Christianity and the Environment

Environmentalism

Honestly, I’m a bit fed up with environmentalism.

I’m tired of hearing about how the world is going to end and how perfect things were before we messed them up. For every person telling me how idyllic nature would be without human interference, there’s someone else reminding me that all beauty and order and morality is just a human construction and nature is chaotic and cruel.

I’m tired of doomsday predictions. I’m tired of people lecturing me on how the environment is the existential crisis of our time. I’m tired of people trying to micromanage my life – how I sort my trash, what kind of light bulbs I use, how many grocery bags I carry – by appealing to the environment. When I was little I was very passionate about saving the planet, but I’ve grown very cynical since then.

And yet about a month ago, something happened that showed me I hadn’t actually changed my opinions at all. I happened to look out my window and see my next-door neighbor dumping trash into the forest preserve behind the apartment. I was annoyed at the trash she’d left strewn over my front porch, but I was furious on behalf of my trees. The passion is still there. But for reasons I’ve talked about many times before, for me, when politics comes in the door, passion goes out the window.

The Environment

What even is “the environment”?

Well, the environment is, in one of my Harvard professors’ favorite phrases, “not monolithic.” That is, it cannot be described in vague generalizations. The environments that surround us can be both kind and cruel, orderly and chaotic, beautiful and grotesque, exhilarating and deadly. They include all of the natural world, not just the parts we like to put on postcards.

Moreover, this world isn’t really one cohesive unit. It’s a collection – a collection of rocks and trees and skies and seas, of the breeze across my face and the fir needles poking the bottoms of my feet. It’s the waves lapping against the rocks on the pier, the green algae creeping across the stone, and the creepy little bugs that scuttle away when I kick my feet. It’s the sunrise in the morning and the rain in the afternoon (where I live, every afternoon).

It’s the world, the real world, the world that will stand when all our buildings and buses, capitals and countries, have fallen apart. Did you know the oldest tree in the world was standing before Moses, before Abraham, before even Hammurabi? Nature gives us perspective; it shows us how little that bad test score or lost promotion really means, how trivial most human achievements are.

Christianity

At the same time, though, nature gives us hope, because it reminds us of the really important things. What I call the beginning things, the themes that underlie and give meaning to existence, that sing the significance of the world, run all through nature – corrupted, it’s true, but still decipherable, if you have the right tools. It’s a tapestry, a beautiful tapestry woven by a God of infinite creativity who never tires of crafting sunflowers, sunsets, and snowflakes, each one unique and each one beautiful.

Christianity is about bringing wonder back into the world and the world back into God’s arms; it is about living life more abundantly by accepting restored communion with the composer of this symphony and living in accordance with its themes.

And so, much as I hate to repeat a cliche, we are stewards of this world, and we should be trying to cultivate and sustain it. We don’t do it because we’re trying to avert an apocalypse, score political points, or virtue-signal. We do it because beauty and order aren’t just human constructions. They’re from beyond the world, and it’s our work to bring the world into harmony with them. This world and this work are wonderful; they are beautiful – and they are ours.

“Trees” by hzmszg is licensed under CC BY 3.0