Hope for God’s Creation: Stewardship in an Age of Futility
Creation Care Discipleship: Why Earthkeeping is an Essential Christian Practice
Andrew J. Spencer’s and Steven Bouma-Prediger’s recent releases applying Christian theology to contemporary environmental problems share similar goals and face common constraints. As trade paperbacks, both books are intended to motivate an indifferent or skeptical Christian readership and theologically equip students to address hot-button political topics. The authors self-identify as Evangelical, utilize the language of creation care, draw heavily on biblical texts and models, and unapologetically employ eschatology to envision planetary futures. Interestingly, both volumes assume that readers theologically align with the authors. This is particularly evident in Spencer’s introduction, where he defines his project by stating: “This book is less an argument for the need for some sort of Christianized environmentalism and more an explanation of the orthodox, evangelical theology that leads to an ethics of creation care” (7). For the reader familiar with the history of Protestantism, this brings up the questions of what comprises “orthodox” evangelical theology and if the implied correctness and the ethical self-justification it offers can be so easily attained?
In terms of constraints, both Spencer and Bouma-Prediger are intentionally grappling with ongoing political divisions among Christians, where conservatives invoke the Scriptures to dismiss environmental concerns or demote them as a priority for public attention. Meanwhile, environmentalists critique Christianity’s questionable track record. Many Christians who take threats like climate change seriously secularize their responses or become overwhelmed by the complexity of the economic and technological forces generating the dilemmas and lose their resolve. The political stand-offs have recharged old schisms going back to the 19th century and before. These writing projects share the challenge of attracting and motivating potential readers who announce they are not “tree huggers” or who dismiss climate change as a hoax, while at the same time reassuring dutiful congregants serving on church sustainability committees. With dozens of ecotheological books from a full range of denominational perspectives already in print, Spencer and Bouma-Prediger must decide whether to reassert widely circulated models like earthkeeping by reframing them for millennial subcultures, or dig into the social roots of the disunion, such as deindustrialization and personal expectations for fiscal and professional advancement in a corporation-ruled and increasingly global economy.
Both volumes assume that exposing readers to relevant biblical texts and introducing them to careful exegesis will chip away the apathy and elevate concern for creation. Their explications draw on many of the same texts, like Genesis 1 and 2, and Romans 8. While Spencer makes the greater effort to examine conflicting narratives, such as Lynn White’s (1967) critique of Christianity’s historical role in forwarding technological advances and spiritually disempowering nature,1 he leans more toward correcting misconceptions of secular environmentalists than toward taking sides in Evangelicalism’s contemporary internal discontents. Neither book presents a systematic examination of faith-based anti-environmental discourse or dissects current within-faith policy conflicts in detail. In fact, neither utilizes the term “environmental” in the title. Bouma-Prediger favors the words “ecology” for the general area of ethical concern, because “the words environment and environmental fail to accurately describe the world in which we live” (8). In addition, he argues it separates humans from nature. He prefers the term “creation” to “world” while pointing out just exactly how much of the physical realm that word covers—far more than one little planet. Bouma-Prediger identifies “earthkeeping” as the best descriptor of the Christian calling, because “it vividly reminds us of our inescapable embeddedness in the world and our God-given calling to serve, protect, and restore our home place” (9). Spencer makes frequent use of the identifier “environmental,” yet he is very weary of secular environmentalism that rejects Christianity out-of-hand. Like Bouma-Prediger, he discusses the creation rather than just one more planet floating in a meaningless vacuum.
Although both authors argue for answering Christ’s call to service, Bouma-Prediger emphasizes joining with the greater Christian community in pursuit of discipleship. Rather than placing a premium on keeping to an orthodox and distinctive Evangelical or Reformed path, the author praises ecumenical insights and the diversity of fruitful visions within the global church. As his title, Hope for God’s Creation: Stewardship in an Age of Futility, announces, Spencer tackles the futility of despair and the immobilizing apathy it generates by focusing on the centrality of hope and, thereby, of right belief and eschatology in actualizing creation care. In his introduction, he admonishes his readers that “Christian hope encourages us to love the creation for the sake of the one who made it” (12).
Steven Bouma-Prediger’s background in Reformed theology and academic philosophy informs his opening gambit, where he introduces meditations on scriptural texts to project a biblical vision of the creation and then employs virtue ethics as a foundation for earthkeeping. Vignettes about canoeing with his kids and taking college students to the Grand Canyon add a pleasant, personal touch to the exegesis and set a classroom-friendly tone. Chapter 2 begins and ends with the rivers and trees. What initially seem like cherry-picked passages spanning both Testaments flow together into a concise explanation of Calvinist creation theology and its integral relationship to eschatology. The portrait begins with origins in Genesis 1 and ends with Revelation’s new heavens and new earth, where the waters of life pour from Christ’s throne. Bouma-Prediger points to the holy city as encompassing the true wealth of nations, and as a model for “all that is good and whole . . .” (36). In its second biblical meditation, Creation Care Discipleship proclaims the importance of biblical instructions to remember in a “dismembered world” and a groaning creation. In the story of Noah,2 God acts to correct the damage caused by sin and the universal flood by remembering Noah and the ark and “all those on this floating species preserve” (43). The book’s early chapters reinforce the concept that humans and other living organisms share God’s earth, and the creation is not a stack of boxes with humans on the top crushing the less significant, supporting boxes beneath. The covenants are not idealized ethereal promises of a future relationship, but assurance that we can thrive in a wounded world. Bouma-Prediger summarizes, “Because of his covenant love, God remembers us and all our nonhuman kin” (44).
In Chapter 3, Creation Care Discipleship argues for the value of theology and for utilizing ethics to ascertain “objective moral standards” (45). Bouma-Prediger outlines the doctrine of creation with seven Ds: distinction between God and creation; creation’s dependence on God; God’s decision to create was from love; creation’s temporal as opposed to eternal duration; God’s design is regular and orderly; evil is not intrinsic but “is a defection from how things should be;” and the delight in creation as a “place of beauty and enjoyment” and its value arises “simply because God made it” (49–51). However, true understanding of the doctrine of creation is more than conducting an inventory of its components. It is performative and demands the “actions implicit in the claims” (52). To accentuate the platform for Christian response, Bouma-Prediger inserts a short description of a trip to the Boundary Waters Wilderness as “one piece of holy ground and its creatures” (54). However, as the themes of “performative” and “keeping” emerge as virtue ethics, the text does not engage the working or the household realms. Dusk falling on the pondside camp and the holy creatures, including beavers and bats, will attract student interest, yet a mowed hay field and a family garden are also holy spaces. Bouma-Prediger argues that earthkeeping should replace Christian stewardship, because the latter term places humans at the top of a hierarchical chain. However, the original conceptualization of stewardship was as an agrarian movement, which was, in its time, a productive melding of religion and science in pursuit of soil and water conservation. Rather than providing a detailed list of sustainability-oriented political actions, Creation Care Discipleship utilizes eschatology to construct an image of the earth as it should be. “God’s good future” will be earthly, free of evil, and restore a state where God, humans, and creatures dwell together in a unified earth and heaven (70–72). Interestingly, although Chapter 3’s title mentions “humble humans,” the text claims that fulfilling God’s plan is based first on who we are, and three keystone virtues—justice, love, and hope—without adding humility to the list.
Editor’s Note: This review essay originally appeared in the print journal as an uninterrupted essay. We have divided it into two parts for our blog. Part 2 will be posted tomorrow.
