By Peter Atkins

The Christian tradition has often taken one particular biblical text as its guide for tackling ecological issues: Genesis 1:28. This passage’s divine instruction states that humans should “fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” During the early modern period, this idea of human dominion over creation became understood as a form of domination which seemingly licensed humanity to use nature in whichever way they saw fit.[1] The 20^th century brought a number of prominent critiques of Christianity’s association with this dominant attitude to the natural world. Lynn White famously stated that “Christianity … insisted that it is God’s will that man exploit nature for his proper ends.”[2]

While this idea might still shape some people’s perceptions of Christian attitudes to nonhuman creation, the most prevalent Christian approach to ecological or environmental issues is now often rooted in the idea of stewardship.[3] The human dominion in Genesis 1:28 has thus been redefined as a form of stewardship which entails “responsible management of, or caring for something, such as land or cattle, on behalf of somebody else, usually the owner of the respective good.”[4] This focus recharacterizes right human action in the world as being about a care which is enacted in God’s stead and is accountable to God. This model of humans as stewards has provided a more palatable Christian approach to unlicensed use or abuse of nature.

For all this, the stewardship model has several significant shortcomings. Firstly, this approach tends to find justification in the same biblical text: Gen 1:28.[5] This has been an influential passage but it is by no means the only scriptural resource for informing Christianity’s response to ecological issues. Indeed, other parts of the Bible portray the natural world quite differently as we will see.

Secondly, the language of stewardship suggests a practice of maintenance which takes the existing state of the world as a baseline that needs to be preserved. This might lead to practices such as the conservation of natural resources or the protection of pristine land. However, in our context of rapid global changes in both the climate and biodiversity, such maintenance of the status quo is clearly not enough.[6] Some biblical texts might support this model of preservation (e.g., Gen 2:15 where the man is told to till and keep the garden), but others portray a rejuvenation of creatures through direct action. For example, in Isaiah God describes plans to bring waters and springs of water into the dry wilderness (Isa 41:17–18; 43:19). Various species of trees are then planted through the wilderness (Isa 41:19) and wild animals are able to flourish there (Isa 43:20). Rather than merely maintaining the current state of the land, God transforms the wilderness into a new biodiverse habitat. A Christian response to ecological degradation might use this as a model.

Third, imagining humans as stewards of the created world inflates the abilities and knowledge of humankind. Such a model implies that humans are actually able to effectively manage the world, when in reality the world is made up of complex and interrelated systems the scope of which we are only beginning to understand. The suggestion that humans can serve as stewards of creation is therefore the height of hubris.[7] The lack of human knowledge about, let alone control over, the natural world is articulated carefully in Job 39 where God poses several rhetorical questions to Job, such as: “Do you know where the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn? Do you count the months till they bear? Do you know the time they give birth?” (Job 39:1–2). The presumed answer to all these questions is an emphatic “no”. If Job does not know the basics of different species’ lifecycles, how can he effectively steward the natural world? Biblical texts such as this suggest that humans do not have sufficient knowledge to appropriately care for or manage the entirety of nonhuman creation.

Finally, this model of stewardship still positions humans over the rest of creation rather than as creatures themselves.[8] It therefore denies the agency of other creatures and is complicit in an anthropocentric perspective of the world.[9] Newer models of creaturely kinship stress humanity’s place as one creature among many and emphasise how the nonhuman world has its own intrinsic value and ability to act too.[10] Biblical texts such as Psalm 148 attest to this shared position of humans and nonhumans as creatures who are all under divine authority and are able to respond to God in praise. It is important to recognise that humans are thus only one component of creation, and the lives and actions of other creatures are valuable too.

What does this discussion suggest could be a fruitful Christian model for ecological management?

• An approach that is not just about maintenance or protection of the natural world but about its rejuvenation;
• an approach that does not rely solely on human knowledge or control of creation but is open to acknowledging our ignorance and inability to effectively manage the world ourselves;
• an approach which acknowledges the role of other creatures in also acting within creation.

Such a vision of Christian care for the natural world thus shares many features with contemporary ideas of rewilding. Rewilding initiatives do not intend to simply conserve areas of the environment, rather they aim to restore functioning ecosystems when they have been disturbed or lost through human activity. A rewilding approach also recognises that the flourishing of creation benefits from the lack of human control and the restoration of natural processes. Ecosystems should be self-sustaining and, when all ecological processes are active, human control is unnecessary. Furthermore, this also recognises the role of other creatures in acting within creation. Rewilding is successful only when the full range of species are present and able to play their own role or fill their own niche within the ecosystem. Some nonhuman creatures, such as top-predators (e.g., wolves) or ecosystem engineers (e.g., beavers), can actually play a disproportionately significant role in managing the entire system – and more effectively or efficiently than humans could.

There is thus good reason for Christians and the Church community to consider rewilding as an appropriate expression of faithful care for the nonhuman world. Rewilding addresses many of the issues which plague the stewardship model of Christian ecological and provides an example of how Christians can respond to the rest of creation in our contemporary world. A commitment to rewild the land managed by the Church Commissioners would be a significant step in recognising appropriate Christian action to address global biodiversity losses.

---

[1] Richard Bauckham, “Modern Domination of Nature – Historical Origins and Biblical Critique”, in Environmental Stewardship: Critical Perspectives – Past and Present, ed. R. J. Berry (London: T&T Clark, 2006), 32–50 (32–42).

[2] Lynn White Jr., “The Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis”, Science 155 (1967): 1203–1207 (1205). For discussion of these critiques, see: Robin Attfield, “Anthropocentrism, Biocentrism, Stewardship and Co-Creation”, in The Cambridge Companion to Christianity and the Environment, ed. Alexander J. B. Hampton and Douglas Hedley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), 63–79 (64-67).

[3] Christopher Southgate’s claim “that human beings are called to be stewards of creation tends to be the default position within ordinary Christian groups” likely still holds true. See: Christopher Southgate, “Stewardship and its Competitors: A Spectrum of Relationships between Humans and the Non-Human Creation”, in Environmental Stewardship: Critical Perspectives – Past and Present, ed. R. J. Berry (London: T&T Clark, 2006), 185–198 (185).

[4] Jan-Olav Henriksen, Theological Anthropology in the Anthropocene: Reconsidering Human Agency and its Limits (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), 114.

[5] For a list of these and other critiques of stewardship, see: Richard Bauckham, Bible and Ecology: Rediscovering the Community of Creation (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2010), 2–12. a defence of stewardship in light of these critiques, see: Mark D. Liederbach, “Stewardship: A Biblical Concept,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Bible and Ecology, ed. Hilary Marlow and Mark Harris (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), 310–323.

[6] Jan van der Stoep, Stewardship Revisited: A Conceptual Analysis (Wageningen: Wageningen University & Research, 2022), 7–8.

[7] Bauckham, Bible and Ecology, 2–7.

[8] Bauckham, Bible and Ecology, 10–11.

[9] For the denial of the agency of other animals in a stewardship model, see: Stoep, Stewardship Revisited, 10.

[10] Anne M. Clifford, “An Ecological Theology of Creaturely Kinship”, Journal of Religion and Society, Supplement Series 3 (2008): 132–145.