April 22 was Earth Day.
Earth Day was born in 1970, and the movement still claims to retain its purpose of promoting climate and environmental literacy. The Earth Day Network takes credit for most legislation designed to protect the environment and endangered species. Most of that legislation is sound and depicts a genuine stewardship of the environment. The problem arises when we forget there is a thin line between protecting the environment and worshiping the environment.
And in the absence of a sound biblical theology of creation, it is tough to tell the difference.
The lack of a biblical theology to govern environmental agendas is leading environmentalists to a twisted conclusion: Not only does the earth have rights, the earth has the same rights as people and should be accorded the status of Personhood.
This movement, called a Rights of Nature movement, is proliferating across the globe and is especially taking hold in countries whose dominant religion does not clearly distinguish between the Creator and the creation.
According to World Magazine, “New Zealand’s parliament recently granted legal personhood to the Whanganui River. Four days later, the High Court in India declared the rivers Ganga and Yamuna are living entities. Now two glaciers in the Himalayan region that feed the Indian rivers, as well as nearby forests, lakes, meadows, and other natural features, have joined this special class of legally protected persons.” As a result, “the rivers’ and glaciers’ rights are equivalent to the rights of human beings, and any harm caused to them will be considered harm to an individual. The rivers and glaciers now have court-appointed legal guardians—and they have the right to sue.”
Imagine that. Sued by a river.
But before you snub your nose at this lack of perspective and attribute it to less advanced nations, consider that World also reports that the same “Rights of Nature laws have been incorporated by more than 30 cities and municipalities in the United States.”
What should be our take on this as Christians? Should nature have the same “rights” as people?
I think the Rights of Nature movement reminds us of five truths tied tightly to a biblical worldview:
First, the most basic, fundamental truth of the Bible is that there is a Creator and everything else is created. Including us. (Gen. 1:1). This is a necessary belief (Heb. 11:3) because what we believe about our Creator determines what we believe about everything else.
Second, only the Creator should be worshipped. And to elevate the creation to a higher status than the Creator is the worst of sin (Rom. 1:25).
Third, the blurring of the lines between Creator and creation will lead, inevitably, to the failure to be who God created us to be and the failure to treat nature appropriately (Gen. 1:26). As soon as we elevate nature to a greater status than God intended, we have demoted ourselves to less than God created us to be.
And fourth, our grasp of who people are, as God’s creation, determines how we treat one another (Malachi 2:10).
So last, efforts to elevate nature to the status of personhood remind us that we have a responsibility of stewardship, given to us by the Creator at the outset (Gen. 2:15). We should be leading the charge in a healthy, biblical stewardship of the environment.
Could it be that the advance of a movement that confers on nature the rights of humanity is not so much a demonstration of that movement’s ignorance as it is a reflection of our failure to promote a solid and sound biblical worldview?