Environmental ethics: some challenges for Christians

Abstract

The Christian ethics for persons, calling for love, justice, benevolence, and compassion does not transfer easily to duties toward wildlife, and the difficulties compound with an ethic toward plants, species, and ecosystems. Biblical faith began with a land ethic, a covenanted promised land, and Christians find a nature that is sacred and good in itself, regardless of its human utility. Earth is a planet with promise, nature is graced with creativity. Nature is also cruciform, death is perpetually redeemed with the renewal of life, and central themes in Christianity are congenial to an environmental ethic.