The National Religious Partnership for the Environment is an alliance of four religious organizations and institutions committed to caring for God's Creation. The Partnership is supported by individual, church, and organizational donations. Click here to donate.
The following statement, adopted by the Board of Trustees of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, presents the fundamental Jewish and Christian teachings that are the basis for the Partnership’s work:
The cosmos, in all its beauty and life-giving bounty, is the work of our personal and loving Creator. Our creating God is prior to and other than creation, yet intimately involved with it, upholding all things in relationships of intricate complexity. God is transcendent, while lovingly sustaining each creature; and immanent, while fundamentally other than creation and not to be confused with it.
The Creator lovingly cares for all creatures. God declares all creation "good" (Gen. 1:31), makes a covenant with all creatures (Gen. 9:9-17), and delights in creatures which have no apparent human usefulness (Job 39:1-12). Created in the very image of God, human beings have a unique relationship to the Creator; at the same time we are creatures, shaped by the same processes and embedded in the same systems of physical, chemical, and biological interconnections which sustain other creatures.
Called to be the Creator's special stewards, human beings have a unique responsibility for the rest of creation. As wise stewards, we are summoned not
only to mold creation's bounty into complex civilizations of justice and beauty, but also to sustain creation's fruitfulness and preserve its powerful testimony to its Creator.
We confess that too often we have perverted our stewardly calling, rampaging destructively through creation rather than offering creation and civilization
back in praise to the Creator. For this our sin, we repent, gratefully acknowledging that the Creator is also the Redeemer who promises to renew all things. In grateful obedience to this our marvelous God, we resolve to make our homes, our faith communities and our societies centers for creation's care and renewal, healing the damaged fabric of the creation which God entrusted to us. We make this declaration knowing that until our God restores all things, we are called to be faithful stewards of God's good garden, our earthly home.
The following statement, adopted by the Board of Trustees of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, presents the fundamental Jewish and Christian teachings that are the basis for the Partnership’s work:
The cosmos, in all its beauty and life-giving bounty, is the work of our personal and loving Creator. Our creating God is prior to and other than creation, yet intimately involved with it, upholding all things in relationships of intricate complexity. God is transcendent, while lovingly sustaining each creature; and immanent, while fundamentally other than creation and not to be confused with it.
The Creator lovingly cares for all creatures. God declares all creation "good" (Gen. 1:31), makes a covenant with all creatures (Gen. 9:9-17), and delights in creatures which have no apparent human usefulness (Job 39:1-12). Created in the very image of God, human beings have a unique relationship to the Creator; at the same time we are creatures, shaped by the same processes and embedded in the same systems of physical, chemical, and biological interconnections which sustain other creatures.
Called to be the Creator's special stewards, human beings have a unique responsibility for the rest of creation. As wise stewards, we are summoned not
only to mold creation's bounty into complex civilizations of justice and beauty, but also to sustain creation's fruitfulness and preserve its powerful testimony to its Creator.
We confess that too often we have perverted our stewardly calling, rampaging destructively through creation rather than offering creation and civilization
back in praise to the Creator. For this our sin, we repent, gratefully acknowledging that the Creator is also the Redeemer who promises to renew all things. In grateful obedience to this our marvelous God, we resolve to make our homes, our faith communities and our societies centers for creation's care and renewal, healing the damaged fabric of the creation which God entrusted to us. We make this declaration knowing that until our God restores all things, we are called to be faithful stewards of God's good garden, our earthly home.
National Religious Partnership for the Environment 110 Maryland Avenue, NE, Suite 203, Washington, DC 20002. nrpe@nrpe.org