Ecological "blind spots" in the structure and content of recent evangelical systematic theologies

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Jun 2000 by Davis, John Jefferson

Almost a generation ago Francis Schaeffer issued a challenge for the evangelical church to take more seriously issues of environmental stewardship: "God's calling to the ... Christian community ... is that we should exhibit a substantial healing, here and now, between man and nature and nature itself, as far as Christians can bring it to pass."1 Many segments of the evangelical community have in fact responded positively to Schaeffer's challenge in the last two decades. Evangelical theologians, however, have exhibited a rather uneven record in their incorporation of environmental concerns into the basic fabric of their theologies.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that certain "blind spots" in the structure and content of recent evangelical systematic theologies have contributed to the neglect of environmental issues and environmental stewardship in certain segments of the evangelical subculture.2 More specifically, it will be argued that deficiencies in the doctrines of creation and the atonement in evangelical systematic theology textbooks have contributed to this problem. After a brief introduction to the historical background of evangelical theological reflection on environmental issues, an "ecological audit" of the treatment of these two critical theological loci will be undertaken for twenty representative evangelical systematic theology texts published since 1970. The paper will conclude with an analysis of the results, and with a call for evangelical theologians to correct an imbalance in the treatment of the doctrine of creation and an omission in the doctrine of the atonement, so as to provide a more adequate theological basis for evangelical environmental ethics.

I. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The seminal article by historian Lynn White published in 1967, "The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,"3 charging that Biblical teachings such as "dominion" and the "image of God" were significant contributing causes of the environmental crisis, produced an outpouring of scholarly responses across the theological spectrum of the Christian community.4 Beginning in 1970, many evangelicals became more attentive to environmental issues.5 A significant minority of evangelicals, however, remained (and continue to remain) indifferent toward or even hostile to environmental concerns.6 The association of prominent streams of the environmental movement with "New Age" and eastern religions, liberal Protestant theologies, feminism, and opposition to free-market capitalism has contributed to the ambivalent attitudes toward environmentalism among these conservative evangelicals.7 It is not the purpose of this article, however, to focus on these historical and cultural roots of evangelical ambivalence toward environmental concerns. The focus of this study is to examine theological blind spots in the structure and content of evangelical systematic theology, especially in the doctrines of creation and atonement,8 which have inadvertently contributed to this problem.

One evangelical scholar has recently noted, for example, that "much popular evangelical belief lacks any doctrine of creation, apart from opposition to evolution."9 Much time and attention is devoted to the issue of creation and evolution, but much less time to developing the implications of the Biblical doctrine of creation for humanity's proper relationship to creation.10

Recent Biblical scholarship has begun to recognize the cosmic impact of the atoning work of Christ,11 and this recognition has begun to make itself felt in evangelical environmental scholarship.12 There seems to be a growing recognition that texts such as Col 1:20, which state that in Christ God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, through the blood of the cross, have powerful implications for an evangelical stewardship of creation.13 As this study will seek to demonstrate, however, evangelical theologians have by and large not incorporated this insight into their treatments of the doctrine of the atonement.

II. EVANGELICAL THEOLOGY: AN "ECOLOGICAL AUDIT"

In this central section of the paper, twenty evangelical theology textbooks published since 1970 will be examined in regard to their treatments of the doctrines of creation and atonement, with a view to determining whether or not theological "blind spots" in these areas may have contributed to an imbalanced or incomplete evangelical environmental ethic. The date 1970 is the year of the first Earth Day, and plausibly represents one benchmark for the emergence of the environmental movement into the broader public consciousness. The doctrine of creation is obviously crucial to any Biblical ethic of environmental stewardship,14 while the doctrine of the atonement, being integral to Christology, is central to the structure of Christian theology as a whole. Failure to discern any legitimate ecological implications of the work of Christ would constitute a serious omission in theological reflection in this area.