Time to report back?

‘Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves on the ground’ says the writer of Genesis 1. Difficult words for the believer in our days of environmental crisis, but there is one response…

These words about having ‘dominion’ over or ‘ruling’ the earth have been an embarrassment for some time and especially since the article by Lynne White in Science accusing the Judeao-Christian tradition of fomenting the current environmental crisis. That was unfair, of course. Our issues with the environment come from the Industrial Revolution and the embrace of a free market idealism. In fact faith has been systematically pushed aside from public life during this period so it cannot be accused of causing the problem.

At one level this verse reflects the concerns of every creature to carve out its niche in the world, protecting its territory and defending its young from predation.

The sheer success of human beings on the earth could be a matter for awe - as for the writer of Psalm 8, surveying the great power of human beings in the earth says ‘What are we mere mortals that you care for us?’ That seems a wholly good response to the situation.

Yet with humans currently numbering 6.7 billion, with the oil and mineral resources of the planet being consumed at a massive rate, the rainforests being chopped down and the other creatures at risk there is another response, which is to take this verse at face value and, in a sense, report back to God saying, ‘Mission accomplished - now what?’

My guess is that God might tell us that we have missed the point, that the vision of the scriptures as a whole was for the Great Peace and that our creative ingenuity should be harnessed to a fruitfulness that acknowledges our interconnectedness with all life.

Suggested Task: Take some time with Psalm 8

Use your meditation to reflect on what people are and what we should be trying to do in relationship to the earth.

Your comments.

Very interesting post. Human kind should think about this more.

It’s long struck me, and this meditation brought it to mind again, that ‘dominion’ or ‘headship’ in the Bible is to do with empowerment rather than control. How can we enable the planet to flourish?