But the Bible is clear that Christians do not have to tackle this quest alone, but rather should do it as a group of believers, supporting each other along the way. Rev. Dr. Vogt comments that in his work with ecology and on fracking in the Pennsylvania Lutheran
community, one of the convictions that he emphasizes most strongly is that sound ecotheology adds a deeper layer to an understanding of Christian fellowship and community. Even
doubting pastors realize that creation could be useful in ministry, he says:
We’re getting down to the point where people in the church are even questioning the point of gathering together to worship. Creation theology helps explain why it is important that we gather in community. Place, relationship, community. The earth as a sacrament informs why community is a sacrament. Ecotheology is important as we go ahead, because it’s community theology.
The detachment in the churches, he explains, stems from a modern, heaven-centric version of Protestant religious life that focuses so intently on the individual—the self—and the one-on-one relationship with God, that even human community seems less than vital. This certainly affects how people in the synod often see the environment’s role in religious ethics:
Another thing is that people say, “Oh yeah, the environment, that’s part of ethics: good works and how we should live while we’re here. But then we’re going to go away to leave and [heaven’s] another place.” There is this divide. “Ethics is about earthly things, but that’s the third quarter. At the end of the fourth quarter, we’re all going to graduate to a different place,” [some say]. So, we’re working against that. We’re trying to draw it back together.
Many religious and secular theorists see our alienation from one another as integrally linked with our alienation from the natural systems we inhabit. For Lutz, it signifies a
misunderstanding of our relationship with God and a misinterpretation of our vocation according to the theological concept of imago Dei, being made in the image of God. As he elucidates, “Being in the image of God lets us use the soil. It does not justify our using up the soil. Being in God's image lets us cut trees for building material and fuel. But it requires that we routinely plant new trees and leave alone trees that protect life-giving soil from erosion. Being in God's image means we see God's gifts in the rest of nature as more than commodities in a global market. These gifts are, in a profound way, flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone.”148
Santmire says that God is in partnership with us (as traditional stewardship models imply), but God is also in partnership with nature and humans with nature likewise. It is a triangular relationship of interdependence.149
Lutheran ecotheology also asserts that this earth community perspective is deepened by an awareness of the New Testament call for community. When asked what theological
techniques she uses to approach the ecotheology of fracking in her church, Rev. Adler replied:
148 Lutz, 3. 149 Santmire, 10.
[I use] Jesus’ teaching of who is my neighbor. That our neighbor is not just our human neighbor, but it is the river and it is the animals and it is the plants and it is the whole ecosystem, and we are called to speak for it, to care for it, to learn from it.
Lutherans, and all Christians, profess that they believe in a cosmic Christ, “the firstborn of all creation,” in whom and for whom “all things in heaven and earth were created,” and in whom “all things hold together” (Col 1:15-20). By doing so, Christians are affirming that community in Christ is inclusive of all created beings.
That inclusiveness means that the relationship between human, non-humans, and the elements of the earth is “important to the persistence of that community, the handing on of traditions, and the maintenance of social bonds,” Waldkoenig argues. He says that the wise voices of people like Wes Jackson and Wendell Berry, who refuse to let modern life obscure these relational ties, “(carve) a space for the cultivation of scenes of grace in which care and community shape places.”150 Berry himself suggests that “not just humans but all creatures live
by participating in the life of God, by partaking of His spirit and breathing His breath.” He connects this participation in God’s eternal life as the grounding of Jesus’ call to act in
community with our neighbors: “And so the Samaritan reaches out in love to help his enemy, breaking all customary boundaries, because he has clearly seen in his enemy not only a
neighbor, not only a fellow human being or a fellow creature, but a fellow sharer in the life of God.”151
Just so, in the case of fracking and many other cases of ecological degradation, the fate of our human and non-human neighbors integrally linked. It is not a choice between reaching out to our human neighbor or our non-human neighbors. This thinking originates in a false, competitive duality between the needs of humanity and the needs of the rest of creation. Nonetheless, knowing when and how to attend to human and non-human neighbors is a
150 Waldkoenig, 332. 151 Berry, 136.
difficult task, says Lutz. He concludes, “The biblical imperative is that we always tilt toward those who are poor: orphans and widows, landless ones, the exiles in our midst. And it is true, in rich and poor countries alike, that environmental degradation hurts first and worst those who are the most vulnerable economically. And so economic justice and environmental justice always walk together.”152 Faith enables us to have an awareness of this connection, to have the
vision to see the ramifications of our actions on our surrounding community. It is the loving knowledge of place, and all the created beings it contains, that Waldkoenig argues is integral to seeing the work of the Holy Spirit on this earth: “Time and again, God teaches humanity to sense their location and their proximity to God’s presence, from the edge of the Jabbok to Elijah’s cave, and on to the cross of Christ.”153