God’s Environmentalism

Habakkuk’s cries of injustice and God’s response

The oracles of the prophet Habakkuk are not often read. To be honest, the prophets in general are hardly read, and the twelve “minor” prophets are the most ignored. To put it bluntly, most people read the prophets to look for predictions about Jesus or the future. This really is a disservice to what the prophets were doing. The prophets did a multitude of things with their oracles, and one of the most common things was to call out the systemic and structural sins that were being committed by the society they lived in.

Primer on Habakkuk

Habakkuk 1.2–4
O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not listen?
Or cry to you “Violence!”
and you will not save?
Why do you make me see wrongdoing
and look at trouble?
Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.
So the law becomes slack
and justice never prevails.
The wicked surround the righteous —
therefore judgment comes forth perverted.

The prophet Habakkuk was appalled at the state of the society that he lived in. He cried out to God repeatedly without answer about the death, destruction, and injustice in his times. One day God responded to Habakkuk about how He was responding — by using the Babylonian armies to destroy the nation of Israel. The prophet Habakkuk was confused by this deeply, it did not align with the nature of God’s holiness in his eyes. So he called out to God again and asked him whether anything would be done about the injustices that the Babylonian empire was committing. God responds to Habakkuk by telling him that there are a lot of injustices across the world that He is going to put an end to, even if it seems like He’s not doing anything. It’s a long list that covers a multitude of issues that are still relevant today:

• actively endangering and killing people to make a profit (2.9–11) like the brutal conditions capitalism has put billions of people under across the world to reduce the cost of manufacturing
• establishing cities by killing people (2.12–14) like the genocide of the Indigenous peoples of Canada and the United States
• sexually assaulting people via alcohol (2.15–16)
• the destruction done to the environment in general and to animals in particular (2.8, 17) like we do with

This list is not exhaustive, and I seriously recommend a sober reading of Habakkuk and to reflect on how it calls out severe moral failings we still have. The final chapter of Habakkuk is a psalm (not contained in the larger book of Psalms) that responds to the terrifying justice of the Lord and how He responds to injustice by personally coming down and punishing it. It closes with a deeply personal call to trust in and praise God even when circumstances become brutal.

Why This Matters

In the current day, the importance of taking care of the environment is often downplayed, mocked, or demonized by the Christian and larger human communities in the Western world. It is disheartening to see so many who profess Jesus Christ as the liberator of this world from sin either pay lip service to a general sense of “being a good steward”, ignore the tough call to take care of this Earth, or outright mock and demonize those who point out the damages being done to the planet and what we ought to do to stop them. To be clear, one of the leading damages humans are doing to this planet is our continually pumping of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and dumping of toxic materials into water supplies. There is no doubt about this among the scientific community, yet political lobbying by the companies that contribute the most to this constantly lies to people about what is truly happening. A large portion of the church has been swept into this — Pew Research Centre reported in 2015 that 30-40% of churchgoers deny the role that humans have in damaging this planet. This is why it is crucial to return the Scriptures that guide our faith to see what God has to say about our treatment of the environment.

God’s Charge Against Us

Habakkuk 2.8
Because you have plundered many nations,
all that survive of the peoples shall plunder you —
because of human bloodshed, and violence to the earth,
to cities and all who live in them.

Habakkuk 2.17
For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you;
the destruction of the animals will terrify you —
because of human bloodshed and violence to the earth,
to cities and all who live in them.

In the oracle Habakkuk receives, God calls out three things that humans do that He is against:

• the violence done to the Earth
• the violence done to Lebanon
• the destruction of the animals

That second point may seem weird, but let’s contextualize it. The Hebrew Scriptures constantly relate the nation of Lebanon to the cedars that grow there (see 1 Kings 4.33, Isaiah 14.8, the Song of Solomon 4.11 to name a few). Clearly this is a calling card to the famous trees in there.

God’s own morality is reflected to us in these verses, He is strongly against and will punish those who actively damage and destroy the Earth in general, the forests, and the animals that live here. Although Habakkuk does not give an exhaustive list of the ways we harm the environment (a modern development is the violence we do to our lakes, rivers, and oceans), clearly these verses teach us that God cares deeply about nature and how we treat it. He personally cares deeply and takes issue how we are abusing the resources of this world. There are so many ways that we destroy this planet, and we are facing the consequences increasingly every day. Some of the ways that this is done are:

• pumping greenhouse gases into the air
• factory farming of livestock and fish
• dumping toxic materials into waterways and garbage dumps
• mass cutting down of forests (which also kills the animals living there)

Because of our actions, and when I say “our” it is important to note that a majority of these issues are being done by the largest companies in the world for the sake of profit, the world is burning. The air we breathe and water we drink are becoming increasingly poisonous, thousands of species of plants and animals are going completely extinct, and global sea levels are dramatically rising. Our consumerist economic philosophy is destroying us and giving the very top people an inordinate amount of wealth. And God is not pleased with this. At all. Perhaps the potential collapse that scientists predict if we don’t stop ourselves is a judgment from God. Hopefully we repent of our ways like the Assyrians in the time of Jonah.

God’s Environmental Message

Now that we are aware of what God is angered by, how can we have a Scriptural understanding of environmentalism. What does God Himself have to say about the relationship between humans and nature?

Leviticus 25.23
The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants.

Psalm 24.1–2
The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it,
the world, and those who live in it;
for he has founded it on the seas,
and established it on the rivers.

Job 12.7–10
“But ask the animals, and they will teach you;
the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you;
and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
Who among all these does not know
that the hand of the Lord has done this?
In his hand is the life of every living thing
and the breath of every human being.

Matthew 6.25
Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

Before we can understand humanity’s relation to nature, we must understand its true ownership. We have to acknowledge that nature is not humanity’s object to use. It is God’s. He is the Creator of this world and everything in it, and He is the true owner of all of it. (The passage from Leviticus is especially interesting because it uses that as an economic argument for a system that we would not recognize as capitalist). Not only did God create the Earth and the animals that live in it, He also cares deeply for them. Now that we understand that we can turn to our role in God’s nature.

Genesis 1.26–28
Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”

So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

Genesis 2.15
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.

God created humanity according to His likeness, which is directly tied to having an authority over all the types of animals on the Earth. Humans are told to subdue the Earth and have dominion over all the animals. These verses have been so abused to say “God gave the Earth, let’s use it up”. This post-Industrial mindset has been disastrous to the environment. Rather, these verses tell us something very different. This command was given to humanity before the entrance of sin. Therefore, it is impossible to interpret these verses in a way that would cause violence to the Earth and destruction to the animals, as these are directly against God’s ethics. Instead, we need to see these verses in light of God’s relation to nature. God is the true owner of nature and the way this ownership is revealed is in how deeply He cares for it. Therefore, our dominion over nature ought to reflect God’s dominion over it. Let me be clear, if anyone says that they don’t see a point in taking care of this planet and advocating for environmental justice they do not know the heart of God in this matter. If anyone is preaching against caring for this planet, they are a false teacher spreading lies of destruction.

Concluding Thoughts

Although it goes unnoticed a lot of the time, the Bible is littered with verses throughout about God’s environmentalism. He cares deeply for this planet, and is angered about the injustices being done to it. We must be vigilant as Christians that we care for this Earth as it is God’s planet. As Christians, it is our duty is to live out the ethic of God, an ethic that promotes life and flourishing — that includes taking care of this planet.