The spiritual roots of the environmental crisis
The environmental crisis is an overwhelming problem to tackle. Biodiversity loss, the reliance on single-use plastics and fossil fuels, global food scarcity, the rising temperature of the planet - solving each of these will require a long list of structural, cultural, individual and corporate changes
Their roots, however, are common. Gus Speth, previous Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, once said,
"I used to think that the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change… I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy, and to deal with these we need a cultural and spiritual transformation."
Speth recognizes that environmental issues don’t just need scientific solutions. There are formational issues in the ways that we currently think and act that impact the earth. These spiritual problems of selfishness, greed and apathy at the root of the environmental crisis need to be addressed spiritually.
We must then be spiritually formed into new ways, inviting the Spirit to work in and through our worldviews, relationships and habits. One way is through practising care of creation, which not only helps us to engage in the practical environmental work we are given in the earliest passages of the Bible (Gen 2:15), but also spiritually re-forms us in direct ways that counter those spiritual problems:
Selfishness turns to Selflessness
Greed turns to Abundance
Apathy turns to Action
But first, let’s ask:
Are we spiritually formed by caring for creation?
It’s helpful to be on the same page about what spiritual formation is. Formation, more generally, is the ways we are becoming: our hearts, our minds, our habits, shaped by culture, people, what we do - everything around us. Spiritual formation then is the formation of our hearts, minds and lives, by the Holy Spirit, towards the goal of becoming more and more like Jesus.
It should come then as no surprise that creation care is spiritually formational, as we meet the Holy Spirit who is intrinsically present in creation: the source of all life, working to redeem and liberate. When we meet the Spirit through the people we minister to, we are changed. The same thing happens when we minister to creation. The Spirit, as we care for creation, invites us to examine and reform our desires, and pulls us toward our intended purpose in creation, as priests and stewards and representatives.
Selfishness turns to Selflessness
Caring for creation is a gradual death-to-self.
Stewarding the earth involves submitting to the purpose given to humanity by God, outlined in scripture, and for the world. We lay down our desire for more by living simply. We lay down our desire for ease by choosing to travel lightly. We lay down our desire to hoard by picking the more expensive but better-for-the-planet option.
Submitting to God’s desire for us to cultivate creation forms in us the ways of sacrifice, the value of creation, and worldview less based around “me”. We learn to be like Christ in his sacrifice for his creation: we learn selflessness.
"In submission we are at last free to value other people... to give up our own rights for the good of others." - Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline
Greed turns to Abundance
Caring for creation brings freedom from materialism.
Simplicity is a huge part of caring for creation. Living simply brings freedom from the inclinations toward lies, power or status, meanness, showing off, and anxiety. It curbs impulsivity and reorients our desire for more. Over-attachment, when we elevate our desire for more belongings over our desire for God, is lost. Instead, proper relation to material goods is formed.
We are therefore formed into a mindset of abundance. Caring for creation reminds us of our shared dependence on God for provision. Through practising simplicity and other creation care practices, we learn what is ‘enough’ - that which ensures provision for the whole of the creation community. We experience God as provider, with what we are provided with as gift. Our greed is replaced with contentment in the abundance of God’s gifts to us.
“Consumerism makes us think we need more and more, creating a continual dissatisfaction… contentment comes from being secure in the knowledge that money and possessions are not the focus of our lives” - Ruth Valerio, L is for Lifestyle
Apathy turns to Action
Failing to care for creation deforms us.
We see multiple places in the Bible where environmental breakdown comes from sin, such as in the prophetic passages like Isaiah 24:4-6. Today, we see that same dynamic, between the idolatry of corporate greed and individual self-centredness, that fuels a consumerist culture and ultimately, environmental breakdown. Ignoring or contributing to climate breakdown clearly harms the earth, but more than that, it grieves the Spirit.
When our desires and actions are aligned with God, creation should flourish. Caring for creation is alignment with God’s purposes; it is simply the right and just thing to do.
“When the environment is sick due to human malfeasance, it tells us that we are not right with God." -Steven M. Studebaker, From Pentecost to the Triune God
I have seen the same selfishness, greed and apathy that Speth identified as the roots of the environmental crisis in my own heart and actions, and I know that this has influenced my care of creation. It is so easy to buy a new piece of clothing without researching the company’s environmental impact, for example. Maybe you have seen this in you too.
Even so, the hope of being re-formed by the Spirit, of the possibility of creation flourishing as we care and through our care, is a beautiful invitation. Both we and creation are formed as we tend the earth. This work of the Spirit is not yet finished.
Want to keep exploring the practice of creation care as part of our spiritual formation? The Justice Practices Course dives deep into how we are formed by the practices of justice, such as Living Simply. The course can be run in your church small group or with friends, or join a local Hub and see when they are next running it!
This blog was adapted from an essay addressing the question, “In what ways does the care of creation contribute to our own spiritual formation?”, written by Hannah Simpson.