Planetwise

Dare To Care For God'S World

Dave Bookless

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781844747955
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christianity

"I was in the act of throwing away my family's rubbish while holidaying on a beautiful island when I heard God speak. I could easily have missed it, but an inner whisper asked, "How do you think I feel about what you are doing to my world?"




Since the day God challenged him, Dave Bookless has been on a mission: to share with others the compelling biblical case for caring for the planet God made for his glory and his people's enjoyment.




This is not another book on green issues to make you feel guilty. The message is that there is hope. God can take your small and insignificant efforts and multiply them in his great plan.




Dave takes us right into the heart of his family and shows how living simply, besides honouring God, can be an exciting adventure.

1 Creation calls

The drums roll, the curtain slowly parts and the lights gradually fade, leaving an expectant darkness. On the stage itself all is silent, dry ice swirling around formlessly. Suddenly a voice off-stage declares: ‘Let there be light!’ and the stage is lit by an eerie glow.

Of course, we can only imagine exactly how the creation of all things took place. The account we have in Genesis 1 and 2 is inspired by God but there were no human witnesses until the end of the first scene. The Bible’s creation account is deliberately high drama, full of powerful and beautiful language and imagery. It’s a story many of us know very well, but one where we often focus on certain aspects and miss the big picture.

We are not going to spend time on whether Genesis 1 and 2 give an exact literal description of how God made the world. The debate over whether this is accurate history or designed to answer profound questions through symbolic language will not be solved here. Arguments over evolution and creationism have divided Christians for many years. In fact, this whole argument has become a huge distraction. The most important questions Genesis answers are not about ‘How did we get here?’ but ‘Why are we here?’, not ‘How did God create the world?’ but ‘Why did God create this world?’

By starting with ‘why?’ rather than ‘how?’ we will find that the biblical text helps us to understand the whole purpose of creation, as we ask:

• What can we learn about God from creation?
• What can we learn about creation itself, in particular about its relationship with God and humanity?
• What can we learn about being human and our place within creation?

God: beyond creation

If you compare the Bible’s creation account with other ancient creation stories, one difference stands out above all others: God creates out of nothing. In other accounts, either raw material already exists, from which creation is shaped, or else the universe emerges or emanates from a Creator. Not so in Genesis 1. Before creation existed there was no cosmic soup, no light, no alien life – there was only God.

God is therefore of a different order of reality from the created universe, and it is difficult to describe him using human language. Yes, God is personal, but so much more than a human being. Yes, God is powerful, yet not even the power within the sun can touch his power. Creation emphasizes God’s uniqueness and otherness.

This is important at a time when many worship God ‘in nature’. Creation cannot tell us all there is to know about God. However beautiful, mysterious and inspiring the universe may be, we must never think that it is God. However beautiful a dolphin may be, it is not part of God. However amazing planet Earth may be, it is not God. Talk of ‘Mother Earth’ or ‘Mother Nature’ confuses the created and the Creator. If the earth is amazingly well maintained, it is because God is maintaining it, not because the earth is God. Ultimately, to worship the creation or any part of it breaks the first of the Ten Commandments: ‘You shall have no other gods before me’ (Exodus 20:3). It is also idolatry: worshipping a created object instead of worshipping God.

God: revealed through creation

While we must be careful never to confuse God and creation, there is also another side to the story.

Jonathan, aged six, comes rushing home from school proudly clutching a painting. He spreads it out on the kitchen table for mum to look at. It’s a self-portrait, although the hands have too many fingers, the legs are stick-like lines, and the head is a huge circle with an enormous red smile. However, the picture tells us a lot about the artist. This is a young child whose skills are still developing. He loves bright bold colours and feels happy about himself. No doubt a child psychologist could tell us more, and a forensic detective would find smudged fingerprints and positively identify the artist!

God is the great artist, and the world his canvas. The world communicates important messages about God to us. Like Jonathan’s painting, we can look at God’s world and find clues to the artist’s personality and character. In addition, God has quite deliberately left clues about who he is: creation is his first chosen means of telling us about himself.

In Romans 1:20, we read, ‘For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.’ God’s power and character are displayed throughout nature. His eternal power is clear to all: controlling the forces at the heart of the universe, the energy in the heart of each star. Yet equally there is God’s attention to detail in the delicate tracery of a spider’s web, the infinitely different patterns of each snowflake, or the colours of a forest in autumn. God is a God of beauty and order as well as power. Why not stop reading at this point, go outside or look out of a window, and find something that speaks to you of God’s eternal power and divine nature?

Today, many people are seeking spiritual reality but see Christianity as irrelevant to the questions they are asking. Creation is a place where they encounter something of that spiritual reality, sensing a greater presence, experiencing the ordering of seasons and tides, or feeling a deep empathy with other creatures. Sadly, Christians have often dismissed such experiences as nature worship. Yet surely this is exactly what Romans 1:20 means by seeing God’s invisible qualities through what has been made? Creation is a natural place of encounter with God. What a tragedy that those struggling to make sense of God’s fingerprints in creation often find Christians closing the door in their faces.

Creation can also help those who are already Christians understand God better. For instance, creation shows us how relational God is. As scientists study the world, they discover its incredible interdependence. The planet’s systems are amazingly fine-tuned, from the way gases in the atmosphere balance each other, creating the perfect conditions for life, through to the millions of microscopic creatures that give fertility to the living soil. The science of ecology is all about how vitally important these links are. Plants, animals, human society and everything else relate to, and are dependent on, one another.

This should not surprise us! The universe is interdependent and relational because it was made by a relational God. All creation (ourselves included) flows from the love that existed before time between the three persons of the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who were all involved as co-creators. In John 1, we read that before the world was created, Jesus, the Word, already existed and it was through his word of command that God created everything. In Genesis 1:2, we read of the Spirit of God hovering over the waters, and in Genesis 2:7 God breathes his breath or Spirit into the first human being. In the third century, Irenaeus wrote that God crafted the world with the two hands of his Son and his Spirit.1

As God creates, so God relates. He knows each corner of creation intimately and cares for it. There is a wonderful Bible passage where God shows Job the wonders and mysteries of creation, pointing out that he cares for and sends rain even ‘to water a land where no man lives, a desert with no-one in it’ (Job 38:26). It is not only humans, but also the parts of creation that have nothing to do with humanity, which are important to this relational God. Environmentally, this matters because it demonstrates that creation is not only about people, and God’s relationship with creation is independent of our relationship with it.

Knowing that God has made a relational universe also reminds us that human beings are not designed to live in isolation. We’ve been created to relate to God, to each other and to the natural world. We depend on plants, animals and the systems God has created to provide oxygen to breathe, water to drink and food to eat. Without these, we will die. We are also interdependent, with the rest of creation, upon God. Nothing could be more dangerous than the illusion our modern societies encourage that we can get by on our own. God has made us to depend on himself, each other and the whole of creation.

God: committed to creation

Sometimes people speak as if God’s involvement with the universe ceased after creation. Some call this ‘the Divine Watchmaker’: a God who wound it up, set it going and then moved on, leaving it to unwind gradually. However, God’s relationship with this created world is far closer than this. It’s nearer to that of parents with a young child they love deeply. Attached by an unbreakable cord of love, they cannot abandon their loved one. How then could a relational God, who created in love, walk away and abandon his creation?

The biblical story reveals that God’s relationship with creation did not stop after the six days of Genesis 1. God is its sustainer, continuing to uphold, care for and renew his creation. The Psalms talk about this over and over again. ‘O LORD, you preserve both man and beast,’ says Psalm 36:6. Psalm 65 lists God’s care for the land in terms of rain, growth and harvest. Psalm 74:16–17 says the days and seasons are at God’s command.2 If the Psalms were the songbook of God’s people, it’s clear that what inspired their singing more than anything else was God’s creation. God loves this world deeply and is involved with it intimately. It is a two-way relationship that includes animate and inanimate objects: mountains, rivers, lightning and rocks as much as animals and people.

As in creation, Father, Son and Spirit are each involved in sustaining God’s world. According to Colossians 1:17, ‘all things hold together’ in Christ. God’s Spirit also fills and ‘inspires’ the universe: ‘Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?’ asks the psalmist. ‘If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast’ (Psalm 139:7–10). The Bible is clear that God is deeply involved in the seasons and cycles of nature, in processes from the sub-molecular to the pan-galactic. He is involved because he made the universe in love and continues to uphold it in his love and power.

Our small actions might seem too little, too late, on their own, yet God is committed to including us in his plans. He can take our small efforts and weave them into his purposes in sustaining and renewing the earth.

We live in a time of increasing fear about the earth’s future. Respected scientists and economists tell us we are over-using the earth’s resources and unleashing forces beyond our control. Some predict a complete collapse of human civilization, with billions of people dying through drought, famine, flood and disease. Others believe we have a chance if we make rapid and major changes to the way we live. It is all too easy to lose all hope for the future.

Yet as Christians we can have hope. ‘Sustainability’ is the new holy grail. It’s about living in a way that leaves enough of the earth’s resources for future generations and other species. We believe God is committed to looking after this earth. In the search for sustainability, he is the Sustainer. That doesn’t mean we sit back and do nothing. As we’ll see later, God has given human beings a special responsibility in caring for the planet. However, it means we don’t need to despair. Our small actions might seem too little, too late, on their own, yet God is committed to including us in his plans. He can take our small efforts and weave them into his purposes in sustaining and renewing the earth.

Creation: good!

As a small child, I remember adults warning me about the ‘big, bad world’. They were simply trying to prevent me being from over-adventurous, but the image it left was of a dangerous, hostile world full of lurking evil. As I grew older, this pulled me in two directions. On the one hand, I saw plenty that was wrong with the world – pain, suffering and injustice – and I believed that only in God’s kingdom (which I saw as the church) could things be put right. On the other hand, I loved wild nature: the pull of a majestic mountain crying out, ‘Climb me!’, the sound of waves breaking on a rocky shore, the sight of wild geese migrating in formation against a setting sun. I struggled to reconcile these two pictures: of the world as evil and the world as beautiful and good.

When we read the Genesis creation account, the first thing that strikes us is that creation is good. After making the land and seas, God stopped, looked at what he had made, and ‘saw that it was good’. He said the same after making plants and trees, creating the sun and the moon, and fish, birds and animals. Finally, after making people, he stopped and looked at everything he had made, ‘and it was very good’ (Genesis 1:31). It is astonishing how often we overlook the simple truth that creation is good. It reflects the goodness and character of God. He made it, he loves it, and that settles it: we should love it too. Physical matter matters, because it is important to God. Whatever has happened since, God made a good world.

We must, therefore, reject the kind of separation I grew up with between God’s kingdom (good) and the world (bad). There is no such separation. Everything in all creation was made good. Even those things we struggle to see as good had an original good purpose in God’s plans. In fact, it would be impossible for a good God to create anything that isn’t good.

Nor can we say that creation has lost all its goodness since sin’s entry into the world. Just read the Psalms! They celebrate the goodness of creation long after evil entered the world. In the New Testament, Jesus saw creation as a treasure-house to illustrate God’s goodness and character. As Christians, we’re told clearly that ‘everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving’ (1 Timothy 4:4).

Let us rediscover that the gospel, the good news, does not begin with Jesus’ birth. It begins with the good earth that God made through Jesus. Let us celebrate again that creation in all its richness is the wonderful gift of a good God.

Creation: speaking of God

I have many friends who love wildlife, including Bill and Peter, who join me in scientific bird-ringing studies by catching wild birds and attaching a tiny aluminium ring with a unique reference number to their legs. The information gained helps us understand bird migration, distribution and population changes, and protect wildlife better. In the UK, bird-ringing is controlled by the government under licence to the British Trust for Ornithology and great care is taken to ensure the well-being of the birds. They are mainly caught in almost invisible mist-nets, into which they fly and in which they get tangled. After being carefully extracted, they are identified by species, age and sex; wing length, muscle and fat health are measured, and they are weighed. Finally the birds are released to carry on feeding, nest-building or migrating.

Most of my bird-ringing friends would not call themselves Christians, yet time and time again we have had conversations about the sheer wonder of these tiny feathered creatures. Birds are amongst the most colourful and musical members of the animal kingdom. From a purely scientific perspective, colour and song perform useful roles: attracting mates, competing with rivals, establishing and defending territory, and hiding from, or scaring off, predators. Yet the colour and song of birds go beyond this. Mike Brooke, curator of ornithology at Cambridge University’s Museum of Zoology, admits, ‘We lack any overarching theory for why birds are coloured the way they are.’3 There is an almost universal emotional connection that people sense when they see the bright colours of a kingfisher or the iridescence of a peacock’s feathers, or when they hear a skylark or a nightingale singing. The colour and song of birds speak to us of nature’s awesome beauty and of the character of the creator God.

The great joy of bird-ringing lies not only contributing to valuable scientific research, but also in handling tiny delicate creatures that have such amazing lives. In the summer, we catch small songbirds, such as garden warblers and whitethroats, weighing between 10 g and 20 g, which migrate from sub-Saharan Africa to breed in Britain. The methods they use to navigate are still being discovered but many seem to use the stars. Sometimes we catch a warbler with a ring from a previous year. It may well have found its way from west London, down through Europe, across the Mediterranean Sea, either across the Sahara or around the west coast of Africa, to its eventual destination in Senegal or Gambia. After several months enjoying sunshine and abundant food, it has made the same journey in reverse, avoiding rainstorms and hunters’ guns, and returning exactly to its starting place.

Even a hardened atheist struggles to hold back a sense of awe at this. Bird migration is little short of a miracle, and like so much else in creation, it points to God. These tiny birds are amongst the most eloquent evangelists I have ever met. Without words, they proclaim the glory of God.

Looking at birds gives a tiny insight into the amazing variety God has made: from tiny bee hummingbirds smaller than a thumb, with hearts beating at a thousand times a minute, to flightless emperor penguins raising their chicks at 50° below zero; from peregrine falcons diving at breathtaking speed, to enormous ostriches with their football-size eggs. In terms of colour, shape, size, skills and migration strategies, they tell us about an amazingly creative and imaginative God...and that’s just the birds! There are perhaps 10,000 species of bird out of perhaps 1.8 million living species identified so far (more than 300,000 of them beetles!). According to many estimates, there may be around 10 million species altogether, most still undiscovered. God is creative beyond our wildest imagination, and all biodiversity reveals something of his existence and nature.

Creation speaks fluently and eloquently about God. The earth and the life forms it contains teach us that God exists and that he communicates with us through what he has made. In Psalm 19, we read, ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard’ (verses 1–3). The psalmist makes it clear that creation speaks of God in a way that goes beyond language and right to the heart. God speaks through two books: his word (the Bible) and his works (creation). We need both together to understand what God is really like. Without the Bible, we may see God’s fingerprints in creation but we cannot form a full portrait: they are like fragments in a kaleidoscope. Yet without creation, the picture of God we get from the Bible is also incomplete. Creation illustrates and illuminates the truths about God that we read in the Bible.

There are many occasions where God uses creation to speak to his people. When Jonah tries to run aw...

Table of contents

• Planetwise
• Contents
• Foreword: Making a difference!
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Planet Earth – why bother?
• 1 Creation calls
• 2 The fall: Creation’s groaning
• 3 Land: People and place in context
• 4 Jesus: Saviour of the world
• 5 The new creation: On earth as in heaven
• 6 Living it out: Discipleship as if creation matters
• 7 Living it out: Worship as if creation matters
• 8 Living it out: Lifestyle as if creation matters
• 9 Living it out: Mission as if creation matters
• Appendix: Planet whys
• Notes
• Where to go from here? Resources to help you in caring for God’s world