The Ecology of the New Testament

Creation, Re-Creation, and the Environment

Mark Bredin

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9780830856381
• eBook ISBN:
  9780830858842
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

God is the Creator of all and cares deeply for all that he has made. His vision for creation is seen through a world teeming with life where eternity is breathed into and through all creation. Jesus teaches that humans must live with a spirit of generosity and restraint; however, a spirit of meanness and greed dominates human culture and leaves nearly 1.3 billion people living on less than $1 a day. The politics of globalization based on principles of greed have resulted in the loss of biodiversity, deforestation, and a shortage of food and clean water. Jesus teaches that those who are generous are blessed, and such generosity brings justice to all creation. There cannot be God's social justice without ecological sanity, and yet we tendto speak of social justice as though non-human creation doesn't matter. God cares even for the flowers of the field, yet we show contempt for God in our careless plunder of his creation. To love God is to love all that he has made, from our own families to the soil outside our homes.

Chapter 1

WHY CARE FOR
THE EARTH?

Recently, a church minister asked me, “What’s the point of biblical scholarship?” My reply expresses how influential biblical study has been for me: “If it had not been for biblical studies, I would not be enjoying my current job supporting people with learning disabilities, a job in which I’m paid considerably less than the UK national average. I would not have taken up my practice of growing my own food, saving water, and using less oil. I would not be living without a car or be shopping for items that have not involved the suffering of fellow humans or other living creatures.”

Without biblical studies my life would be considerably different. Thinking back on my journey with God, I see that God has led me to a commitment to biblical studies that continues to transform my previous worldview dominated by greed to one based on “care.” I believe that God has led me to theological study to help me see the world from his perspective.

This book is written to share some of the perspectives and visions of the New Testament that have been influential on my life.

The Task

Since the 1970s, I have heard voices proclaiming ecological doom. I am not a scientist so I have been cautious in assessing the various arguments about climate change and oil depletion. I limit my task to understanding what the New Testament has to say to us about our relationship with each other and the rest of creation. This is why this book is titled The Ecology of the New Testament. I use “ecology” in the sense of considering social relations as belonging to ecological relations. I see human beings as part of the natural world. I urge that we consider human relationships in the context of all creation.

I will show that God’s redeeming actions in creation call Christians to see their ecological, as well as personal, sins and repent. Through repentance we learn to care for each other and the planet because the Bible says so, and not because scientists, politicians, and environmental campaigners tell us to. This does not mean that we ignore those voices, but we must certainly listen to the Bible.

This Book

I expect most readers will be Christians who are living comfortably in North America or Europe. Some may feel discontented with their lives and separated from God’s good creation; others may find themselves questioning what it means to follow Christ’s example in our hoarding and greedy society.

I hope this book may offer some food for thought regarding the teachings of the New Testament. Such thought should involve assessing truthfully our own culpability in the issues relating to the ecological crisis as the writing of this book has done for me. Further, I pray that the Holy Spirit leads you to seek diligently the New Testament’s guidance whether you are skeptical of those calling for environmental preservation or utterly convinced it is one of the most important issues for Christians today.

I am also writing this book to myself, as I struggle to make sense of my call to follow Christ in the early decades of the third millennium. I would not have attempted to write on this subject unless I believed it was important, indeed vital, for the practice of my faith.

God’s Care for the Earth

A dominant theme throughout this book is the need to care for the earth because it is God’s good creation. I believe that the neglect, abuse, and despoliation of the world damage something that is precious to God and also are an indirect, sometimes direct, cause of much of the death and suffering that people endure. The world is precious to God. This is evident throughout the Old Testament.

In Genesis 1:31 when God had finished his creation, he saw everything that he had made, and he declared, “It was very good.” Elsewhere in the Bible this same creation shouts and sings for joy because God’s awesome deeds include the provision of abundant crops and flowing water (Psalm 65:5–13). We read further that the presence of the Lord makes creation happy, so that the sea roars, the floods clap their hands, and the hills sing for joy (Psalm 98:7–9). The psalmist also observes that “these [all creation] all look to you to give them their food in due season; when you give to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things” (Psalm 104:27–28). God “save[s] humans and animals alike” (Psalms 36:6). He waters the trees abundantly and feeds the young lions when they call to him (104:16, 21). This psalm also recounts the wonderful harmony between God’s creatures so that the grass grows for the cattle and plants for people to use (104:14–15).

Such positive views of creation stand at the heart of the Old Testament. It is also the case for the New Testament as I will demonstrate throughout this book. It is significant that in John 1:3, Jesus is said to be cocreator with God: “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.” The claim that Jesus is the cocreator of the world reiterates the intrinsic value of the planet to God such that he shows commitment to the material world by becoming incarnate with it (John 1:14; Colossians 1:16–17; Hebrews 1:3).

Closely connected to the preciousness of God’s creation and the need to care for it are themes of peace and justice. These themes are central to the Old and New Testaments. The current book will be rooted in God’s goal of establishing justice for creation, establishing God’s peaceable kingdom on earth. Despite depressing statistics about our world, as Christians we live in the hope of God bringing eternal resurrection to all creation, an eternal and whole peace. The hope for the peaceable kingdom on earth is connected intimately with the fact that what God has created is good and made with a purpose.

In the light of the dominant theme of caring for God’s creation, this book will also encourage Christians to look more deeply at their lifestyles in terms of how these cause destruction to God’s good creation.

Motivations

This book is motivated in part by scientific claims that humanity is causing damage to the environment through lack of care: damage detected particularly in climate change, deforestation, desertification, loss of biodiversity, disappearing oil and clean water, and erosion of topsoil to mention a few.

As a Christian claiming that Scripture is authoritative, I am driven to make a distinctively Bible-centered contribution to the environmental debates that are so central to society’s leaders and voters alike. As a New Testament specialist, if I don’t take the opportunity to respond to the present ecological crisis through Scripture, I cannot complain that the Christian voice is being ignored, nor can I face the church minister and say that biblical study is important and relevant to the world.

A second motivation is the apparent neglect of full-scale studies in the New Testament of the environmental crisis. The New Testament has been neglected in this when compared to the Old Testament, which has seen a considerable number of publications. The Anglican bishop of Liverpool, James Jones, perceptively writes: “When it comes to the ethics of the environment, or what could be called an earth-ethic, Christians often turn to the pages of the Old Testament.”¹ Bishop Jones adds with great honesty that “if you asked me what Jesus had to say about the earth and whether the Gospels had anything to say in formulating an environmental ethic, I would have thought ‘precious little.’”²

However, several New Testament studies focusing on peace and justice pave the way for important applications of the New Testament to ecological issues. As far back as 1987 Perry Yoder commented that shalom and shalom making mean ecological wholeness.³ My study is to differing degrees inspired by André Trocmé’s Jesus and the Nonviolent Revolution, John Howard Yoder’s The Politics of Jesus, Walter Wink’s Engaging the Powers, Richard Hays’s The Moral Vision of the New Testament, Willard Swartley’s Covenant of Peace, Glen Stassen’s Living the Sermon on the Mount, and Michael Gorman’s Reading Paul.

Finally, I am motivated to share with you what I see as the central insights of the New Testament, especially regarding the need to care not only for fellow human brothers and sisters but also for all creation. I argue that the kingdom of peace we hope for is best established by caring for each other and the rest of creation. I believe we must develop a theology rooted in care, seeing our human existence as part of a network of relationship of which we are only a small segment.

Methodology

My approach to the New Testament will make every effort to understand the texts in their original literary and social contexts. This kind of study is generally referred to by biblical scholars as “exegesis.” Through also acknowledging our own cultural and political agendas that we bring to the texts, the message of the New Testament will spring up from its pages, energizing our ministry to bring God’s peaceable kingdom on earth. Much of what gets in the way of understanding the New Testament is our failure to recognize the cultural baggage we bring.

The Ecological Crisis

The extent to which humans are causing irreparable damage to the planet is open to dispute, but this book believes that planet Earth is in danger and that humans should be concerned. Many have found this hard to accept as our way of life is based on easy access to the earth’s resources. The ecological crisis that scientists and environmentalists talk about can be summed up in the following points:⁴

• Global change. Climate changes are causing ecological devastation through flooding, droughts, and extreme weather. There is some dispute as to whether this is caused by humans. However, most politicians and scientists claim climate change is the biggest threat to our world today. Many see it as directly related to high consumption of fossil fuels on the part of the richer nations.

• Deforestation. The loss of forests leads to climate change as the trees’ capacity to absorb greenhouse gases is lost. Soils dry out and become deserts, and habitats and species are lost—a problem for us, as a quarter of the medicines we use today are from rain forest plants. Loss of forests is driven by (a) the need to make space for cattle to satisfy appetite for beef; (b) the demand for goods made from wood (including paper products); (c) mineral and oil extraction (major oil companies like BP, Shell, and Exxon are all involved in exploiting different rain forests); and (d) hydroelectric dams to provide the necessary energy for mineral and oil extraction cause flooding of areas of forest. All deforestation can also cause displacement of indigenous peoples.

• Loss of biodiversity. It is said that one extinction leads to another leading to another and so on. It is thought that 10 percent of the world’s species could disappear within twenty-five years because of the breakdown of the rain forest ecosystems.

• Shortage of water. Lack of clean water is becoming one of the biggest problems facing our world and its people.

As responsible Christians we must ask ourselves: Are our consumption habits leading to such damage? We should not let our political positions and cultural upbringing alone lead us to take a pro- or anti-environmentalist perspective. We must listen to the New Testament carefully and thoughtfully whether we vote Republican or Democrat. And wherever our cultural sensitivities lie, we must make those elected to positions of power know our concern for the planet because of our Christian faith.

Christians and Environmental Preservation

Many Christians see environmental preservation as unimportant. Their position is rooted in seeing God’s redemptive actions as being human centered. Yet human-centered readings of the Bible say more about our Western technological mindset than about the Bible’s message.

Salvation History Means Salvation Ecology

Barbara Rossing, a leading New Testament scholar, quotes one Christian writer exemplifying a view of God and the Bible that is far from caring for God’s good creation: “God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said: ‘Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It’s yours.’”⁵

Some Christians see the central teaching of the New Testament as redemption from imminent judgment for only an elect few. This redemption excludes most of the world’s population, as well as the rest of creation. Therefore, the natural world cannot be the object of particular ethical concern. The natural world is seen as providing only the background to the greater drama of God’s redemptive actions to bring the elect of humankind to salvation, which is seen as a process of emancipation from nature.

Many of us, including Christians who are actively involved in environmental preservation, hold the above view that salvation is only for humanity. Why is such a view so dominant, and does it have a basis in the New Testament?

I believe this view comes out of an individualistic human-centered reading of the New Testament. It is important for today’s Christians to consider that the New Testament writers presupposed the importance of all creation and not just humans. Unlike modern Westerners, the people of the New Testament did not live in distinct communities separated from the soil, flora, and animals; they recognized their need to care for the land around them as well as their livestock. Such a worldview was also central to the Old Testament writers. The New Testament writers were so familiar with their environment they did not feel any urgency to spell out what was very obvious to them but what is not so obvious to us.

However, having said this it is important that we recognize in our reading of the Bible how it recounts human sinful actions. I want to share with you a reflection I had recently on the Tower of Babel story.

Escape from the Tower of Babel

The Tower of Babel narrative (Genesis 11) describes how humanity united by one language builds a tower to reach the heavens. As humans attempt to build toward heaven, they come to imagine that they are like gods, and this hubris is ultimately the cause of destruction and wars. It does not take a huge leap of the imagination to see the parallels between our modern era and the era that produced the Babel story.

I want to share with you my reflection on this story:

I found myself high in the tower with others. We were all so desperate to escape. Why? We were dying because we had separated ourselves from the rest of creation below us. In our panic we fled. Rapidly we descended the steep outside steps of the tower. As we did so, we eagerly kept ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• CONTENTS
• FOREWORD
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 12
• Chapter 13
• Chapter 14
• NOTES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY