As a child, I loved visiting National Parks (I still do, but more on that another post). And National Park Ranger naturalists were my heroes. I read “Ranger Rick” Magazine and enthusiastically traveled with my family and I traveled through the great parks of the west. I marveled at Rangers: these fit, rugged and highly-educated and intelligent souls who knew about every tree, could hike for days and could so winsomely teach lessons for respecting and caring for nature. “Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints,” they would say. Don’t litter, don’t graffiti, stay on the trail, and be willing to clean up and fix up where others may not have adhered to these simple “rules” of courtesy and conservation. In short, the goal was simple: “Leave every place better than you found it.”
And I never once heard any of them so much as mention God or a Creator at all. They were likely all biologists that assumed a naturalistic view of the world. I just thought they were cool.
Later as a teenager who camped at the foot of many granite rock faces before a day of climbing, or who on some memorable occasions backpacked into the wilderness to spend the night under a starry sky, those few rules became a means for serving the God whom I had come to know “proclaims his handiwork” through the heavens (Psalm 19), “covers the heavens with clouds” (Psalm 146:9), and “names the stars.”
As a young Christian I often went river trips and skiing excursions, rock-climbed, attended Christian camps in the mountains. Many times I heard speakers use the starry skies or majestic mountains as reminders of God’s goodness and glory. Many breathless mornings, thoughtful evenings, and prayerful nights were spent in the middle of the beauty God has made.
Looking back I realize that there was both a continuity and discontinuity between my childhood tutoring at the feet of the Rangers and my adolescent discipleship from Christian speakers in beautiful places. In both cases, there was a love for nature and genuine awe for all around me, but while the “naturalist” Rangers (for whom faith was never part of the topic), were inspired by nature to teach conservation, the Christian teachers never mentioned it. They pointed to the Creator well, but never taught what creation requires of us, the "glory" of God's creatures. It was all about worship, not stewardship, about debating evolution, not protecting the environment.
And very often later as a young youth pastor, I noticed a troubling disconnect with the kids whom I took into beautiful places. Very often, Christian kids who wanted to worship God on a mountain look out, would cut the switchbacks of the trail causing erosion. Some years ago, our own church youth group had a most troubling reputation for leaving the beach awash with litter after a campfire and sing-along.
Christian camps taught me to look to the stars of the heaven and consider in awe and wonder how a great God even considers a small mortal like me (Psalm 8) But it was very human (even humanistic?) mortals who taught me how to respond to the Creator in the most responsible, practical ways.
As a pastor I have been thinking more and more about how to bring together worship and stewardship, how we learn demonstrate that we belong to our Creator by serving HIM in our care for creation. How we witness to the glory and goodness of God, even amidst those who turn nature into idolatry or an expression of pagan beliefs. It seems to me that whatever the outcome of the long debate over global warming, no matter whether those who share a love for the environment share our love for God, and whether or not everyone concerned shares the same worldview, we all share the same world. And as Bible-believers, we have deep convictions about both the Creator and the creation our primary responsibility as human beings, and our ultimate purpose as God’s new humanity.
If nothing else, we could bring together “Ranger Rick” and Christian camp lessons with one simple idea: “Leave this world better than we found it…in the name of Jesus, to the glory of God.”
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