The False Religion of Environmentalism
Two articles were published in Time Magazine around Earth Day that proposed a new kind of belief system and a new savior. The proposed belief system and savior are not new. What is new, is the sense that this belief system and “savior” would bring about the desired outcome of a healed, climate neutral planet for us humans to live on. In case you don’t believe me, the first article is titled “The Case For Making Earth Day a Religious Holiday,” written by Paul Greenberg and Carl Safina, who both hold PhDs. The other article is titled “Animals Can Save Us - If We Let Them,” written by Keggie Carew an “award-winning nature writer.” And before you laugh it off, as if these two articles don’t mean anything, remember where these articles are published.
Time Magazine isn’t a fringe magazine. According to the Time’s own Media Kit, they reach 105 million readers worldwide and those readers tend to be the college educated, or the more affluent amongst the population. In addition, their overarching theme for 2023 is “interconnected challenges, from climate and public health to democracy and equality,” with a central theme that begins with “the most existential of challenges: climate change.” These two articles aren’t meant to be “fringe” or even random proposals or thoughts, they are meant to become a part of the mainstream discourse.
To sum up the main points of both articles, people should worship the earth with holidays, community, and an official book that “make nature central to our belief system . . . serving as regular reminders of what we owe our home planet” and in this nature-centered belief system, to no surprise, it would be the animals that become our saviors! It really isn’t complicated stuff and if you haven’t been living under a rock, you’d realize that a lot of the climate change/warming/crisis rhetoric has already included a number of these elements, they’ve now just been written out and stated clearly for us to see.
Christians, who have a strong understanding of God and his word, should instantly find this proposal absurd, but they also shouldn’t be shocked. We don’t need to worship creation - the planet - and we don’t need animals to become our new savior. But I know, unfortunately, that many Christians don’t have a strong understanding of God or his word and as a result, will be easily persuaded by such proposals. Because, didn’t God create this place for us to love it and care for it? Shouldn’t we love the animals so much, that we let them save us? The problem here isn’t the care for the environment or animals, the problem is the shift away from Gods truth.
In 2022, Time Magazine published an article that highlighted the contradiction between Christians and the political narrative of climate change. According to the article, Christians believe in protecting the earth, but they don’t believe that people cause climate change. They draw the conclusion that climate change isn’t a typical conversation among congregations and, because of this, aren’t as concerned about the dangers of climate change as others. My point is, they tell us flat out that the Christian worldview goes against their worldview. Their worldview is that humans are very important, but should humble themselves to animals and the planet, if they want to live. Christians, on the other hand, believe that God is in control and that our obligation is to care for God’s creation, specifically humans. Does this mean that Christians shouldn’t care about the environment or animals? Or that we can do whatever we want without any care about the consequences? Absolutely not. So lets break down why the Christian worldview is better for the environment, but more importantly humans, and how the proposed religion of environmentalism would be destructive.
Fear and Control
The proposed religion of environmentalism, although offering a nice image of eating food and showing gratitude to the earth and the animals that inhabit it, leaves everything up to humans and “mother nature.” This means that humans may feel like they are in control, until something unpredictable - like an earthquake, volcano, landslide, flood, etc. - happens. When one worships the earth, they are at the whims of the earth. We all know that humans, despite some of our best efforts, still die as a result of natural disasters. When the earth is the center of our worship, will we then view the earth as evil for taking the lives of the lives it sustains? Or is the earth allowed to do as it pleases with humans without being deemed immoral? The point I am trying to make, is that we humans love to feel like we are in control. That we can predict the future. So if we decide to start worshiping the earth, and we think that our worship of the earth should bring about reversals in climate change issues, such as the rise in CO2, what are humans to do if it doesn’t?
The worship of the planet, according to Greenberg and Safina, doesn’t stop at worship and religious holidays. It also should impact a couple’s decisions in marriage. Particularly the decision to have children, which is a “burden” to the planet. In other words, our human existence is a burden to the earth, that we are to worship, despite the author’s suggestion that we should celebrate “the living world that makes human life . . . possible.” If we are a burden to the earth, why has it made our existence possible? Why wouldn’t it end our existence, if it is such a burden to it? Are we supposed to show gratitude in the form of thanking the earth for not taking our lives, and that’s it? I don’t see anything but the false belief that humans are in control and the fear of the unpredictability of the earth that is behind this “earth-reverent belief system.”
Now Christians believe, and are told numerous times and in different ways throughout scripture, that God is in control. Scripture makes it clear that God is sovereign over all things, including the weather.
“While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, day and night, shall not cease.”
— Genesis 8:22 ESV
“Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
He made the storm be still,
and the waves of the sea were hushed.”
— Psalms 107: 26-30 ESV
We are also commanded in the Bible “over 365 times” to not be afraid.
“Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. ”
— Matthew 6: 31-33 ESV
We don’t need to worship the earth, which God created, because the creator of the earth is the reason we have the earth in the first place. It is Him that we should show our gratitude towards, because He controls all things and ensures that our needs are fulfilled. Does this mean that all good things will happen to us at all times? No, because God doesn’t control our every move and thought we individuals make; he provides for us - he sustains us. And humans aren’t good - that is why the environment is in the condition it is, because of our human nature. We destroy when we are left to our own devices. This is why, when a culture loses sight of the true God, they find other things to worship (like the earth). The fact that God is in control and commands us to not be afraid alleviates the need for our anxiety and fear about the future. Both our own personal futures and the future of the planet. God created this planet, just like he created us. The reason it is so perfect for us, is because of the one who created it. We have a place that provides us with everything we could need, because of Him. We shouldn’t be thankful to the earth for being perfect for us, when the earth didn’t create itself, we should be thankful to God for creating the perfect home for us.
“The heavens are the Lord’s heavens,
but the earth he has given to the children of man.”
— Psalm 115:16-17 ESV
Christians know where everything came from and who is in control. Greenberg and Safina, in their push for a religion that centers around worshiping the earth, highlight that “we still don’t really know how nothing became something and formed a universe in which random pulses of energy and matter coalesced into beings writing op eds.” In other words, they want to worship something that they aren’t even sure how it came into being. Through faith, Christians understand how the earth, humans themselves, and animals came into being. This faith is a confident trust in God who is all-powerful, infinitely wise, and eternally trustworthy; who has revealed himself in his word and in the person of Jesus Christ; whose promises have proven true from generation to generation, and who will never leave or forsake us. It is not a blind trust in the face of contradictory evidence or a vague hope grounded in the imaginary, wishful thinking of a “leap in the dark.” Faith in the unseen realities of God provides confidence and assurance to all who receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. We can be confident that God created us and the earth, because it is the truth.
“By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”
— Hebrews 11:3 ESV
In addition, scripture often speaks about our human doubts. We tend to lose our faith in God, because we don’t physically see Him or His works. This leads us to doubt God and to doubt that He actually created everything. In other words, we lose faith. We respond by turning our tendencies of religion to worship the things of this world, including the earth, because they are things we see and think we understand. One powerful example of God rebuking human doubt is in the book of Job. God speaks directly to Job, because Job was drawing conclusions about what his personal suffering meant and his conclusions did not account sufficiently for what was hidden in the knowledge and purposes of God. In other words, we tend to ascribe an understanding of the creator based on what we see in the world, and ourselves. This is insufficient, because God is in everything both seen and unseen. Yes, it does take faith to believe God created everything and is all-knowing, but it would also take faith to believe that worshiping the earth will bring an end to the “climate crisis.” Lastly, none of us were there at the beginning of creation and none of us knows everything about this earth and the universe. This is a humble reminder that despite our human arrogance - thinking we are all-knowing and all-powerful - we aren’t. And, honestly, we never will be.
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements - surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
on what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone,
when the morning stars sang together
and all the sons of God shouted for Joy?
[. . .]
Have you entered into the springs of the sea,
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
Have the gates of death been revealed to you,
or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?
Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?
Declare, if you know all this.”
— Job 38: 4-7, 16-18 ESV
God is control and there is nothing to fear. Let us thank Him for this wonderful planet He created for us, for the animals and plants He filled this earth with, and for caring so much about us that He makes sure all our needs are met. It is the fact that we don’t thank Him for all things, that we have brought about destruction to his creation and to the place we call home.
The Human’s Role
The claim by people like Greenberg and Safina is that humans are not doing enough to make things better for everyone. The push for environmental concern is wrapped in feel-good words that give the impression that they care about future generations. (Yet, as we saw earlier, they’d prefer that there aren’t future generations, because kids put a burden on the planet). According to Carew, in her article about animals saving us, the animals could save us, but only if we save them. The future of the earth and the animals is in our hands, but at the same time we are what created the problem to begin with. We humans are both the problem and the solution, according to many environmentalists such as Carew, Greenberg and Safina. As a result, the solution will never be found if we continue to go to the source that causes the problem.
Christianity, on the other hand, agrees that we humans are the problem. The solution, however, is gratitude and worship of God. As God’s creation, and as we dwell among and in His creation, we are to care for it. The calls by environmentalists to care for the earth ring true to Christians, because God tells us that we are obligated to have dominion over His creation as His stewards. The reason we are given this obligation is because we are made in His image. God cares for His creation. Humans, along with everything else, are His creation. Humans are therefore tasked with tending to what God has made. It is not just for our good but also for God’s glory to care for the earth and all that inhabit it. As a form of worship, we should show the same care and delight in His creation as He does.
To put it simply: God cares for his creation - we are his creation, as well as everything else in the universe - therefore we should care for everything in the universe. As I hope I am making clear, the calls from environmentalists are not wrong - humans do play a role in the state of the earth - it is the conclusions they draw, however, that are misguided. Their solutions don’t put the betterment of all of humanity at the forefront of all of their activism, despite what many environmentalists may believe. Their solutions often put humanity second and earth, animals and nature first. This is a reversal of what God has ordained.
“And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
— Genesis 1:28 ESV
“The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. ”
— Genesis 2:15 ESV
The most important creation of God’s is humans, because we are created in His image (Genesis 1:27). This is hard for environmentalists to hear, because they believe that we humans “ordered the natural world into a hierarchy, a narrowing ladder that climbed, getting warmer and better all the way up to man (and woman one rung below).” Which, if one believes that religion is a human construct, then sure this argument could make sense. But the historical evidence that substantiates the reality of God is hard to deny for someone who actually wants to know the truth (find out for yourself here). Humanity is not the highest rung of an evolutionary ladder that is free to use nature any way we want to for our own benefit. As I already stated, we are to care for nature as God cares for His creation. He deemed it all good and in need of tending, which is where humans came into being. Since God created humans in His image, humans are to put the needs of other humans before the needs of the earth and animals. There is a hierarchal structure: God, the creator of all things, is at the top; humans, created in His image, are second; the rest of creation falls under the care of humans.
“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’”
— Genesis 1:26 ESV
Christians, therefore, as followers of God are to put the needs of humans first. Even when approaching environmental issues. Most policies implemented and proposed by environmentalists don’t improve everyone’s lives. They tend to make access to inexpensive energy difficult to obtain, particularly for the developing nations. Within the United States, the limiting of natural gas - an inexpensive form of energy - has resulted in higher prices of electricity for everyone. This inadvertently affects the poor the most. It puts an unnecessary financial burden on them, when they have already been struggling to afford the things they need. A great book on this exact issue is The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels by Alex Epstein. As Christians, we absolutely should care about the environment and the animals, but we also need to care for the needy and poor. This means that we should be cognitive of the policies that are being pushed and enacted. The polices that are perceived to be good for the environment, but that have negative consequences for the poor, should not be supported by followers of God. The needs of the poor should be put first. Once they are taken care of, even they are more likely to turn their attention to being good stewards of creation. Better stewardship of this earth will follow when we keep things in a biblical balance.
“But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.”
— Hebrews 11:16 ESV
It is natural for Christians and those who claim to be without a religion to want better. To strive for a perfect world here on earth. But biblical balance needs to include the understanding that all humans are sinners. When left to our own devices, we destroy. We are selfish and greedy. A lot of the complaints of environmentalists are not wrong. The real solution to environmental issues, however, is not policies, taxes and more government control. It also isn’t the false worship of the earth and the animals on it. The answer is Jesus Christ. When we turn to him for our salvation - not the animals - we become new through the power of the Holy Spirit, which puts our sin to death. This allows us to walk in a way that pleases the Lord, which includes treating His creation in the way He would treat it. Without Jesus Christ, we are left to our sinful ways of greed and selfishness, because worshiping the earth puts what humans think earth needs first, which as we’ve already discussed is less humans. This may not seem greedy and selfish at first glance, but it is the selfish desire to do what one thinks is pleasing to the earth and it is the “what one thinks” that highlights the humanness of worshiping anything other than God, the creator.
Conclusion
The proposal of a nature-centered belief system shouldn’t be surprising to Christians who have a strong understanding of theology. As stated by Paul in his letter to the Romans, everyone who rejects the true creator worships idols. The idol that Greenberg and Safina worship is earth. Carew worships animals. They “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal being and birds and animals and creeping things . . .. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator” (vv 23, 25 ESV). As I have tried to lay out, it is not wrong to care about the environment and the animals that also share the earth with us. Christians, however, need to do what they can to be good ambassadors of God by helping the poor and needy, supporting policies that protect them, and most importantly - preach the good news of the gospel. It is scripture that teaches us that humans are stewards of creation and are responsible to a higher authority for the way we care for the world around us. We will answer to our Creator for the way we treat his creation and whether we did so in a way that he commands.
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