Richard Littledale's
Views on the News: May 2006

How green is God?

Many years ago, though I am now a self-confessed advertising junkie, I used to hide from one particular television advert. It featured a Green Giant advertising tinned peas. Although he was reputedly a 'jolly' giant, I found his size, his weird green flesh and his booming voice distinctly unnerving. I am pleased to say that I am now healed of this particular aversion!

However, there are many Christians who would be just as unnerved by a green God, jolly or otherwise. The green agenda, we feel, is something that belongs to other people, and not to us. Chernobyl may still be a toxic and oozing sarcophagus, Iran may still be arguing with the rest of the world over its rights to nuclear technology, and politicians may still be vying with each other to prove their green credentials. As Christians, though, our agenda remains firmly spiritual. The only kind of waste we care about is the waste of lives without Christ, and recycling touches the church only when old sermons are recycled in the pulpit!

It is not hard to trace where this attitude has come from. As soon as Eden was over, it gave rise to a longing for a promised land. Once the dream of the promised land had turned sour the prophets talked of a perfect kingdom. Jesus then took up the shout, with promise of a new world to follow this one, and later New Testament writers urged us tolerate the inadequacies and cruelty of this world because another one was on it way. All this has led to two major outcomes for Christians. On the one hand they are largely immune to apocalyptic scaremongering - after all, the world has got to end some time. On the other hand, it has often given them a cavalier attitude to the created world, and they have unthinkingly participated in the wanton rape of the earth's resources.

Meanwhile, Biblical clues abound that God cares for this fallen world, even when He is fully aware that its time is limited. We see this in the creation descriptions in Job, the Psalms, and even in his injunction to Jonah to care for Nineveh because it has 120,000 inhabitants 'and many cattle'. God models the kind of attitude which maintains a spiritual priority without rejecting the need for temporal compassion. Do his followers take the lead from him in this, I wonder?

What does your lifestyle say about your concern for the created handiwork of God? Does the contents of your dustbin reflect your attempt at 'responsible earthkeeping? Is your personal transport policy distinctly Christian?

Please send your practical tips on Christian earthkeeping to Views.