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	<em><img alt="" src="{filedir_5}Restoration-Ecology-Celebration-200pxl.jpg" style="width: 200px; height: 150px; float: right;" /><em>On January 31st, Au Sable will host a &#39;Missionary Earthkeeping&#39; conference to explore the connections with creation care and missions and development work. In connection with the conference, we are publishing the first of four posts by Dr. David Warners, Professor of Biology at Calvin College, on a framework for thinking about Christian environmental stewardship and its relationship to development. In Part 1, Warners explored&nbsp;<a href="/news_and_resources/blog/the_five_themes_of_stewardship_by_david_warners#.UQi4-Sf7KuI">five themes of Christian environmental stewardship</a>. In Part 2, Warners explores five principles that should guide our role as stewards of God&#39;s creation. On right, Warners celebrates the completion of a restoration project with his &#39;Restoration Ecology&#39; students.</em></em></p>
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	To begin to elucidate some guidelines regarding how we should undertake our responsibility as stewards, I will identify five principles of creation care that emerge from the scriptures.</p>
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	The first principle to keep before us is the recognition that God intends for his creation to flourish. &nbsp;Psalm 24:1 does not read, &ldquo;The earth is the Lord&rsquo;s and the &lsquo;scarcity&rsquo; thereof . . .&rdquo;. &nbsp;No, it is &lsquo;fullness&rsquo; that God intends. &nbsp;His desire is for a flourishing creation, one bursting at the seams with his creatures and their praise for him. &nbsp;Furthermore, the mandate, &ldquo;Be fruitful and increase in number . . .&rdquo; is not only given to human beings (Gen 1:28), but prior to this God uses the same words when he addresses the birds of the air and the fish of the sea on the fifth day of creation (Gen 1:20). &nbsp;God&rsquo;s desire is that creation will be fruitful, that it will flourish and that in so doing, it will be full of his praise. &nbsp;Contrast this image with that described in Hosea, where God&rsquo;s intention for his people and all of his creation is clearly not being met:</p>
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	There is no faithfulness, no love,</p>
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	No acknowledgment of God in the land.</p>
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	There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery;</p>
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	They break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed.</p>
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	Because of this the land mourns, and all who live in it waste away;</p>
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	The beasts of the field and the birds of the air&nbsp;</p>
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	and the fish of the sea are dying. (Hosea 4:1-4)</p>
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	The second guiding principle for how we should care for the creation comes from the first part of the cultural mandate mentioned above: &nbsp;&ldquo;God blessed them and said to them, &ldquo;Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.&rdquo; (Gen 1:28a) &nbsp;The Hebrew word for subdue here is kabash, which means to beat back, to bring under control and to make use of. &nbsp;God&rsquo;s intention is that we will be active participants in the creation, not distant observers of it. &nbsp;Therefore, we are expected to utilize the creation in appropriate ways &ndash; domesticating animals, cultivating crops, cutting trees to use as timber and for making cultural implements. &nbsp;In one sense the fruitful creation is a gift that God provides to us, so that we ourselves will be able to be fruitful and flourish.</p>
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	Yet, this instruction is immediately followed by a third principle of creation care, one that balances our utilization of the creation, &ldquo;Rule over the fish of the sea and birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.&rdquo; (Gen 1:28b). &nbsp;The Hebrew word for rule is radah, a term that connotes a type of ruling in which the subjects being ruled are able to thrive. &nbsp;The specific reference to birds and fish in this passage should call to mind God&rsquo;s desire for birds to fill the skies and fish to fill the seas that is given in Gen. 1:20. &nbsp;So kabash is balanced by radah, meaning we should not utilize the creation to the extent that it prevents proper ruling &ndash; proper thriving of the subjects over which we are ruling. &nbsp;The Lutheran theologian Joseph Sittler perceptively writes:</p>
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	One can rule in many ways. &nbsp;One can rule by &lsquo;careless&rsquo; domination; one can rule by subjecting everything to oneself; one can rule by assuming that everything that isn&rsquo;t oneself is good and has value only as it helps oneself. &nbsp;The first is brutish, the second is arrogant, the third is cynical. &nbsp;That kind of ruling, in the creation as in a family, is a kind of ruling that is catastrophic. &nbsp;It ultimately destroys the ruler.</p>
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	But man is to &lsquo;rule&rsquo; the earth as God&rsquo;s earth, not man&rsquo;s. &nbsp;It is for man, supports man &ndash; but it isn&rsquo;t man&rsquo;s. &nbsp;Man, who didn&rsquo;t make himself, is placed in a garden that he didn&rsquo;t make, and he is commanded to care for that garden so that God&rsquo;s creation may be, so that he himself and his neighbor may be. &nbsp;The command to care is gentle; the results of not caring are violent and fatal. (Evocations of Grace pp 204-5)</p>
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	The fourth and fifth principles of stewardship come from Gen. 2:15: &nbsp;&ldquo;The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend it and take care of it.&rdquo; &nbsp; &nbsp;In Hebrew, &lsquo;to tend&rsquo; comes from the verb, abad. &nbsp;Elsewhere in the Old Testament this same word is translated as &lsquo;to serve&rsquo;, as in Joshua 24:15, &ldquo;But as for me and my household, we will serve (abad) the Lord.&rdquo; &nbsp;This principle builds on the Biblical concept of radah, yet its focus is even more explicitly the welfare of the creation. &nbsp;To serve the creation implies that at times we will be required to set aside our own personal desires and choose instead a behavior that will bring benefit to others (human and non-human).</p>
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	Such a self-sacrificial approach is extended by the instruction to &lsquo;take care of it&rsquo;, which is a translation of the Hebrew, shamar. &nbsp;In Numbers 6:24 the word shamar is also used when God gives Moses a blessing he wants Aaron to bestow on the people, &ldquo;The Lord bless you and keep (shamar) you&rdquo;. &nbsp;So we are also commanded to keep, or preserve the creation. &nbsp;This is perhaps the most self-sacrificial and perhaps the most ignored of the principles of stewardship enumerated here. &nbsp;Part of our responsibility as stewards is to protect the creation, to preserve its God-given integrity, and insure that this integrity is allowed to persist.</p>
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	I would propose that these five Biblical principles provide a working framework from which we should actualize the stewardship mandate. &nbsp;The best approach to doing stewardship will involve an integration of these five directives of flourishing, subduing, ruling, serving and preserving. &nbsp;I would also suggest that for many Christians historically as well as today this rich mandate has disproportionately, and at times exclusively, emphasized the second principle, subduing. &nbsp;Our challenge today is to read the scriptures with new sensitivity to all five of these principles. &nbsp;By humbly acknowledging this imbalance, Christians must work to properly elevate the full meaning of this fundamental responsibility of caring for the creation.</p>
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	<em><em>Read <a href="/news_and_resources/blog/part_3_shalom_and_creation_by_david_warners#.UYAinrU3uSp">Part 3</a> where Warners describes how the biblical vision of shalom informs our work on behalf of creation. You also can read Part 1 where he explore&nbsp;<a href="/news_and_resources/blog/the_five_themes_of_stewardship_by_david_warners#.UQi4-Sf7KuI">five themes of Christian environmental stewardship</a>.</em></em></p>
