Christian Sustainability
“The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it… And God said… ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’ And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.’” (Genesis 2:15, 1:28-29 ESV)
“Sustainability” is oftentimes a buzzword in our culture, frequently prompting a dizzying confusion of advice from countless experts—don’t eat meat because livestock contribute to global warming; give up plastic straws to save the turtles; avoid social-media “fast fashion” clothing brands to reduce waste. Still, while many of these guidelines likely contribute to making society more environmentally sustainable long-term, I would argue that they actually mislead anyone looking for the true root cause of the issue. Such advice, taken by itself, is essentially a spot-fix: an attempt to patch up the problem of unsustainable culture by changing human behaviors directly, meanwhile ignoring the fact that the problem, like many other seemingly “simple” issues, is fundamentally far deeper, unfolding from questions of community, philosophy, and belief—rather than simple bad habits that can be changed. The fundamental solution to unsustainability is not to write a few new laws and distribute some educational pamphlets, to stop eating meat or using plastic straws. Instead, it is most crucial to correct the issues of culture and faith that shape a society in which such unsustainability is clearly rampant.
If sustainability is a problem of philosophy and theology, then how should Christians deal with it? First, we should refer to Genesis for some basics. In Genesis 2:15, God says that man has been placed in the garden (and by extension, creation) “to work it and keep it.” This idea of “working and keeping” is foundational for discussing Christian sustainability: humanity’s vocation is not just to use and benefit from creation (“work it”), but also to preserve and appreciate the elements of natural goodness and beauty in it (“keep it”).
Many people, when they hear “sustainability,” immediately think of the concept of conservation (i.e. “keeping”): protecting natural beauty at great cost, maybe in a national park or wildlife reserve. However, from a Christian perspective, sustainability is as much concerned with using nature well as it is with protecting it wisely: God doesn’t just tell Adam to maintain Eden’s beauty, but also “I have given you every plant…you shall have them for food,” later adding a precedent for killing and eating animals (Genesis 1:29, 3:21, 9:3). This still does not justify indiscriminate consumption of natural resources—a kind of commodification, ultimately reflecting a lack of appreciation for the common grace found in creation—but when done in moderation and with a properly thankful attitude, use of natural resources is no cause for shame or concern.
However, there is a problem with this: our consumption is anything but moderate, and legitimate concerns over sustainability are widespread—landfills, deforestation, erosion, fossil fuels. How can we reconcile these with the picture of Christian sustainability Genesis implies? A reply to this is nicely summarized by farmer and philosopher Wendell Berry, in his essay Getting Along With Nature: “Humans, like all other creatures, must make a difference (in nature); otherwise, they cannot live. Unlike other creatures, humans must make a choice as to the kind and scale of difference they make…Nature and human culture, wildness and domesticity, are not opposed but are interdependent. Authentic experience of either will reveal the need of one for the other.”
The way forward, then, is to shape a culture that is neither completely conservationist nor completely consumerist—a culture that truly realizes the interdependence Berry describes. To the staunch conservationists, on the one hand, this philosophy would commend the concept of cultivation; that is, that humans can husband and even improve certain areas of nature by working them in parallel with existing natural processes (much like God commanded Adam in Genesis). In agriculture, for example, this might look like planting a wide variety of crops (rather than pesticide-heavy monocultures), which simultaneously preserves topsoil and native species while also producing food for human consumption; in architecture and city design, this might entail building structures around natural features rather than causing erosion by extensively re-grading for aesthetic reasons. While these propositions by no means rule out the need for conservation, they do suppose that human activity, rather than being an environmental scourge, can instead exert a positive influence on nature when directed by a proper philosophical and theological framework.
On the other hand, to the staunch consumerists, this philosophy encourages a new appreciation, even a kind of reverence, for nature. (And as a side note, it’s important to recognize that while some Christians may react with skepticism to the concept of reverence for nature, perhaps considering it too “hippie,” this is largely a faulty response–indeed, as farmer and environmentalist Joel Salatin notes, Christians often hide behind “the Augustinian premise of duality: spiritual is good, physical is evil. But God made a world and proclaimed it good. Indeed, He promised the Israelites a land flowing with milk and honey–that doesn’t sound like a place of invisible spirit to me.” (Salatin 7)) Therefore, to people who see the natural world primarily as a supply of raw materials, this would mean gaining a new awareness of natural beauty, seeing creation as still “very good," leading ultimately to more thoughtful use of resources—and the recognition that such beauty is one way God reveals Himself to us. Is it a Christian action to elevate profit and consumer convenience over created natural beauty–and indeed, in many cases, the health of actual communities–by digging a coal strip mine or building a power plant? While human use and alteration of the environment is undeniably legitimate in some cases, Christians should still engage in such endeavors cautiously and thoughtfully, working to mitigate or avoid damage to the natural world wherever possible—and recognizing that when pursued indefinitely without sufficient regard for God or nature, such industrial processes eventually develop into sinful embodiments of greed and pride.
With this in mind, then, what actions does a Christian ethic of sustainability call for? Most importantly, it calls for a greater thoughtfulness on questions of consumerism, conservationism, and anything in between. All too often, we assume that our approach to sustainability (regardless of what it actually involves) is the right one, without doing any of the heavy lifting of examining our value assumptions. Instead, we should be unafraid to apply Scripture to areas of our lives beyond just personal morality: Christianity is a worldview, not just a set of individual tenets, and when we allow it to expand to its proper breadth of influence in our lives, it should raise convicting questions on countless complex topics—including ones like sustainability. How does the Bible say we should treat the environment— and each other? What virtues or vices are implied in the making of the things I buy, or the growing of the food I eat, or the ways in which I travel? Am I reflecting Christlikeness not only explicitly in my actions, but also implicitly in the systems I support?
Questions like these are the starting point for charting a course between consumerism and conservationism—a course that fully realizes the moral dimension of sustainability, of inhabiting and stewarding creation. Recognizing that neither convenience nor pure conservationism are Christian virtues, we ought to begin structuring our communities around this ethic: neither abusing nature nor worshiping it, but instead working and keeping it wisely, as God commands us.
Berry, Wendell. What Are People For? : Essays. Berkeley, Ca, Counterpoint, 2010.
Salatin, Joel. The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs : Respecting and Caring for All God’s Creation. New York, Ny, Faith Words, 2017.
The Holy Bible : ESV, English Standard Version Containing the Old and New Testaments. New York, American Bible Society, 2007.
