A Judeo-Christian Affirmation on Environmental Stewardship

The following statement, adopted by the Board of Trustees of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, presents the fundamental Jewish and Christian teachings that are the basis for the Partnership’s work.

The cosmos, in all its beauty and life-giving bounty, is the work of our personal and loving Creator.

Our creating God is prior to and other than creation, yet intimately involved with it, upholding all things in relationships of intricate complexity. God is transcendent, while lovingly sustaining each creature; and immanent, while fundamentally other than creation and not to be confused with it.

The Creator lovingly cares for all creatures. God declares all creation "good" (Gen. 1:31), makes a covenant with all creatures (Gen. 9:9-17), and delights in creatures which have no apparent human usefulness (Job 39:1-12)

Created in the very image of God, human beings have a unique relationship to the Creator; at the same time we are creatures, shaped by the same processes and embedded in the same systems of physical, chemical, and biological interconnections which sustain other creatures.

Called to be the Creator's special stewards, human beings have a unique responsibility for the rest of creation. As wise stewards, we are summoned not only to mold creation's bounty into complex civilizations of justice and beauty, but also to sustain creation's fruitfulness and preserve its powerful testimony to its Creator.

We confess that too often we have perverted our stewardly calling, rampaging destructively through creation rather than offering creation and civilization back in praise to the Creator. For this our sin, we repent, gratefully acknowledging that the Creator is also the Redeemer who promises to renew all things. In grateful obedience to this our marvelous God, we resolve to make our homes, our faith communities and our societies centers for creation's care and renewal, healing the damaged fabric of the creation which God entrusted to us.

We make this declaration knowing that until our God restores all things, we are called to be faithful stewards of God's good garden, our earthly home.

Mission Statement

Guided by biblical teaching, the Partnership seeks to encourage people of faith to weave values and programs of care for God's creation throughout the entire fabric of religious life:

• Liturgy, worship and prayer;
• Theological study, the education of future clergy, and of the young;
• The stewardship of our homes, lands and resources;
• Protecting the lives of our communities and health of our children;
• Our social ministry to the poor and vulnerable who have first and preferential claim on our conscience; and
• Bringing the perspectives of moral values and social justice before public policymakers.

We worship and obey our loving God by serving God's good creation in neighborly love and in the assurance of God's covenant "between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations" (Genesis 9:12). Finally, we seek as well to offer and will eagerly discuss the insights of scripture, moral teaching and social values, especially as they have come from sustained social struggle and solidarity with those who have reached fresh freedom to serve the common good.

How the Partnership Understands Its Mission

For the Partnership, care for creation is and must be an authentic expression of deeply-rooted religious faith.

Contemporary environmental problems raise profound questions about the meaning and direction of human life, and about the value and purpose of community of life that surrounds and sustains us. Humankind must better understand its role in the greater web of life. Reversing the accelerating destruction of habitat requires a transformation of heart and spirit. These are the perennial concerns of religion.

And so it is that, in recent years, persons and communities of faith have stepped up their engagement in the struggle to protect our earthly home. But although they have often worked alongside members of the broader environmental community toward common goals, they do so with a difference.

People of faith act on behalf of the environment not only out of practical concerns for survival or appreciation for the beauty of the natural world, but on the basis of their love for the Creator and for the whole human family. Theirs is a response to present-day problems and concerns that is grounded in the wisdom of longstanding religious values and teachings.

For them, right relationship with the natural world cannot be realized apart from justice — right relationships within the human community. The “environment” is the whole community of life, and the uniqueness of the human presence is integral to it. A healthy human ecology, then, is essential to a healthy planetary ecology. Our cities, as much as our rural areas and wildlands, need care and restoration if this world is to properly reflect the love and wisdom of the Spirit that gives life to the whole creation. Human intelligence and creativity, working in harmony with the divine ordering of creation, is something to be celebrated and affirmed.

Furthermore, for people of faith, there is always an element of wonder and delight at the glory and majesty of the Creator’s handiwork that still shines within a broken and battered world. Such joy never obscures the seriousness of our ecological situation, but provides a necessary counterpoint to concern. People of faith labor in the power of a hope that enables them to carry on, even in the face of daunting obstacles to ecological integrity and justice.

Growing as it does out of the core affirmations of Jewish and Christian faith — the love of God and the love of neighbor — care for the environment rightly permeates the whole fabric of religious life. It belongs in a congregation’s worship, education, landscaping and architecture, daily operations and service to the wider community, as well as its participation in discussions of public policy. Accordingly, creation care is not limited to being a function of a particular office within a denominational structure or of a specifically “environmental” religious organization. In colleges and seminaries, hospitals and relief and development agencies, rural and urban ministries — wherever the work of the Creator is honored and the human need for the life-sustaining gifts of the earth are met with intelligence and foresight, creation care happens.

Finally, this work proceeds best when each religious community is allowed to be itself — to draw on its own unique traditions and resources, to find the appropriate points of entry for its own members, to set its own agenda and develop its own programs. Cooperation among faith communities is most effective when each partner brings the strength of its own identity and purpose in pursuit of a common end.

How the Partnership Carries Out Its Mission

The National Religious Partnership for the Environment calls upon multiple resources carry out this mission:

• Judeo-Christian teachings and traditions from scripture, theology, ethics, and education.

• Social thought to amplify a vision of environmental sustainability and justice with religious and moral perspectives, in addition to those of science and economics.

• Diverse communities of faith to encourage efforts across racial, ethnic, gender, economic, political, and cultural boundaries.

• Many thousands of congregations through which to encourage worship, study, ecologically sustainable practice, and community-based initiative.

• Public policy agencies and networks to facilitate discussion of legislative and executive action.

• Communications outlets to offer perspectives in the language of faith and values.

• Educational institutions to instruct the young and adults, present and future clergy, and lay leaders.

• Capacity to convene diverse sectors of society in cooperation for the common good.

• Historic ability to awaken and sustain dedicated citizen action undergirded by principles of faith and devotion to God.

• Potential to offer a comprehensive vision of human place and purpose equal to the deepest causes of the environmental challenge.