Why Christianity Demands Environmentalism

by Ryan Lillestrand (PZ ‘23)

Within the first few pages, God makes this clear: after breathing human life into existence, the first task He gives to Adam and Eve is to “tend and watch over” all that He had created (Genesis 2:15).

Two years ago, I was walking on a black sand beach on the north island of New Zealand. It was a cool day, and the beach was deserted except for a lone surfer out on the horizon and his anxious dog who sprinted up and down the shore, as if he would rush into the waves at the first sign of trouble.

A week earlier, I had left behind the early summer days of Austin where even May temperatures creep into the high nineties, and traded it for the first signs of winter in the southern hemisphere. On that day, a thick blanket of mist enveloped the lush hills and sheer cliffs of the coastline. That walk was the first time I can ever remember discussing the intersection of my faith and environmentalism.

Reflecting now, that conversation with my dad was a pivotal moment. It was then that I realized that in all of the church services and Bible studies I had ever been to, I couldn’t remember once talking about the subject. When I asked my dad — who has decades more experience in the church than I — he said the same.

As I looked at the stunning landscape around me, the realization filled me with a sense of confusion and frustration: if Christians truly believe that God created all of this and entrusted it to us, how can they not feel deeply compelled to care for and protect it?

As I searched for answers, I found that my experiences were not unique. In 2008, a Barna Group survey found that “most churchgoers (64%) reported that they had never heard any sermons about how Christians should respond to environmental issues” and “89% of Christians and 85% of churchgoers had never heard the phrase creation care.”

This discovery only deepened my sense of sadness and bewilderment. It’s not that the Bible doesn’t have anything to say about protecting the natural world. Within the first few pages, God makes this clear: after breathing human life into existence, the first task He gives to Adam and Eve is to “tend and watch over” all that He had created (Genesis 2:15).

And yet, this task has gradually fallen by the wayside, preempted by other concerns. Looking at the church now, it would be frighteningly easy to conclude that the Christian faith has nothing to say about caring for the environment.

Contrary to what we see today, environmentalism has a long and rich history within the church. St. Francis of Assisi, who lived and preached over 800 years ago, was perhaps one of the earliest advocates of environmentalism. His sermons, which focused on caring for animals and the natural world, later led to him being declared the “Patron Saint of Ecologists” by Pope John Paul II in 1979.

Since then, the term “creation care” has emerged as a call for Christians to protect and care for the natural world and everything in it — all which is believed to be divinely created. Throughout the Bible, it is clear that Christians are only stewards, that ultimately everything in this world — the rivers, the mountain ranges, the oceans, the forests, and every living thing — is God’s (Psalm 24:1).

Seen through this lens, the call of “creation care” is self-evident: if Christians truly love God, then they will do everything in their power to care for that which He has so graciously given.

But this calling has become twisted. The desperate cry of the natural world and victims of climate change have been consistently brushed aside or forced through the unforgiving filter of our deeply divided political moment.

It is in the midst of this tangled mess that we find ourselves today. Environmentalism has been tossed in with a slew of other high-profile issues that fuel the fierce fracture between ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ politics in the US. As caring for the environment has morphed into an ostensibly political choice, most Christians have stepped to one side.

Through this process, environmentalism has been stripped of its historical and Biblical grounding, and as a result, the church seems to have almost entirely abandoned it. In a 2019 interview, Dr. Katherine Wilkinson, a professor and climate activist, expressed that “Even where you [have] theological or religiously grounded support for the idea of being a good steward of creation or the environment, there’s a lot of other stuff that surrounds the topic of climate in particular. In my experience, the biggest thing that would otherwise chop kind of good ecological theology off at the neck was generally political ideology.”

The immensely difficult process that lies ahead is that of disentangling faith from politics. In order to find any common ground, Christians cannot approach this Gordian knot through the lens of political preference. Instead, they must return to the teachings of Jesus to find the footing necessary for moving forward.

While the call of “creation care” is undoubtedly Biblically rooted, it does not speak profoundly to everyone, and has too often found itself drowned out by today’s frenzied political debates. However, the case of environmentalism reaches far deeper. It has a foundation anchored in the very bedrock of the Christian faith, a foundation that no political commotion can possibly silence: the call to love our neighbors.

This was the foremost message Jesus conveyed during His time on earth. It was at the root of everything He did, and it was one of the things He expressed most deeply in His teaching. When asked by a religious leader to explain which of the commandments is most important, Jesus responded that it is to love God and “love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:30–31).

This isn’t simply the love that comes to us naturally for those close to us, but a radical, selfless love meant to permeate all of our interactions; it is the essence of the Christian faith.

Christians must embrace environmentalism with this same posture. As climate change inflicts pain and suffering on people around the world, Christians are not told to turn a blind eye, they are told to step into it — to do all they can to bring help, justice, and healing. In a world reeling from the devastating effects of climate change, everyone is our neighbor.

Christianity is not merely compatible with environmentalism: it demands it.

The destructiveness of climate change is actively shaping our world, but its uneven distribution is temporarily shielding many from its most damaging effects. It is the most vulnerable populations who have been first forced to face the calamitous outcomes of a planet in turmoil.

While debates surrounding climate change policy rage, countries drown. Kiribati, Fiji, the Maldives, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands, and other island nations are on the ragged edge. As sea levels rise, their lives are at stake. Entire villages in Fiji have already been abandoned as rising tides engulf their homes.

They are among the first to pay the price for a global crisis they have had almost no part in causing. These are the most vulnerable. These are the people we are called to protect. For these communities, the effects of decades of environmental degradation is not a looming threat in the future — it is in their living room.

As oceans rise and entire communities are swallowed, Christians can no longer choose whether to believe. To overlook the suffering that climate change unleashes upon people and the natural world is to disregard the struggles of the very people Christians are most directly called to serve. Human rights and environmental conservation are now inextricably connected.

And yet we would be remiss to completely divorce their reality from our own. While sinking island nations in the Pacific may seem a world away, the injustices associated with a changing climate are happening right here in our backyard.

The city of Los Angeles has a long and storied history of environmental injustice. As the city has sprawled and fragmented, the distribution of the city’s pollution has become grievously skewed. Low-income, primarily minority communities are overwhelmingly more likely to live in close proximity to higher levels of air pollution, wastewater discharge, and Superfund sites — a woefully euphemistic name for severely polluted hazardous waste sites designated by the EPA for long-term cleanup.

I visited one such site on a classically sunny LA day in the fall of 2019. The drive through inner-city Los Angeles was marked by a labyrinthine mix of small, tightly packed neighborhoods and enormous factories stretching for several city blocks. The proximity between family homes and soaring smokestacks was unsettling, evoking an almost apocalyptic version of urban life.

Stepping off the bus at the site, I was immediately met by the fumes from a nearby factory. They were overwhelming: a melting, burning smell that instinctively made me cover my nose and mouth. The site itself was towering, ominous, and deserted. On the outside, it was an abandoned factory; on the inside, it held perilous, toxic secrets which I did not know and could not fully understand.

I didn’t stay long.

The urgency to act in the face of climate change and environmental injustice is a reality that the scientific world has understood for a long time. The Green New Deal, championed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Edward J. Markey, is meant to directly address these growing realities. The initiative, if it were to be implemented, would aggressively reduce greenhouse gas emissions towards a goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. Ultimately, the intention is to tackle the growing effect of climate change while working to address societal issues like economic inequality and racial injustice which rise from it.

For Christians, these goals are ingrained into the very core of our faith, and yet environmentalism remains a topic rarely discussed in the church.

But there are Christians who have committed themselves to addressing this disconnect. Dr. Katherine Hayhoe, a leading climate scientist and Christian, has made bridging this gap the core of her life’s work.

Over the course of her career, Hayhoe has devoted herself to climate change as a researcher and educator. Through her positions as a professor and the chief scientist for The Nature Conservancy, she influences climate policy on a national level while also raising awareness for the issue more broadly.

In a recent New York Times Op-Ed entitled “I’m a Climate Scientist Who Believes in God. Hear Me Out,” Hayhoe lays out the deep connection she sees between her faith and her career: “To me, caring about and acting on climate was a way to live out my calling to love others as we’ve been loved ourselves by God.”

Building a bridge between Christianity and environmentalism is, in many ways, the task of rebuilding a bridge that has been abandoned by many.

While worship, prayer, and Christian community are vitally important to the Christian life, they are not the only necessary components. In a world full of suffering and injustice, Christianity ought not to be divorced from our immediate reality in favor of only the transcendent and spiritual.

After Jesus ascended into heaven, his twelve disciples did not insulate themselves. They spread in pairs across the known world and devoted their lives to spreading the love of God and serving others. In continuing to carry out this calling from God, environmentalism ought to be at the forefront of the Christian mind.

When I reflect on places I have seen — the beauty and the suffering — I cannot help but feel deeply compelled to action, and vividly aware of my own inaction.

I felt it boarding the plane in New Zealand to leave behind the most wild, ruggedly beautiful place I have ever seen, and I felt it boarding the bus in inner-city Los Angeles, watching the beating heart of environmental injustice pass by my window.

As I look ahead to the rest of my life, I am determined to turn this desire into action — a lifelong dedication to protecting the most beautiful places on earth, and to helping those suffering the devastating effects of environmental degradation.

My Christian faith asks nothing less.