Stewardship of Creation
As taught in the Anglican / Episcopal tradition
The Christian responsibility to care for the environment as God's stewards and co-creators.
Within the Anglican tradition, the question of our relationship with the natural world is not merely a matter of secular policy or environmental activism; it is a fundamental inquiry into the nature of our worship and our identity as the "image-bearers" of God. At its core, the subtopic of the Stewardship of Creation answers the question: How does our treatment of the material world reflect our participation in the life of the Creator? For the Anglican, the earth is not a disposable stage for the drama of human salvation, nor is it an accidental byproduct of cosmic forces. Rather, it is a "theatre of God’s glory," a sacramental reality where the physical and the spiritual intersect. This doctrine is rooted in the "Via Media"—the middle way—which avoids the extremes of pantheism (worshipping the creation as God) and Gnosticism (viewing the material world as evil or irrelevant).
By the end of this lesson
- **Identify** the "Fifth Mark of Mission" and its significance within the Anglican Consultative Council’s framework for global ministry.
- **Distinguish** between an exploitative "dominionist" reading of Genesis and the Anglican "stewardship" model of caretaking and priesthood.
- **Explain** the sacramental view of nature, articulating how the Incarnation of Christ hallows the material world.
- **Articulate** the relationship between human sin and the "groaning of creation" as described in the Pauline epistles.
- **Trace** the historical development of Anglican environmental thought from the Caroline Divines to the modern Lambeth Resolutions.
- **Defend** the theological necessity of creation care as a core component of Christian ethics and the life of holiness.
- **Apply** the principles of stewardship to contemporary issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and sustainable consumption.
- **Compare** the Anglican "Via Media" approach to creation with more extreme positions of environmental escapism or secular materialist environmentalism.
Scripture
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