Should Adventists Care About the Environment?
Because God loves us and His world. God’s love for humanity and nature is evident in Scripture. In Genesis, Father, Son and Holy Spirit engage in God’s “good” creation of nature, humanity and Sabbath. It is by the word of the Lord that the heavens, earth and seas were made.
This is aptly illustrated in God’s command to Israel to honor a “sabbath” for their land every seventh year. Honoring the command at Sinai to “sabbath” the land enabled Israel to care for the nation, and strangers or resident aliens in their midst. Their rejection of God’s commandment and not giving the land a sabbath rest broke their relationship with God and resulted in Jerusalem’s judgement. God gave the land its “sabbath” during the Babylonian captivity as an act of restoration of the environment before His people returned from Exile.
God’s love for his creation is proclaimed in the New Testament. Christ told Nicodemus, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.” We typically identify this passage as describing human salvation, yet the Greek translates as “the world,” not, “people.” It is not only humanity that God loves, but His entire creation that He does not desire to perish.
This is stressed further in Romans 8:19-23, where Paul portrays both creation and humanity groaning together in anticipation of Christ’s return, as nature awaits freedom from deterioration while humanity anticipates final redemption as God’s children. Colossians makes redemption apparent as God desires to bring full restoration of humanity and this natural world to Himself through Christ, who “by Him all things were created.”
Because we love God. We are called by Christ to bring our whole being into a love relationship with the Father. Jesus cites Deuteronomy 6:5, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” The evidence of our love toward our Maker is demonstrated by how we live our lives, and in our acts of worship.
In our worship, we are called to incorporate caring for our Creator’s world as He cares for it. Revelation 14:7 summarizes this beautifully, “Fear God and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has arrived, and worship the one who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water!” If we do not care for God’s creation — our environment that He spoke into existence — how can we fully honor and worship Him as Creator, proclaimed in the first angel’s message?
Because He called us to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Loving our neighbor — all of humanity — is directly interrelated with caring for the environment. In Matthew 25, Christ’s judgment is portrayed in terms of feeding the hungry, providing drink and clothing, caring for strangers and for the sick. To engage in these activities calls for caring for our environment. To provide food requires crop production; to offer water requires a reliable supply; to give shelter to strangers, immigrants or refugees, requires the ability to provide housing in a sustainable environment.
The apostle John reinforces care for others as evidence of our love toward God. “But whoever has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?”
- Dr. Ben Holdsworth, MBA, PhD, Professor, Union College