Some Christians believe that God created man in his own image, as we are told in Genesis, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him” This is proof to many Christians that God wanted Humans to be stewards and look after the world and the rest of creation.
Although most Christians would agree that God created man to guard and protect the world and the rest of creation, they do not believe that this gives us the right to exploit it. They instead say that the natural world is God’s work and is to be celebrated and enjoyed. Celebrating the natural world is an important part of Christian worship, both for individual Christians (e.g. Catholic poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1844-89) and groups of Christians praying and singing about it, for example at harvest festivals or well-dressings.
The Christian church has recently become more concerned with protecting the environment:
The Roman Catholic Church made a statement about it in 1988 - “ The earth and all life on it is a gift from God given us to share and develop, not to dominate and exploit. Our actions have consequences for the rights of others and for the resources of the earth. The goods of the earth and the beauties of nature are to be enjoyed and celebrated as well as consumed. We have the responsibility to create a balanced policy between consumption and conservation. We must consider the welfare of future generations in our planning for and utilisation of the earth’s resources,”
The Assisi Declarations stated – “Christians repudiate all ill-considered exploitation of nature which threatens to destroy it and, in turn, to make man the victim of degradation”
The World Council of churches said – “The dignity of nature as creation needs to be bound up with our responsibility for the preservation of life”
Some Christians believe in Interdependence, which states that Human beings are part of God’s creation and that all parts of creation are interdependent and are linked to all other parts. So any damage to a part of creation is damaging to us.
Man has a special relationship with God. Nothing else has this kind of relationship, for no other species were created in the image of God. God talks to man and man talks to God. Man turns to God in refuge; animals however are unable to do this. Most Christians believe that they will go to Heaven or Hell but they say animals have no after life. Man can pray to God, animals can’t.
Christians tend to share similar views on the environment, whatever tradition they belong to, but there are differences in how individual Christians decide what action they are prepared to take.
Animal rights are a big environmental dilemma for Christians. The many Christian traditions vary on this subject. The Quaker teaching and the Catholic teaching vary in their views on the matter:
Catholic theology does not accept that animals have rights but its teaching focuses on human duties towards animals. The teaching also says that fellow animals of the world must be treated with kindness.
Quakers say that all God’s creatures must be shown loving consideration. This is why many Quakers participate in the animal rights movement.
Every fifty years the Jews were told, In the Old Testament, to rest the land so that it would produce more in the future (Leviticus 25:8-11). They were also ordered not to destroy trees when they were attacking a city, “When you lay siege to a city for a long time, fighting against it to capture it, do not destroy its trees by putting an axe to them, because you can eat their fruit. Do not cut them down. Are the trees of the field people, that you should besiege them?” (Deuteronomy 20:19).
The Bible, however, makes it clear that the earth still belongs to God, not to humans “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it” (Psalm 24:1).
There are many times in the New Testament when Jesus stresses God’s concern for life in the world “Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these (Luke 12:27-28).
