Green Faith

Green faith embraces evolution.  We are not descended from monkeys, but we are, with monkeys, descended from bacteria.  As humans, we are part of a tree of life rooted in single-cell organisms that over a billion years created virtually every biochemical process that sustains us.  As a species, we came to be through random genetic changes and natural selection.  There is no evidence of divine purpose in natural evolution, but we have evolved the capacity to be moral and purposeful.   

Green faith celebrates ecosystems.  Evolution is coevolution, life with life, organisms depending on each other for food and habitats.  The biosphere of our planet is a gigantic habitat, every forest and canyon and desert a unique ecosystem, each person a community.  More than half the cells in our bodies belong to other organisms that live in and on us, as their environment, while providing benefits that help keep us alive.  Scripture proclaims that each person is created in the image of God.  Science reveals that each person is an ecosystem.

Green faith is wonder-full.  “Mostly I’m wondering,” my five year old grandson remarked.  “Me, too,” I answered.  When I showed him a spider web, he said: “Spider webs are magnificent.”  Like all nature, spider webs are places of life and death, as well as beauty.  Green faith means accepting nature as it is — wondering about life amidst the cosmos, and being filled with wonder by life’s evolution and dynamic ecosystems.  Wondering is a state of mind, a quest, a journey.

What does this mean for Christian teaching and worship? 

We should “green” our sanctuaries.  The Christian sanctuary is a vault into which we bring life with worship.  It should be a life-space in which we celebrate our earth-place in creation.  Cut flowers on the altar and evergreens in the sanctuary at Christmas do not reveal that we are of the earth and depend on nature for every breath.  So we should bring growing plants and trees into our church environment and running water.  Our sanctuaries should be living-places, ecosystems, gardens.  

Our worship should be full of wonder.  We should strive to elicit in worship the awe we feel in watching a nature video on PBS.  We can do this with pictures on the walls, banners depicting nature scenes, short nature videos, affirmations of wonder in our liturgical language, and annual blessings of the stuffed animals and pets of members of the congregation.  As there are almost no hymns that give thanks for the wonder of nature, we need to find or write songs that do.   

We should celebrate creativity.  Nature generates novelty, and human beings create meaning and purpose.  Music, art, drama, liturgy, and preaching can inspire wonder-full worship.  We are the only species on earth able to see how devastating to nature our way of life has become, and capable of evolving a culture that is environmentally sustainable.  We cannot restore creation, but we can repent.  We can creatively apply the lessons of nature and learn to reduce, reuse, and recycle.      

We should follow Jesus.  “Our Father who art in heaven,” we pray.  “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  Whatever we mean by “heaven,” this prayer is about living on earth.  The story of Jesus inspires acts of creative love.  Scripture does not recognize our evolutionary history on earth or our “nature” as ecosystems within the biosphere.  But these facts about our natural world inform and constrain our life of faith.  Through our ecological crisis, may we see that God is calling us to embrace green faith with hope and wonder. 

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1 in Faith: A Christian Bible Study † Copyright © 2000 by Robert Traer