Preserving Nature Is An Important Task For All Believers

 

The responsibility of Christians today is to reflect on their lives in relation to the natural environment, both in terms of direct action and in response to the destruction of the natural environment by others. A Christian is one who walks and lives according to the steps and life of Jesus (Luke 14:27; John 13:16). Just as Jesus treated the natural environment, animals and plants as valuable neighbors, they must be preserved. World Peace Day in 1990 said that people can be at peace with people, with themselves and with all of creation. The crisis in the world of ecology begin from moral integrity, so that conference established two moral principles, namely the integrity of all creation and respect for life.

The task of caring for this nature is the essential duty of every believer (Gen 1:28), because in the performance of this ministry the image of God is at stake. To destroy this nature is to destroy the human face itself. Jesus seeks to restore the broken relationship between man and nature through his mission of restoring the kingdom of God, the new state of society that God has sought since creation, where all creation lives in harmony as brothers and sisters with one another, respecting one another, and mutual respect. God's love as one Father for all. It is the kingdom that all those who want to follow in the footsteps of Jesus' struggle and mission are still fighting for as an integral part of faith.

We believers and the Church must be able to implement real awareness raising and environmental protection measures. First, the Church emphasizes through her ecotheological considerations that this environmental degradation is mainly due to the massive exploitation of nature. Human greed and arrogance need to be corrected with new ways of thinking, for example by adopting local wisdom that respects nature. Local wisdom in various places and different tribes often refers to nature as human's brother. Second, concrete steps to protect and care for the environment. Christian theology today is called upon to further promote the idea that man was not only created to protect and care for his environment, but above all to protect it from the threat of destruction and premature destruction. Our task is to try and form an attitude of Christian spirituality that will enable us to participate in God's redemptive love for the world and all the people in it and to bring about justice, peace and the integrity of creation.