Agriculturalist Fred Bahnson and theologian Norman Wirzba declare that in Christ, God reconciles all bodies into a peaceful, life-promoting relationship with one another. Because human beings are incarnated in material, bodily existence, we are necessarily interdependent with plants and animals, land and sea, heaven and earth. The good news is that redemption is cosmic, with implications for agriculture and ecology, from farm to dinner table.

Bahnson and Wirzba describe communities that model cooperative practices of relational life, with local food production, eucharistic eating and delight in God’s provision. Reconciling with the land is a rich framework for a new way of life. Read this book to start down the path to restoring shalom and experiencing Jesus’ kingdom of shared abundance, where neighbors are fed and all receive enough.

Buy a copy!

I was particularly struck by this story in Jonathan’s new book:

“I became an environmentalist at a Southern Baptist Seminary.  Few people on the planet can say that.  I was sitting in a theology class listening to a lecture about the general revelation of God in nature and became bitterly convinced that I was contributing to the muffling of God’s voice around me through my destructive lifestyle.  Over the next few months, I decided to reflect on my life’s habits and make many personal changes.  But I still wanted to do more.

I contacted a group of pastors, professors, and leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention to help me draft a statement expressing a biblical view of creation care.  A few months later, we finished the final draft and I began circulating it among denominational leaders for their support.  To my surprise, the signatures poured in.  People were overjoyed that others in the denomination were stepping out in this issue.”

Such conversion experiences happen everywhere—in classrooms and boardrooms, in fields and field offices, on street corners and corner stores.  Jonathan’s story was a timely reminder that no matter where we are, God can use us to plant seeds.

At work, at home, at church, and at school—we are all God’s ambassadors, 365 days a year.  What others say is not possible, we know that God can make possible.

Your story does not have to be as dramatic as Jonathan’s, but I hope you will share it with us.  Is there someone who galvanized your creation care journey? Was there a moment that moved you to action?  If it connects in some way to Blessed Earth or one of the Sleeth films or books, all the better!

Visit the Your Stories section of our website, and take a few moments to write down yours.  Then send it to contact@blessedearth.org.  With your permission, we’ll post it on our website to inspire others!

Nancy Sleeth serves as the Managing Director for Blessed Earth and is the author of Go Green, Save Green: A Simple guide to saving time, money, and God’s green earth, the first-ever practical guide for going green from a faith perspective.

“There came to St. Anthony in the desert one of the educated men of that time and he said, “Father, how can you endure to live here, deprived as you are of all consolation from books?” Anthony answered, “My book, philosopher, is the nature of created things, and whenever I wish, I can read in it the works of God.”

It has been such a beautiful Spring! A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to photograph at one of the most beautiful farms in Bourbon County, located in central KY. I was permitted to get out in the pasture with some mares and foals. I just sat down in the middle of the field. There was one particular foal who was only two weeks old. Even though he was a little afraid of me, curiosity got overrode all of that and he could not stay away, allowing me to touch his soft nose.

Shortly after this brief encounter, Steve, the owner of the farm came out to visit them too.  I love the tenderness and care that he exhibited over this little guy.  It kind of reminded me of a scene where Adam named the animals.  Later, we talked about how this farm owner sees and appreciates God, the Creator, at work each day, while at work on the farm. The next time you are having a hard time sensing or connecting with God, just look around you. His good work is everywhere!

Jeff Rogers – With twenty years of nature photography experience as well as a lay pastor background, Jeff brings an appreciation for God’s creation as well as spiritual guidance. His wife, Melissa, an emergency room physician, shares his passion for serving God and preserving the beauty of nature.

Read part 1 of 7 (introduction) here.

When it comes to discovering eco-theology in the person of Jesus, scholars tell us to be careful.  It is easy to cast him in our own image; and he may have used agricultural and rural imagery in order to speak to an agricultural and rural age. If he lived in Manhattan, he may have talked about subways, stock markets and skyscrapers.  Verses like these alone cannot prove Jesus’s view toward stewardship and the earth.  We have to deal also with the fig trees that he withered, storms that he subdued and swine that he sent running to their destruction. If Jesus was a preservationist or a conservationist––and if we want to discover that in him––we have to get a bigger framework.

Scholars have pointed to the larger theme of God’s in-breaking Kingdom as a better starting point in understanding Jesus’s eco-theology.  Their big word for it is, “inaugurated eschatology.” All that means is that, in Jesus, God is not destroying the earth; he is renewing it and restoring it.  It started with Jesus’s ministry, death, and resurrection. That meant for Paul and means for us, that God’s new creation can start now.  Inaugurated eschatology means that God’s perfect kingdom will fully come to us in the future, but we can start experiencing it and living into God’s kingdom today.  See NT Wright’s creative article: “Jesus Is Coming – Plant a Tree.” A particularly good line of his reads, “I don’t know how my planting a tree today will relate to the wonderful trees that will be in God’s recreated world…but I know that God’s new world of justice and joy, of hope for the whole earth, was launched when Jesus came out of the tomb on Easter morning.”

Since I was curious about Jesus’s view of the earth, I’ve picked a verse that scholars tend to go to for answers: Matthew 6.25-34.  I’ve retranslated it from the original Greek. (I figured since I’m a PhD student, I can start doing things like, making new translations). Here’s what I’ve come up with:

“Because of what I am teaching you just now––even about how you cannot serve God and money––here’s what I have to say: don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or what you will wear.  Is your life filled by food or your body made special by what you wear?  You’re more than that. Look up to the birds of the sky: they do not scatter seeds, or harvest or build up their supplies in a silo.  Your father in heaven feeds them. Are you that different from them?  Okay, measure that length between your elbow and the tip of your finger. Who among you has the power to add that many inches to your height by worrying? Also why are you getting attached to your clothes? Take a lesson from the lilies of the field, how they grow.  They do not work hard until they are weary.  Nor do they sew. But I say to you that not even Solomon––in all his glory––arrayed himself like one of these.  But if God adorns the grass of the field, which is growing today and used for the flames of cooking tomorrow, then how much more will he look after you.  Therefore don’t worry or dwell on the day in your head over and over saying, “What will I eat, or what will I drink, or how I will adorn myself?” For the people all around you try to feed these anxieties. It’s simple: your father in heaven knows that you need to be filled. Seek first the Kingdom of God and his ways of living.  Then what you need will be there at the right time.  This is important, so I’ll say it again: don’t worry about tomorrow.  Tomorrow will worry about itself.   There is enough evil in one day.”  Matthew 6.25-34.

In this particular verse, Jesus is proclaiming a great restoration of creation. It is part of his larger, “Inaugurated Eschatology” plan. He is saying, “Your neighbors worry about what they will eat and wear.  And once, you went without clothes or food.  But if you trust in God, you will be clothed and full, just like the animals and flowers in the new creation, which is starting now.” This is a gutsy statement, because it depends on addicted people healing, and it depends on God’s people playing their part in “inaugurated eschatology.” Jesus is putting a lot of trust in the Holy Spirit and the church here. There are a couple more points to take from this verse: (1) the burning of grass you find at the end of Matthew 6 is not about the destruction of the world, like some people think.  It is a metaphor about God’s trustworthiness, which uses stove imagery. And (2) the Greek of this verse does not necessarily say, “Look at the birds of the field, are you not worth more than them”, as many translations say. It just as easily reads, “Are you that different from these?” This is not to diminish human worth; it is to elevate the worth of sparrows.  The worth of every creature in God’s eyes is something that can be shown throughout the Bible.  But (3) ultimately, this verse is about God’s provision and how crazy it is that we tend to worry so much about life.

Worrying about life has deeper consequences, more than we usually realize. The type of worry that Jesus is talking about is not the, “don’t worry about the problems of the world.” In fact, “Inaugurated Eschatology” insists that we play a role in feeding the hungry and clothing the naked.  That’s a different kind of worry. This is the: we’re like kids who wake up in the dark of midnight and worry if we are alone.  We cry out and question God.  And he comes––more often than we realize––and scoops us from our covers.  He holds us and sings us back to sleep for the night.  When we live for weeks, months, or years thinking that God never came to get us, we start thinking that life is up to us, our success is up to us, and our happiness is up to us.  And worry starts to drive us.  Worry starts to numb us.  And, though we can’t often see it, worry leads us to consuming more than we need.  And consuming more than we need leads to care-lessness for the earth and for our neighbors.

When we read Jesus’s words here we find a promise.  Life gets buried under worry; so stop worrying and find life.  Find in your heart that child-like self and the awe you forgot you had. Find your will to serve, the one that supports your 70-hour workweek.  Take it back for Jesus.  There are far bigger things to get on with, like becoming a living parable for God’s already-started kingdom.  You can join in the redemption and not the destruction of creation, now.  For Jesus, his view of creation came from the OT, particularly Psalm 24. And Psalm 24 defines creation like this: “the earth, all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it, for he has founded the seas, and established it on the rivers.”  When we join Jesus’s already-but-not-yet-kingdom, part of the deal is that we care for creatures great and small, humans and animals alike.  Maybe Jesus wasn’t thinking about creation care in Matthew 6. But when we look at his teaching here, in the framework of “inaugurated eschatology”, I’m convinced that we catch a glimmer of something deep in Jesus.  In this instance, we might just call it: “Jesus’s deep love for the fields.”

Resource Bundle:

Horrell, David G. “Jesus and the Earth: The Gospels and Ecology.” Chapter 6 in The Bible and the Environment: Towards a Critical Ecological Biblical Theology. Biblical Challenges in the Contemporary World. London: Equinox, 2010

Leske, Adrian. “Matthew6.25-34: Human Anxiety and the Natural World.” Chapter 2 in ed.  Norman Habel and Vikcy Balabanski, The Earth Story in the New Testament. Vol. 5. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002.

Wallace, Mark I. “God is Green” Chapter 1 in Finding God in the Singing River: Christianity, Spirit, Nature. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005.

Keith Jagger first met the Sleeths when they were neighbors in Wilmore, Kentucky, and were brought together by their shared passion for creation care. After completing his studies at Asbury Seminary, Keith moved to Scotland to study with N.T. Wright. As Blessed Earth’s “Anglo Correspondent.” Keith writes both from the perspective a PhD student studying creation care and a husband/father/follower of Jesus struggling to incorporate creation care principles in his daily life.  You can read more of his writing at keithjagger.com or urban-abbey.com.

But the seventh day is a sabbath belonging to Yahweh your God; you shall not do any work, not you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your domesticated beasts … And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and that Yahweh your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm, Therefore, Yahweh your God has commanded you to keep the day of the sabbath. (Deut 5:14-15)

So right here in the ten commandments, because God has saved his people, his people are commanded to honor Him by allowing their livestock to rest. As is true today livestock were maintained in Israel exclusively to facilitate the well-being of humanity. In Israel sheep, goats, cattle, oxen, and donkeys served the populace with wool, milk, meat, and sweat respectively. And of course, a 24-7 work week for those animals would have seemed the most advantageous economically from a human perspective. But in contrast to that assumed reality, these creatures are allotted a place in the sabbath ordinance of God. An Israelite was forbidden to consume the life and energy of his beast without compassion and care.

Deut 25:4 is another law which addresses this topic. Here the Israelite is commanded not to muzzle his ox while he drags the threshing sledge for his master. In the smallholder farms of the Central Hill Country, the cereal crop was absolutely crucial to the survival of the community. And the Iron Age farmer relied heavily upon the labor of his beast for the long and arduous task of threshing (extracting the precious grain from the stalks in which it grew). Once cleaned and stored, this grain would serve as the primary food staple for man and beast. And in this subsistence economy, every kilo counted. Baruch Rosen, an Israeli archaeologist of notable reputation,  has done an arresting calculation of exactly how many calories were necessary to sustain the average Israelite village of 100 souls. Operating off of data culled from the known Iron I villages, Rosen estimates that the typical village would experience an annual shortfall of 15,000,000 calories a year.[1] Anticipating that the average family included five souls, this would mean an annual shortfall of sixty days of food for the family. Why is this significant? Because it means that the three to four kilos (5-7 lbs) of grain that an ox might  consume over the course of a day of threshing made a difference. Yet God commands Israel to allow the beast who served them the opportunity to enjoy its life and work and to benefit from the fruit of its labors. In other words, even the ox was allowed to feast on harvest day. Note that in Israel’s case, allowing their beasts the opportunity to enjoy the benefit and joy of their own labor would necessarily cut into the farmer’s profits, and in many cases even their essential food supply.

So now we are forced to ask, how might these deuteronomic laws reflect on current practices in America—specifically the billions of animals who serve us in America’s factory farms? Factory farming is the practice of raising livestock in confinement at high-stocking density, where the farm operates essentially as a factory whose end product is protein units. Confined animals burn fewer calories, their excrement is mass-managed (or mismanaged as many argue), and their fertility and gestation fully controlled. As regards America’s most lucrative agricultural product,

pigs, confinement has been distilled into an exact science: twenty 230 lb animals per 7.5 foot-square pen, housed upon metal-grated flooring, in climate controlled conditions, who are never actually exposed to the light of day. These animals are sustained in such crowded and filthy conditions that movement is difficult, natural behaviors impossible, and antibiotics are essential to the control of infection. Sows (typically a 500 lb creature) are separately housed, living out their lives in 7-foot by 22-inch metal gestation crates from which they are never released, even in the process of giving birth. They are artificially inseminated to deliver an average of eight litters, litters inflated beyond their natural carrying capacity by fertility drugs. A staple of their diet is the rendered remains of their deceased pen-mates. Surely if God is offended by boiling a kid in its mother’s milk (Deut 14:21), we should be concerned that dead sows are routinely ground up and fed to their offspring.[2] Reading of the standard treatment that these animals endure, one cannot help but think of Ezekiel’s outcry against the shepherds of Israel in Ezek 34:3-4:

“You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat without feeding the flock. Those who are sickly you have not strengthened, the diseased you have not healed, those with fractures you have not bound up, the scattered you have not brought back, nor have you sought for the lost; but with force and with severity you have dominated them.”

But as the “New Agriculture” reports, all of these innovations make these production units (i.e. animate creatures) easier to manage, maintain, medicate and slaughter. And the rapidly escalating market for meat for human consumption, in the third world in particular, is voiced as the rationale for mass-confinement animal husbandry. As Matthew Scully painfully illustrates in his 2002 exposé of the industry, Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy, in our country, the abuses to which domesticated animals are routinely subjected are nearly too horrific to report. This forces my heart to ask, is this what Yahweh intended for the creatures he entrusted to humanity’s care?

Sandra Richter is Professor of Old Testament at Wesley Biblical Seminary and Affiliate Professor of Old Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary. She is a graduate of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and Harvard University’s Near Eastern Language and Civilizations department. She is a popular speaker and has published on an array of topics. Her most recent book is The Epic of Eden: A Christian Entry into the Old Testament (InterVarsity Press, 2008).

In case you missed the events last weekend, here are the links to the video from the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

Feel free to watch these links in your church or small group.  If you do, please let us know your reflections and how your faith community is practicing Creation Care.

• Highlights clip of the various events.

• Matthew Sleeth’s sermon and Earth Day service (sermon begins at 17:55).

• Launch of the Seminary Stewardship Alliance and Forum with Wendell Berry.

We are excited to announce the re-release of our film series.

You can buy the new DVD and guidebook curriculem by clicking here (just $25 for complete guidebook and twelve beautifully made short films).

You can watch the Blessed Earth Film Series trailer here.

To learn more, please click here.

These materials are wonderful resources for any church or study group…especially as we encounter Earth Day and Christians are wondering about their role as stewards of God’s good earth.

Here are some pictures of the tree planting.  Thanks to everyone who volunteered their time to serve God and save the planet!