Should Christians Be Environmentalists? Part Nineteen *

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Does Genesis 1:27-28 Encourage the Human Race to Exploit Nature As They Please?

The political landscape in America today has caused many Christians to associate the word environmentalist with someone who is more concerned about protecting spotted owls and redwood trees than creating jobs and acquiring energy independence. They imagine all environmentalists as tree-hugging liberals who are opposed to any economic development that may even slightly damage nature or threaten wildlife. Similarly, non-Christian environmentalists typically pigeonhole all Christians as gun-toting, tight-fisted conservatives who would sacrifice any habitat and any wild creature to fuel the furnace of economic growth.

Of course both camps are guilty of hyperbole and ignorance. It seems to me that the solution to this hostility is for both Christians and non-Christian environmentalists to understand what the Bible actually teaches about environmental stewardship.

The Challenge

A while back I had a conversation a Christian who is critical of environmentalism. Toward the end of our discussion, I asked him this question: “What if God told us to take care of nature?” In other words, what if God instructed people to protect and manage wildlife, as well as forests, rivers, the land, and air? A simple and straightforward question—but one he refused to answer. The reason was obvious. If he admitted that God instructed the human race to care for and manage His creation, he would have to reevaluate his attitude toward environmental activism in light of biblical truth. He was unwilling to do that. If God instructed the human race to care for creation, who can argue against that? The task would become, how do we do it?

This is a challenge that all Christians who claim allegiance to God and accept the Bible as their source of authority should willingly seek to answer. As this series of articles repeatedly demonstrates, the view that God does not mind if people harmfully exploit nature cannot be substantiated in Scriptures. The fact is Christians (and all people) are indisputably called by God to be His stewards over creation. What is the biblical model of stewardship? What does a steward do? This is the subject of the next two blog articles.

A Lesson in Hermeneutics

Before we explore biblical stewardship, however, we need to examine a passage in Scripture. It appears to contradict my assertion that God has not given the human race carte blanche to use nature as they choose without any regard for other created life. Critics almost universally use this passage to support their claim that the Bible promotes an exploitive attitude toward nature. I’m referring to Genesis 1:27–28, especially as it’s worded in the King James Version. Here the word “dominion” is used rather than “rule,” as in many modern translations. 

What, exactly, does the Bible mean when it exhorts the human race to “subdue” the earth and to have “dominion” or “rule” over nature? Does this passage allow or even encourage the human race to exploit nature as we please? No, it doesn’t.

When we come upon a passage in Scripture that appears to contradict the overall biblical teachings on a subject, although we may not know exactly what that passage means, we can know what it doesn’t mean. It cannot mean anything that contradicts the rest of the Bible’s teaching on the topic. In other words, if at first glance the interpretation of Genesis 1:27–28 appears to contradict the rest of what the Bible teaches on environmental stewardship, this aberrant interpretation is incorrect and should be discarded. In light of this, let’s examine Genesis 1:27–28 and determine what it doesn’t mean; it will shed light on what the passage does mean. This will be the task of my blog article next week. ©

* The blog articles in this series are adapted from my book Should Christians Be Environmentalists? published by Kregel Publications in 2012. The blog articles do not contain all the chapters, data, quotes, references, or my personal experiences, which the book includes. So for “the rest of the story,” you will need to purchase the book, which is available in both paperback and Kindle. This and the following articles are copyrighted material and may not be reproduced in book or article form. But feel free to send links to these articles to your personal email list, Facebook friends and groups, Twitter followers, or other people who may enjoy them.

One thought on “Should Christians Be Environmentalists? Part Nineteen *”

  1. if you want to follow the pofirt motive, try the denial PR from the fossil industry that makes billions. This is the same as what the tobacco companies did for years, deny and delay regulations.no, it’s not a hoax anymore than getting cancer from smoking was a hoax.the trick is to have a way of reducing CO2. One way is to have a pollution price, another is to have cap and trade. If there are other solutions, it would be great to hear them. Saying that global warming is not caused by CO2 is not a solution.

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