The Christian worldview, across nearly all its major traditions, affirms that humans have a responsibility to care for the natural world. This position is rooted in the opening chapters of Genesis, where God places the first humans in a garden and instructs them to “cultivate and take care of it.” While Christians have debated the exact scope of that responsibility for centuries, the dominant theological direction today frames environmental protection not as a political preference but as a moral and spiritual obligation tied to the character of God.
Dominion vs. Stewardship in Genesis
The debate starts with two Hebrew words. In Genesis 1:28, God tells humans to “subdue” (kābaš) the earth and “have dominion” (rādāh) over living creatures. Both words carry strong overtones of kingship, and for much of Western history they were read as a license to use nature however humans saw fit. In 1967, historian Lynn White Jr. published an influential essay arguing that this reading of Genesis was a root cause of the ecological crisis, claiming Christianity “insisted that it is God’s will that man exploit nature for his proper ends.”
Theologians have pushed back hard on that interpretation. They point out that Genesis also says God looked at creation before humans even existed and declared it “good,” suggesting nature has value independent of its usefulness to people. Genesis 2:15 then places the first human in Eden specifically to “cultivate and take care of it,” using the Hebrew word shamar, which means to guard or protect. The argument is that biblical “dominion” was never meant to look like exploitation. It was meant to look like the rule of a responsible king: protecting the vulnerable, maintaining order, and ensuring the flourishing of everything under your care.
Major Christian thinkers reinforced this long before modern environmentalism existed. Augustine, writing in the fourth and fifth centuries, argued that even creatures with no practical use to humans “contribute to the completion of this universe, which is not only much bigger than our homes, but much better as well.” He insisted that all living things have intrinsic goodness and give glory to God simply by existing. Thomas Aquinas held a similar view: non-rational creatures are ends in themselves, not just instruments for human benefit.
Catholic Teaching and Integral Ecology
The Catholic Church made its most comprehensive statement on the environment in 2015, when Pope Francis released the encyclical Laudato Si’. The document frames environmental destruction as inseparable from social injustice, coining the term “integral ecology” to describe the connection. Its core argument is that everything in the world is connected: the degradation of nature is closely tied to the culture that shapes human relationships, and the people who suffer most from environmental harm are the poor and vulnerable.
Francis draws on the example of St. Francis of Assisi, whose poverty and simplicity weren’t just personal discipline but “a refusal to turn reality into an object simply to be used and controlled.” The encyclical calls for a new lifestyle marked by sobriety and care, critiques economic models built on disposability and endless consumption, and argues that authentic human development “presumes full respect for the human person, but it must also be concerned for the world around us.” It calls on governments, businesses, churches, and individuals to take concrete action, including honest international policy debates and changes to personal consumption patterns.
Evangelical and Protestant Positions
Evangelical Christians in the United States are often portrayed as skeptical of environmental causes, but the picture is more complex. A 2022 Pew Research Center survey found that 85% of Christian adults in the U.S. say they make an effort to protect the environment at least some of the time. And a significant coalition of evangelical leaders has taken an explicitly pro-environment stance.
The Evangelical Climate Initiative, signed by dozens of prominent leaders, declared that “a vigorous response to global warming is a spiritual and moral imperative.” Their Call to Action rests on four claims: human-induced climate change is real, its consequences will hit the poor hardest, Christian moral convictions demand a response, and the need to act is urgent. The theological foundation is straightforward. They cite Jesus’ command to “love your neighbor as yourself” alongside Genesis 1:28 and 2:15, arguing that these commands “all require us to respond to climate change with moral passion and concrete action.”
The initiative assigns specific responsibilities. Individuals should reduce their own emissions. Churches should educate members, model good behavior through their own facilities, and pray for leaders who protect the vulnerable. Businesses should be good corporate citizens whether the law requires it or not. And at the federal level, the initiative called for mandatory emissions reduction targets of 80% below 2000 levels by 2050.
The global evangelical movement has echoed this. The Cape Town Commitment, a major statement from the Lausanne Movement representing evangelical Christians worldwide, declares that “we cannot separate our relationship to Christ from how we act in relation to the earth.” It frames creation care as a gospel issue: “To proclaim the gospel that says ‘Jesus is Lord’ is to proclaim the gospel that includes the earth, since Christ’s Lordship is over all creation.”
The Eastern Orthodox View
The Eastern Orthodox Church has been one of the most vocal Christian traditions on environmental issues, largely through the work of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, often called the “Green Patriarch.” Orthodox theology emphasizes communion, the idea that humans share a binding unity and continuity with all of God’s creation. When we forget that connection, environmental destruction follows.
Bartholomew introduced a concept that carries real theological weight: environmental destruction as sin. In Orthodox teaching, whereas believers once prayed to be delivered from natural calamities, they are now called to pray that the planet may be delivered from the abusive and destructive acts of human beings. The Orthodox approach also leans heavily on asceticism, the spiritual discipline of simplicity and restraint. Rather than framing environmental care primarily as policy, it treats overconsumption as a spiritual problem rooted in human greed and disconnection from God’s creation.
How End-Times Beliefs Shape the Debate
Not all Christians agree that environmental protection should be a priority, and the disagreement often comes down to how they read biblical prophecy. Some evangelical and fundamentalist Christians believe the final end of the world may come very soon, that Jesus will return in the current generation, and that believers will be taken away from the earth before a period of suffering. If the present earth will be destroyed and replaced by a new one, the reasoning goes, why invest energy in saving the old one? Proponents of this view argue that environmental crises are signs of the coming end and that converting people matters far more than conservation.
Christian environmentalists counter with a different reading of the same texts. They argue that the Bible presents a picture of the earth being renewed and transformed, not annihilated. As evangelical theologian Thomas Finger puts it: “If the present creation will not be destroyed but renewed, it would seem important to care for it today.” Under this view, caring for the earth is an act of obedience, a way of joining in the renewing work God is already doing. This distinction, transformation versus destruction, is one of the most consequential theological debates shaping how Christians engage with environmental issues.
What Churches Are Doing in Practice
Theology translates into action in thousands of congregations worldwide. Some churches start with energy audits. In Ontario, congregations have partnered with Greening Sacred Spaces, an ecumenical nonprofit, to evaluate and reduce their environmental footprint. In County Cork, Ireland, Clonakilty Methodist Church used free checklists from A Rocha, a Christian conservation organization, and gradually replaced their boiler, lighting, cleaning products, and energy provider. They now use Fair Trade coffee and tea and host joint events with local churches to support animal welfare and international development.
Other congregations go further. Gabriel’s Church in Canada became the first church in the country to achieve gold-level LEED certification, a rigorous green building standard. Epiphany of the Lord Catholic Church in Oklahoma City planted trees across its property and designed parking lot islands that will eventually shade the entire lot. The church building channels rainwater from the roof into a drip irrigation system and rain gardens, and its bathrooms use waterless urinals and low-flow fixtures. Some churches have turned their grounds into community food sources, growing free fruits, berries, and nuts for their neighborhoods.
These projects reflect a theology that takes physical creation seriously. If the earth belongs to God, and if caring for it is part of loving your neighbor, then a church’s energy bill and landscaping choices become spiritual decisions.