Stewardship as Creation Care

"As our culture renewed its appreciation for the environment, the Christian church discovered that it had a unique voice to add to the movement. We learned that dominion had more to do with care taking than with exploitation of the created order. We learned that the God whom we serve included animals in the Noahic covenant restricted work for beasts in the Sabbath laws, and forbade the wasteful destruction of trees in the Deuteronomic laws. And we learned that creation waited with us for the time when it would be freed from its bondage to decay. 

The shock wave of the environmental movement was felt in the Christian church most tangibly in a renewed appreciation for the idea of stewardship. We learned that stewardship has as much to do with our natural environment as it does with our personal finances. In particular we learned (or remembered):

1. that the created order reflects the glory of God and has inherent worth independent of our use for or appreciation of it;

2. that we did not create the natural world and we therefore must receive its benefits with humility and gratitude; and

3. that the created order is fragile and that we have a mandate to preserve it and care for it."

Sidewalks in the Kingdom: New Urbanism and the Christian Faith, pp. 67-8