Caring for the Earth is a fundamental part of religious faith. Nearly every major faith tradition and Christian denomination has a statement about the need to respect, enjoy, and protect God’s gift of the world around us.
Underlying these statements are a set of core values that speak to the heart of religious morals and ethics: spirituality, stewardship, sustainability, and justice.
Spirituality
Creation itself inspires us and calls us to care. Many people have had their most profound spiritual experience in nature. As we behold the power and love of God in a mountain range, a sunset, or in the timelessness of the ocean, we can’t help but be moved.
But creation also includes humans – our families, communities, and created landscapes. God created all things of Heaven and Earth and God is our inspiration to care for both wild places and our own cities and backyards.
Read the entire article on stewardship and sustainability.
Quotes
“In God’s wilderness lies the hope of the world – the great fresh, unblighted, unredeemed wilderness. The galling harness of civilization drops off, and the wounds heal ere we are aware.” -- John Muir
"To know something about trees--about even one tree--is to know something profound about the nature of the world and our place in it." -- Gerald Jonas
"I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out that there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is." -- Albert Camus
Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher "standard of living" is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free. For us the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as free speech. -- Aldo Leopold (1886-1948)
"We will do better in all aspects of life if we learn to "let go" of all we hold so tightly to and realize that control is a myth and striving for it is insanity." -- Donna L. Watkins
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