{"id":96,"date":"2012-04-22T06:05:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-22T06:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2012\/04\/earth-day-2012-why-christians-are-obligated-to-care-for-the-earth\/"},"modified":"2012-04-22T06:05:00","modified_gmt":"2012-04-22T06:05:00","slug":"earth-day-2012-why-christians-are-obligated-to-care-for-the-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2012\/04\/earth-day-2012-why-christians-are-obligated-to-care-for-the-earth.html","title":{"rendered":"Earth Day 2012 – Why Christians are Obligated to Care for the Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
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Today is Earth Day \u2013 or as most evangelicals call it \u2013 Sunday.<\/div>\n
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Part of the baggage that was imported into evangelicalism through dispensationalism is a low view of creation. It\u2019s going to burn anyway, so why care about the earth, right? Wrong\u2026 here\u2019s an excerpt from An Evangelical Social Gospel?<\/a><\/i>\u00a0(a great Earth Day gift \u2013 btw), which alludes to our responsibility to care for the earth. Happy Earth Day!<\/div>\n
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\u201cThis relational view of the image of God finds great support within the early chapters of Genesis. Here we find God\u2019s vision for human voca\u00adtion. First, the Triune God says, \u201cLet us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion.\u201d <\/span>That\u2019s how it starts. Humanity comes from the community of the God-head, and is endowed with some sort of privileged status over the rest of creation. Humans are to have a limited amount of power to rule creation as God\u2019s representative creatures. Second, God says, \u201cBe fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.\u201d <\/span>To be fruitful and multiply connotes a co-creative function. We\u2019ve been created with the potential to be co-creators with God. We can make stuff. We can even make more people. It seems to be God\u2019s desire that humanity should take this creative power everywhere we can go. We must fill the earth and bring it under our dominion. Third, we are told in the next chapter God has put humans in the garden \u201cto till it and keep it.\u201d Our vocation isn\u2019t just to rule over creation, but to keep it and care for it. We are stewards of creation. We should work with the earth and help it to bear the fruit that sustains life. We should not exploit the earth and its resources, but we should protect it and be its keeper. According to Genesis our vocation as human beings is threefold: we are to be fruitful and multiply; we are to fill the earth and subdue it by exer\u00adcising dominion over it; we are to till the earth and keep it. These three concepts constitute the seedbed for a biblical view of human vocation.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is Earth Day \u2013 or as most evangelicals call it \u2013 Sunday. Part of the baggage that was imported into evangelicalism through dispensationalism is a low view of creation. It\u2019s going to burn anyway, so why care about the earth, right? Wrong\u2026 here\u2019s an excerpt from An Evangelical Social Gospel?\u00a0(a great Earth Day gift […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nEarth Day 2012 - Why Christians are Obligated to Care for the Earth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Today is Earth Day \u2013 or as most evangelicals call it \u2013 Sunday.Part of the baggage that was imported into evangelicalism through dispensationalism is a low\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2012\/04\/earth-day-2012-why-christians-are-obligated-to-care-for-the-earth.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Earth Day 2012 - 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