Environment

[W]e cannot really solve the problem of our world’s injustices by merely giving a little more of our surplus to fight hunger. More deeply, we need to be freed from our reliance on material consumption...

I am convinced that the scourge of our scientific and technological age is depersonalization. There is a heartbeat pulsating at the center of the universe, giving life and meaning to everything, but o...

Gracious God, you tend to the earth as your vineyard, longing for it to bring fruit. You want our society and our lives to look more and more like the Kingdom of Heaven. We work against your plans, so...

Let us pray. Almighty, powerful, creator God So often we think we know best. We confess to you our sin alongside the sin of all humanity. We have tried to master creation rather than care for it. We ...

Shepherd of Israel, God of hosts, we have turned away from you, neglecting the welfare of your creation, ignoring the plight of your people, trampling on the creatures and the plants you have made, t...

Deacon or other leader Let us pray for the Church and for the world. Grant, Almighty God, that all who confess your Name may be united in your truth, live together in your love, and reveal your glo...

There is no escaping the need to manage nature. The best we can do is to observe the following rule: So manage nature as to minimize the need to manage nature. . . . We are destined to work our way ac...

Jan Boersema has argued that even one of the icons of environmental catastrophe, the “collapse” of civilization on Easter Island, was probably not nearly so abrupt or catastrophic as many assume. It i...

The loss of furry mammals captures the public eye. The extinction of another few dozen beetle species—quite possibly not yet even known or cataloged—may not. Yet such losses may be equally troubling f...

Water is an essential requirement for any form of life. The earth is blessed with huge volumes of water at the surface, which is one of the main reasons why it is habitable. Seventy percent of the ear...

No one likes to talk about human population. Christians in particular are rightly wary of the ways in which population discussions have sometimes served to denigrate the value of human life and the bl...

Increasing urbanization also means that the capacity for a single disaster such as an earthquake or flood to affect a huge and growing number of people is now vastly increased, even compared to a cent...

What we call “nature” isn’t the same nature our great-grandparents knew. Even if they lived as far south as Baltimore, they could cut eighteen-inch blocks of ice off ponds in the winter to cool their ...

I once heard a description of what meals are like in heaven. The saints are seated on either side of a four-foot-wide banquet table. The table is set with delicious foods on every plate. The only thin...

In 1995, the gray wolf was reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park after a seventy-year hiatus. Scientists expected an ecological ripple effect, but the size and scope of the trophic cascade took th...

Ironically, the best way to develop an attitude of responsibility toward the future is to cultivate a sense of responsibility toward the past. … We are born into a world that we didn’t make, and it is...

In a famous Earth Day 1971 Pogo comic strip by Walt Kelly, the titular Pogo and his companion Porkypine are enjoying nature when they come upon a clearing filled with trash. Pogo says the iconic line,...

But could you imagine how valuable it would be to be able to change people’s thoughts, actions, behaviors across a whole host of areas from one to another? This is precisely the question Dan and Chip...

A wrong attitude toward nature implies, somewhere, a wrong attitude toward God.

Good farmers, who take seriously their duties as stewards of Creation and of their land's inheritors, contribute to the welfare of society in more ways than society usually acknowledges, or even k...

Nothing is more precious than teeming, overabundant resource-destroying human life. (For humor/contrast)