Creation care: we shouldn't divide gospel issues and lifestyle

Dear Editor,

Having written about creation care myself and doing my best to bring the need for creation care to a largely materialistic Christian Church, I was confused by the article ‘Is creation care a gospel issue?’ by John Samuel and Richard Buggs in the January edition of en.

I read it with anticipation thinking – more about creation care that will encourage the church – but I was seriously disappointed. All I read was a dry semantic debate unlikely to help anyone.

Correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that any claim I might make to be saved through Jesus’ death is meaningless unless I make every effort to live a life that loves my neighbour as myself, so that by my lifestyle people might be attracted to Christ. As the authors say, this includes creation care alongside a whole list of other behaviours, but to separate these behaviours from what they call ‘gospel issues’ is to my mind unhelpful, both in understanding what salvation is and how we should live as Christians.

In fact, you could argue that this theoretical division of gospel issues and lifestyle, which I can’t see in God’s word, has left us in the materialistic mess we are in the Western Church today. For example, would I be right in suggesting that any Christian who flew to the Lausanne 2024 event doesn’t really have a legitimate right to talk about creation care when a round trip from the UK to Korea creates more than five tons of climate changing CO2? This is twice as much as the annual average per person CO2 emissions from those living in poorer countries of the world who suffer most from climate change. How does this show a love for our global neighbour?

Yours sincerely,

Dr James Hindson
By email

Dear Editor,

In their article ‘Is creation care a gospel issue?’, John Samuel and Richard Buggs (en Jan, 2025) quoted the concerns of some that this risks undermining the truth that ‘God has saved us by His grace through faith and not a result of works’. But part of the problem is the extreme vagueness of the term ‘gospel issue’! To be more precise, the ‘good news’ (gospel) isn’t ONLY that God has made a way of personal redemption for us, but that in Jesus, He has made a way ‘to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, etc.’ (Col. 1.19-20)

That reconciliation will include ecological renewal, but it will only come to completion when Jesus comes again. However, a glimpse of it is revealed by every creation-caring action and in a multitude of other ways. So why is ‘creation care’ worthy of special mention? It is because the current environmental crisis constitutes a truly monstrous threat to all life on earth, and involves a hideous injustice: ‘we pollute, they suffer’. Furthermore, the ‘gospel call’ is to ‘turn to God in repentance’, as well as to ‘have faith in our Lord Jesus.’ (Acts 20.21) And surely, an aspect of repentance should be to respect God’s command to ‘care for the earth’ (Gen. 2.15) and to ‘care for the poor’ (Gal. 2.10). I conclude that the redemption of creation, which is to come, is an important aspect of the gospel (good news) about Jesus and the care of creation is an important aspect of our calling as penitent disciples of Jesus, right now.

Yours sincerely,

David W. Golding CBE PhD DSc DCL
Whitstable, Kent; and formerly at the Institute of Sustainability, Newcastle University

Editor’s note: you can read more about the role of creation care and the gospel in Paul Kunert’s regular ‘Earth Watch’ column.