protect” the garden. There is much of creation we can’t care for–galaxies for example! “Stewardship” smacks of funding campaigns for the church, or a human-centered marshalling of creation’s resources for the development of the human economy.

He begins with a biblical vision of creation, focusing on how scripture begins and ends with rivers and trees. He then turns to theology and ethics, that we are holy creatures of God among his creatures, caring for a world he will come to restore and over which we will share in his rule. He then turns to the contributions made by the church’s theologians of various traditions. He references Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ but also contributions from Patriarch Bartholomew concerning creation as an integral whole, Lutheran theologian Paul Santmire, who emphasizes our partnership with creation, Rosemary Reuther’s ecofeminist and Randy Woodley’s indigenous theology emphasizing the Harmony Way and Shalom.

Having the right words is not enough if not coupled with action. Here, Bouma-Prediger’s work with students offers examples of developing ecological literacy. Bouma-Prediger places a significant emphasis on eco-justice, recognizing how often injustices fall on the backs of the powerless. He discusses simplicity, and particularly thinking less about results than doing what is right. He includes helpful practical of the small things that can make a difference. He speaks of the challenge and call to be people of faith and fruitfulness in a time of fear. He concludes the book with an extended reflection on a vision for shalom that involves not only flourishing but that understands how integral the flourishing of all creation is to our flourishing.

Between chapters, Bouma-Prediger offers biblical reflections, some of which are creative passages situating the reader within the passage. Throughout, Bouma-Prediger helps us realize how much the scriptures are set within the created order, and how deeply this matters to God. What makes this book unique, I believe, is its starting place with God’s care of creation to which we are invited to join in as earthkeepers. While the book is cognizant of our environmental challenges, far from burdening, the book holds out the deep joy of living out are calling as earthkeepers. Freeing us from results-oriented thinking, he bids us into the work of caring for our backyards, our own places, as well as seeing the neighbors for whom the call of love is to relieve them of the burdens of environmental injustices. Instead of seeing earthkeeping as something for eccentric tree huggers, Bouma-Prediger casts a vision of serving and protecting the earth simply as part of the joy of following Jesus.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: The Wonders of Creation

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The Wonders of Creation: Learning Stewardship from Narnia and Middle-Earth (The Hansen Lectureship Series), Kristen Page, with contributions from Christina Bieber Lake, Noah J. Toly, and Emily Hunter McGowin. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2022.

Summary: Discusses the value of Lewis’s and Tolkien’s fictional landscapes in fostering love and care for the creation of which we are part.

I think it may safely be said that those of us who love the stories of Narnia and Middle-Earth love not only the stories but the places in which they occur. We imagine finding wardrobes leading into a forest with a lamppost or staying with the elves in Lothlorien. We delight in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Beaver and take deep offense at the industrialization of the Shire and the assault on Fangorn Forest.

Kristen Page, a professor of biology and lifelong lover of these stories believes these stories have a power in them to encourage us to care for the creation we live in and not just the imagined ones of Narnia or Middle-Earth. She sets out her case in three chapters, reflecting the three lectures she gave as part of The Hansen Lectureship Series at The Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College. She is joined in this volume by Christina Bieber Lake, Noah J. Toly, and Emily Hunter McGowin who each offer a short response to one of her chapters.

In the first chapter, “Stepping Out of the Wardrobe,” Page shares her twin loves of reading about fictional landscapes and reading actual landscapes, something she teaches her students to do. She proposes that the fictional landscapes of Lewis and Tolkien, particularly forests, reflect the careful observation both men made of actual forests, particularly in the detailed descriptions of fictional places they offer in their books. She sees the connection going both ways. Treebeard’s outrage with what Saruman has done to trees he knew by name can translate to our own outrage at human depredations of our forests and land. She decries the plant blindness of many of our children, the removal of plant vocabulary from children’s dictionaries to make room for tech terms, and believes books like those of Lewis and Tolkien’s are one step in restoring plant literacy and the love of growing things. She also sees the hobbits care for the Shire as a model of sustainable practices.

The second chapter, “A Lament for the Creation,” begins with the scouring of the Shire when the hobbits return. Men from the south have turned it into an industrial wasteland, impoverishing its once flourishing inhabitants. The hobbits give themselves to setting things right. She then turns to our own ravaged ecosystems, oceans, rivers, the atmosphere and considers how stories may awaken us to action. She begins with our over-consumption, where we tax the capacity of the earth to restore itself and the industry created brownfields, often adjacent to the urban poor, whose health is impacted by their proximity. She also brings in her own research on how the destruction of habitats increase the threat of novel viruses and diseases as humans and animal species are brought into closer contact. Cocoa plantation spread in Africa, for example, correlates with the increased incidence of Ebola. She quotes an extended passage in Perelandra in which Ransom refuses to partake of a uniquely delicious fruit more than would sustain him, sensing this would not be right, suggesting that we might develop a similar sense. She proposes that lament, both for the creation and the harms that our excesses have caused our neighbors may lead to change, just as Fangorn’s lament in the company of the hobbits led to the resolve to act.

The third chapter, “Ask the Animals to Teach You,” is about regaining wonder. Whether it is the wonder of talking animals including the lordly Aslan, or the beauty of Lothlorien, reading these works fosters wonder for Page, as do her studies of animals, and of plant life. Tom Bombadil teaches us to take delight in things for themselves without reference to ourselves. Tolkien understood that trees communicate, which scientists are discovering to be the case. Wonder leads us to love the physical creation and give ourselves to care for and tend it.

Page’s presentations are accompanied by a center section of a selection of her exquisite nature photography. The responses by Lake, Toly, and McGowin are brief, adding their own disciplinary insights and personal experiences. I’ve appreciated all the Hansen Lectureship books that I’ve read, but this was a special treat. Most have featured humanities professors, who understandably bring their discipline’s critical skills to bear in their discussion of the Wade authors. This was so delightful as a scientist who is a devoted reader of Lewis and Tolkien, but not a scholar in their works, connected her scientific scholarship to the worlds and landscapes Lewis and Tolkien create and that readers love, and how this may open our eyes to our own world. May we read and love and care for those landscapes as deeply as is fitting of true lovers of Narnia and Middle-Earth!

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.