Green Churches - Green Theology

Did you see the article in Saturday's Star Tribune about the role of churches & other faith groups in environmental issues? It had a variety of interesting points. (Sorry I don't have the link handy.)

Several were along the lines of churches bringing a somewhat unique sense of moral responsiblity to the issue. There was also the idea that the belief that God created the Earth serves as motivation for us to care for the earth...respect the Creator by respecting the creation...

Its not that I outrightly disagree with these points. But they don't resonate very much with me.


Moral responsibility for the environment can come from many sources, religious faith oriented or otherwise.


My own faith oriented perspective on environmental issues includes an important moral aspect. But framing it as primarily a moral issue seems to miss the crux of how I understand it and what I find compelling. It see it as primarily a spiritual issue out of which naturally grows a moral issue.

Moral issues are too often perceived as externally imposed obligations. Prodding with a religious should is a poor way to motivate true transformation.

Caring for the environment is a matter of living in sync with God, with the earth, the rest of humanity and our own selves. Christianity supports that best not primarily by focusing on moral responsiblity, but by going deeper to focus on nurturing and developing our ability to be in tune and in sync with these relationships in both our awareness and actions.


As far as caring for the creation out of respect for the creator, it makes me think about how I care for a quilt my grandmother made or objects I've inherited from my mother-in-law. I care for them out of respect for these people and the place they have in my life. My care for creation has a lot to do with my relationship with God. But I dont' have the same sense about caring for the earth as I do about caring for my grandmother's quilt. On second thought maybe I do. But its not the part of the sense that this individual made this therefore I take care of it. It's the sense that these things are a tangible representation of who these people are, who I am, how we fit together and how we all fit into the larger pictures of life and its meanings.

Maybe that's what the Christian idea of caring for the creation as an act of respect for the creator is all about. But I tend to hear the typical Christian representations of the issue with a lot more of an external and overly personified orientation than works well for me. My perception of God has become less personified over time and I see the creation story as more metaphoric than literal. I still hear a lot of the stories and statements of Christianity in the highly personified & highly literal ways I first learned them. Sometimes that gets in the way for me. I don't think I'm alone.

In the context of environmental issues & Christianity, how can we avoid letting the limitations of particular stories & metaphors, or the ways we've heard them in the past, become the limits of our definitions of our spiritual relationships? How can we engage our traditions in ways that maximize their abilitiy to work as intended, as tools to engage spiritual relationships?