Creation Care Is God's Mandate

Members of the synodical task force studying creation care and stewardship of the earth's resources met last week to continue working on a draft report to be submitted to Synod 2012. The final report is due the following year.

Task force members say that a key to the report will be linking creation care to passages in the Bible that address the issue.

"There are a lot of people and groups who are involved in the environmental effort because they see it the thing to do as good citizens," said Cindy Verbeek, a task force member from British Columbia.

"We want to make the connection between involvement in these issues and the relationship of . . . man to God's creation."

Synod 2010 established the task force and said its report should identify “our position of creation stewardship, including climate change, applicable to this millennium for congregations, society and our global gospel partners.”

Synod also said the Christian Reformed Church as a denomination should give “greater attention to the issue of creation stewardship in its education and implementation efforts among CRC members and congregations in advocacy efforts at local, national and global levels.”

Besides climate change, the task force will be addressing such issues as water and land use, forms of power generation, and the impact that man is having on the environment in different parts of the world.

Verbeek and another task force member spoke at a lunch-time gathering in the Grand Rapids, Mich., office of the Christian Reformed Church, about the issues they are addressing – especially putting together a biblically based, Reformed perspective on humanity's role as a steward of God's creation.

Throughout the Bible, and not just in the creation account in Genesis, there are many references to how man is trusted to care for God's creation, said Verbeek.

"If you read the Bible through that lens, you see who we are as followers of the creator and redeemer and that we can join in the redemption of the earth."

Verbeek served for a time discussing and teaching creation care issues with CRC congregations. She is currently the northern British Columbia representative and community mobilizer for A Rocha, an international Christian organization that does scientific research, environmental education and community-based conservation projects.

Verbeek says the task force wants to "especially connect young people who are interested in this with their faith…We want them to know that God created this world to work with humans in it and we need to figure out how to do that and then do it."

Ted Charles, an elder and leader of a CRC congregation in New Mexico, also spoke about the task force and the focus it is taking. Charles is a Navajo who brings a Native American perspective to the issue of creation care.

"We must have a renewal of minds in terms of how churches address environmental issues," he said. "We can put the emphasis on science. But as Native Americans, we see that everything is God's gift to us. It is a matter of how we use it."

Charles spoke of how Native Americans build their homes so that the front faces east, where the sun comes up. They don't worship the sun, he said, but believe "where the sun comes up is the direction of harmony and God's glory."

Charles says he acknowledges that many jobs come from industries that have an impact on the environment. He said the important thing to remember and to act upon is that a person needs to put back into the earth what is taken out. It is a reciprocal arrangement.

If you can't put back what is taken out, you should do what you can to restore the earth where it has been used for economic gain. He gave the example of a gold mine that operated in the region near his home. The company stripped the land, leaving a huge mountain of soil and vegetation.

After working with Native Americans, the company agreed to restore the land, which now is covered with trees, grasses, ponds and supports wildlife.

"We need programs of recovery," he said. "What does God want from his people is for them to repent, restore and reconcile. When you take from the earth, no matter how big or how small, you do all that you can to restore it."

The Bible teaches this, he said, along with the need for people to conserve what they can of the creation. In creation care, he said, "we are dealing with a spiritual problem between the opponents of God and God himself. God does not want us to abuse creation . . . Right now, we are not giving back to God what we have taken."