Dear HCN,
I was pleased to see your
feature on “Evangelical Christians preach a green gospel” (HCN,
4/28/97). Too often those in the environmental movement blame
Christianity for promoting ideas that lead to degradation of the
earth. There have also been too many Christians who have not
understood that the environmental movement has been doing God’s
work in bringing the earth back to
wholeness.
Those in the evangelical churches will
have a difficult time coming to a consensus on this issue. But I
concur with Dan’l C. Markham’s comment that, “In 25 years of
ministry I have never heard a sermon on “dominion theology” as an
excuse for mistreating the earth,” though we in the church know
that biblical proof-texting can be used to justify most
anything.
In the mainline Christian tradition we
have called on a creation theology which includes much more than
the Bible: Reason, experience, mysticism, and divine revelation are
additional ways to see God’s purpose.
Christians
who love all the creation God made, and each other in community, do
this because they know God made it all. We are also given the
charge to protect it both for what it is and for the benefit of
future generations. This is what stewardship is all about. High
Country News has created a wonderful opportunity to explore this
area further.
Warren
Murphy
Cody,
Wyoming
The writer is minister
of Christ Episcopal Church in
Cody.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Our role as stewards.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
