Environmental Stewardship and the Gospel of the Kingdom

This blog highlights books from Ralph Winter’s Library and compares excerpts to Winter’s own writings on one or more of the themes from his list of twelve “Frontiers of Perspective.” (See the full list at the end of this blog.)

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(6) The Reclaiming of the Gospel of the Kingdom

Barkey, Michael B., ed. 2000. Environmental stewardship in the Judeo-Christian tradition: Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant wisdom on the environment. Washington, DC: Interfaith Council for Environmental Stewardship.

From the Foreword:

The biblical starting point for any discussion of the nature of religious environmental stewardship must begin with the witness of the Book of Genesis: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he create im; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and 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’” (Gen. 1:28-28). In our modern times, however, this biblical vision of the relationship between God, man, and nature is muddled by two false views. The one sees the natural world as the source of all value, man as an intruder, and God, if he exists at all, as so immanent in the natural order that he ceases to be distinguishable from it. The other view places man as the source of all values, the natural order as merely instrumental to his aims, and God as often irrelevant.

            Genesis presents a radically different picture of how the world is put together. In this account, God is the source of all values—in truth, he is the source of everything, calling the world into being out of nothing by his powerful word. Man is part of this order essentially and, what is more, by virtue of his created nature, and is placed at the head of creation as its steward. Yet this stewardship can never by arbitrary or anthropocentric, … for this notion implies that man rules creation in God’s stead and must do so according to his divine will (p. vii).

Sections include:
The Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship

A Comprehensive Torah-Based Approach to the Environment

The Catholic Church and Stewardship of Creation

A Biblical Perspective on Environmental Stewardship

Although Ralph Winter did not often write or speak specifically about environmental issues, his explanation of his sixth “frontier of perspective” shows his disappointment with evangelical believers who have left concerns for creation care, among other vital topics, to the secular world to deal with. He wrote:

Latter day Evangelicals have … made their “Gospel of salvation” a nearly total substitute for the Gospel of the Kingdom. Why is this? Nineteenth century Evangelicals were very socially conscious compared to Evangelicals in 20th century. Sub-Saharan Africa is 80% Christian, but has been described as having a faith that is … a mile wide and one inch deep. Apart from otherworldly assurances the avowedly Christian structures contribute very little to “Thy will be done on earth” as Jesus asked us to pray. [Cross-cultural workers] are not normally trained nor well-equipped to take on the social, commercial, medical, engineering, and political problems of Africa. Neither are the national pastors. This vast array of problems is not part of our Gospel of Salvation even though it is definitely part of the Gospel of the Kingdom. We leave these problems to the “secular world.” In a word, we think of ourselves as survivors not soldiers.

What might Winter have said and written about the Christian’s responsibility for the environment if his time had not been taken with theologizing and mobilizing believers to eradicate disease in demonstration of God’s character? (See www.robertawinterinstitute.org)

Ralph Winter’s 12 “Frontiers of Perspective” represent major shifts in his thinking that “profoundly modified and molded his perception of the mission task”:

(1) Unreached Peoples

(2) The Great Commission and Abraham

(3) From the Unfinished Task to the Finishable Task

(4) Failure with the Large Groups and the Off-setting Trend to “Radical Contextualization”

(5) Reverse Contextualization, the Recontextualization of Our Own Tradition

(6) The Reclaiming of the Gospel of the Kingdom

 (7) Beyond Christianity

(8) A Different Type of Recruitment

(9) A Trojan Horse

(10) Needed: a Revolution in Pastoral Training

(11) The Religion of Science

(12) The Challenge of the Evil One