Creation Care and Christianity

The Heavenly Banquet

In this episode Charlotte Elia and Chad Rhodes discuss creation care. Why have so many Christian absolved themselves from the dominion mandate or chosen to interpret it in a destructive way? What's lost in relationship to the faith when parts of creation are marred or destroyed? And why aren't we in constant lament for the destruction of our planet?

Charlotte: Just the idea that creation is a reflection of the Creator… It just has to be. I mean, we think about that with art and other things. You know, like, this is an expression of somebody’s personality, of somebody’s mind, right? And you want, of our great artists and musicians, you want the fullest expression of their art to understand that person and to understand their art in context. There’s this kind of skepticism, on one hand, around that saying, “Oh, no, then you’re worshipping creation,” or something. I think we’re all smart enough to distinguish between the two, but there is something all around us that’s reflecting the Creator’s mind, the Creator’s face, within everything because that’s who made it! That’s just almost too simplistic, but destroying any piece of that is destroying part of the reflection. It’s primary source material that we’re throwing out because it’s inconvenient or somehow not worth saving, but it’s God’s handiwork.