Christians Should Be the Best Environmentalists and Animal Lovers

Christians have not always maintained a great record as it relates to caring for the environment and animals. In fact, as the world system has relegated these things to a level of spirituality or extreme activism, it seems as if Christians have pushed back with at least inconsistent messages at best. Rather, the Christian should welcome others to the party. As part of mankind, unbelievers too can help steward the great resources God left us. We should not however cede our responsibility over to the unbelieving world. In this, we make a grave error. Notice three results of poor Christian stewardship.

Idolatry – The Great Exchange

Mankind’s sin nature naturally means that mankind will worship creation over God. Paul explains this in Romans where he discusses mankind’s sin nature and its consequences:

²⁵ They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (Romans 1:25)

In other words, depraved mankind naturally exchanges worship of God for worship of creation. As the environment and the world’s animals both fit inside the general category creation, we should expect that our world will naturally idolatrize these things since they both are part of creation. Paul Tripp calls this the great exchange – exchanging the Creator for something in creation.

Therefore, when we see the world get more emotional, angry, exercised, and indignant over animal abuse than abortion, we should not be surprised. This exchange results from the world’s or mankind’s depravity. However, their acting according to their sinful nature should also not make us revolt backwards and denounce their care for animals or the environment as bad. The problem stems from their nature which should not surprise us.

If we did what we should do with the respect and care for our environment the Bible demands, the world system would not have a sense of moral standing here. Yes, they would still worship creation but not in contrast to our ignoring it.

For more information about climate stewardship versus climate worship click here.

Poor Testimony and Limited Witness –

Whenever the Bible commands us to do something – like with the Creation Mandate, a failure on our part creates a poor testimony for Jesus Christ. In other words, a failure to live consistent with what God desires produces a poor testimony for the power of the Gospel, the significance of the Bible’s authority, our love for mankind, and our love for God. As we live inconsistent with the commands we are given in the Bible, we perpetuate a poor testimony.

At that point, our poor testimony contributes to a limited opportunity to impactfully share the Gospel with others. Therefore this becomes a vicious circle. We do poorly at our stewardship of our natural resources and animals, then the world notices. As they notice, they vocalize their critique and double-down on their own efforts. As the Christian sees their excess and out-of-balance approach resulting from worshiping creation over the Creator, the Christ-follower then denounces, criticizes, makes fun of, or otherwise ridicules their excess and moves out-of-balance the other direction.

The result – a poor testimony and limited witness to others who are in the world.

Opportunities for Daily Living

Moving forward both understanding our responsibilities before God and the result of poor stewardship, we should understand and articulate why Christians should be the best environmentalists and animal lovers. Although as a Christian you may never go to some of the extremes of both environmental and animal activism (and shouldn’t), you should still do your part to care both for the environment and the animals. Let me suggest four ways we all can do a better job as a Christ-followers:

1. Grow in our recognition of the necessity of our stewardship in these areas. We must see this as part of our stewardship of the manifold grace of God. What God has called us to do, we must responsibly do. This begins by seeing it as part of our own personal stewardship and/or responsibility.
2. Criticize less and help more when we see opportunities to be responsible for the world around us. If there are areas where we can conserve, help clean, or otherwise respond with prudent stewardship of the resources around us, then do those things.
3. Teach our children, grandchildren, and children in our church families the importance of living consistent with God’s commands – even as they relate to the environment and the planet’s animals.
4.  Rejoice in what God called very good in the Garden at the end of Day 6 during Creation. As we see all that God has done, rejoice in these things. Help others see them as well. God has gifted us the best planet in the world. The planet we get a free ride upon is gloriously a work of His creation. We must see this, appreciate it, and allow it to be a cause of celebration – whether just for a moment or for an extended period.

May God bless all our efforts.

Animal Gallery – God’s Creation Is Beautiful!

In an effort to hep you rejoice in God’s good work, I’ve added 15 gorgeous animal shots in which you can rejoice. God sure knows how to make a beautiful world with an incredible amount of species. All these work together in God’s plan to help sustain human life and for sure help make it beautiful. As Christians, we should be the best environmentalists and animal lovers. With creatures like these, when you see God’s handiwork in the midst of it, that should not be hard or burdensome.