The Season of Creation 2025 is upon us starting 1 September!

What is this season of Creation about? From 1 Sep to 4 Oct this year, churches worldwide come together to pray and celebrate the Creator God Almighty Himself, along with the rest of Creation that He so generously blessed the world with. More importantly, this season emphasizes the need for Creation Care – the original mandate that God has bestowed upon mankind since ancient times.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. (Gen 2:15 NRSVUE)

What is Creation Care?

As a very broad generalization, Christians are principally concerned with matters related to human salvation, adherence to God’s Word and proper community as a body of Christ. All of these are indeed good to have, and they form an essential part of any believer’s life.

At the same time, all the above matters are primarily centered around the human experience. Yet, God is not just the Lord of Mankind – He is the Lord of all things. The bacteria on your skin. The birds in the sky. The free-roaming primates in the forest. All life in the ocean. Every natural and artificial system on Earth and its inhabitants, big or small, are in the Lord’s hands. The natural world is under the care of the Lord, just as we are.

As we make our homes on Earth, we too share this living space with other creatures of the natural world. God has provided us with the resources we need to flourish as a species through the world’s resources, biodiversity and ecosystems. The Old Testament is full of tales of God’s hand of provision to His people through the land and nature. Yet, more often than not, humanity has not exercised due care in stewarding these provisions wisely to glorify God and to care for the future generations. Instead, we have enslaved the natural order to meet our needs, often at the expense of biodiversity, healthy ecosystems and even of one another.

The theology of Creation Care strives to course-correct us away from this path of destruction. While Creation Care covers a multitude of topics as broad as life itself, several principles are often emphasized:

• The need to reclaim our original mandate to be proper stewards of the Earth (see Gen 2:15 above)
• Repairing our relationship with the rest of Creation – in particular the natural world – to be one that is free from exploitation
• Restoring and respecting ecosystems, biodiversity and all other natural life on Earth, which includes and goes beyond humanity
• Doing all of the above as an expression of living up to the gospel’s ultimate demands to love God and love one another

He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40 NRSVUE)

Why should Christians care? Sounds like woke-environmentalism to me…

There are several key similarities and differences between Creation Care (a theological concept) versus environmentalism (an activist movement). For one, the most distinguishing factor lies in motives – we Christians should care for Creation because we seek to please our Heavenly Father who reigns over all Creation; and caring for Creation goes hand-in-hand with living up to the callings of the gospel (more on this later).

Meanwhile, environmentalism is a philosophy and a social movement that seeks to protect the environment because of its intrinsic value and its utility for us and future generations. Putting aside the clear lack of a God-centric perspective, there exists considerable overlap in the approaches and perspectives taken by both groups. Christians too desire preserving our environment for similar reasons – because wildlife is deemed valuable and proper environmental stewardship gives us the resources to fuel society’s process. Nevertheless, Christians hold on to a higher purpose in doing these things – to please the Highest of all beings, the Lord God.

The Creation Care movement has garnered significant traction over the past decade, facilitated by major leaders of the faith such as the late Pope Francis and Pope Leo. Yet, opposition remains abound in fringe Christian circles who continue to reject environmentalism violently, throwing Creation Care out along with it. Worse still, some fundamentals who look forward to the end times even welcome such drastic alterations to the world’s climate as a sign of the Lord’s return. The sheer insanity of it…

Barring the fringe opinions, while it is heartening to see how more believers are on board with Creation Care, mild forms of opposition remain everywhere. Within my community and from online spaces, I hear two common justifications for refusing to embrace Creation Care. Here’s why I think they are deeply flawed.

Claim 1: Christians should be devoting their time and energies towards spreading the gospel and saving souls instead of Creation Care

Firstly, this claim presupposes that there is a zero-sum game at work here, as though Christians do one at the cost of another. To me, this is nonsense.

Going back to the two greatest commandments, we are called to love God and love people. With respect to the latter, there exists a plethora of teachings within the gospels on the need to care and provide for the least of us such as the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), the Parable of the Sheep and Goats (Matthew 25:31-46) and the antithesis of Luke 6 (Luke 6:20-26). Among these teachings, the former emphasizes who our neighbors are. Our neighbors transcend backgrounds, hierarchies and social status, and we are called to care for those both close to us and far away from us (both socially and literally). This is also consistent with the Torah given to Israelites to show hospitality and kindness to the aliens of the land (Exodus 22:21), even though they might be outsiders.

““Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.” (Luke 10:36-37 NRSVUE)

You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. (Exodus 22:21 NRSVUE)

For anyone who has taken an introductory class in environmental science/sustainability, it is abundantly clear how our comfortable modern lifestyles today come at a hefty price. The devices we use to doom scroll use precious metals mined by slave labor. The natural diamonds on our rings that we use to propose and declare our love to each other at the altar are called blood diamonds for a reason. Our carbon footprint from eating meat has led to rising sea levels, slowly drowning out coastal nations literally. There is no free lunch in this world – for you to enjoy it, someone else paid the price to make it. And very often, that cost is inhumane and costly. Christians should be striving to minimize that cost whenever possible, if not eliminate it altogether. More seriously, believers who continue to deny or even perpetrate these events will be held accountable to God and risk His judgement.

“‘Cursed be anyone who deprives an alien, an orphan, or a widow of justice.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen!’ (Deut 27:19 NRSVUE)

The way I like to remind myself and inform other believers of the need to consider the impacts of our lifestyles is this: “You can’t preach the gospel to a nation that is six feet underwater”. Evangelizing goes hand-in-hand with meeting the basic needs of our neighbors, whoever and wherever they may be. There is hypocrisy in spreading the gospel while perpetrating the exploitation of the unseen through one’s lifestyle choices.

Claim 2: The end is near, so why bother?

This one gets under my skin. Consider this – doctors save patients’ lives despite knowing we will all die in our mortal shell one day. Does that mean there is no value in saving their lives in the present?

Of course not.

Classically, Christian Care theology emphasizes the need for Christians to adopt a proper eschatological outlook. The world is not going to be annihilated, nor Christians are going to be given an express elevator ride up to the clouds when the end times come. No, the renewal of Creation is happening right now, and it will happen on the very same Earth that God created, and we stand on today.

My take is slightly different. In my humble opinion, the eschatological outlook does not matter. So what if this world is going to be vaporized, or if heaven is elsewhere beyond Earth, or if the new Creation is on Earth? We still live in it today, and the suffering of our brothers and sisters driven by our apathetic lack of environmental stewardship persists as we speak. In East Asia and the Pacific, over a hundred children die daily due to air pollution. Over 70% of the global workforce is now vulnerable to extreme heat, making work itself a risky endeavor for many. Yet, there remain believers who stubbornly choose to gloss over such suffering by telling themselves that the end times are near and saving souls is the only thing that matters. Such spiritual escapism tendencies are inexcusable in light of Jesus’s practical teachings found in the gospels of Luke and Matthew.

The urgency of Creation Care in the modern era

One does not need to be a tree hugger, or a hardcore lover of nature to embrace Creation Care. Creation Care involves the caring of Creation that surrounds us all, regardless of ethnicity or borders. Intrinsically, this means all of us are active participants and stewards of Creation, like it or not.

One also does not need to be a pastor or a church leader committed to launching a new ministry in order to practice Creation Care. While it is true that finding the most effective way to care for Creation is itself a complex issue, it is also true that the individual has the capacity to contribute to better stewardship of Creation in small ways. These small ways include scaling back our consumeristic ways, donating to environmental protection efforts and staying informed of local biodiversity and environmental challenges. There is no universal obligation for the average person to seek out some grandiose, catch-all solution to curb major environmental problems (though for those with the talents, the world could really use your help!). Rather, what we need in the environmental space are billions of people taking incremental steps to change their lifestyles.

Coincidentally, there are at least two billion Christians in the world today, all united by the same Creator, our Heavenly Father. If each of us actually slowed down to reflect on our relationship with the rest of Creation and took steps to make wiser choices in our daily lives, a billion imperfect efforts can cumulatively result in great change and restoration. As the Lord once taught “Thy will be done in Earth, as it is in Heaven”, may we use this season to engage meaningfully with the Lord to participate in His marvelous works of restoring Creation and reclaim our original mandate to be holy stewards of the Earth.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10 NRSVUE)

All the earth worships you; they sing praises to you, sing praises to your name.” Selah (Psalm 66:4)