Our destiny is bound up with the whole created order.
— Trystan Owain Hughes

My friend Trystan was kind enough to share my piece about Christianity and the environment last week. If the comments on his Facebook page are any indication, Gnosticism — the idea that everything physical is cursed and only souls matter — is alive and well.

In a response on his blog, Trystan identifies three philosophical and cultural movements behind our tendency to ignore the plight of the natural world. What’s at stake here is a choice between two competing visions of salvation: a narrow (and ultimately unsatisfying), souls-only view on the one hand, and a more holistic, whole-creation vision of redemption on the other.

If we choose the former, then…

We are left with a bleakly individualistic and person-centred theology that is alien to much of the Bible and to the spirituality that Jesus himself practices in the gospels. Salvation, after all, is not merely about us as individuals, as even our destiny is bound up with the entire created order.

Besides, if salvation is just about individual souls, then what did Jesus mean by “the renewal of all things”? And did Paul mean when he said God would “reconcile to himself all things,” including “things on earth”?

In recent years, the phrase “human flourishing” has gained popularity in evangelical circles. (If you’ve ever attended a Q conference, one of the TED-style events put on by Gabe Lyons, then you know what I mean.) “Human flourishing” is much better than the souls-only view of salvation. It affirms that the whole person matters to God. But I want to take it a step further: I believe the biblical vision is not just for human flourishing but for whole-creation flourishing. That’s where our story is heading.

Read Trystan’s post here.

By the way, Trystan has a great book called The Compassion Quest, which lays out in greater detail his vision for an outward-focused, whole-creation faith. It’s one of those books that should be required reading for every Christian.