American Lutheran Church, 1982
A quiet crisis haunts our planet. The crisis is global, but it takes particular shape in the United States. It is a crisis of the land, and it has three chief expressions.
- CONSERVATION Survival of the land itself as the placenta for life.
Concerns over maintaining soil and water quality. - COMPETITION Survival of all who live from the land.
Concerns over preserving the most appropriate uses of land for sustaining all living things. - CONCENTRATION Survival on the land of those who tend it.
Concerns over dispersion of land ownership and control.
Survival is not too strong a word, even though many of us have only recently become aware of our society’s land problems. This statement seeks to expand that awareness among church members. Concern for the land is not a new concern among us. God’s people have always lived with a strong sense of the land. The biblical people have known for centuries that the land is central to God’s covenant with them, central to the shaping of human community central to relationships of justice among all peoples who dwell on the earth.
Land is understood to be the created earth, given by God for sustenance of all life. It includes soil, air, and water for producing food. It also includes the land as supplier of resources such as fuels and lumber and metals, the land as base for human settlement and transport, the land as playground and renewer of spirit through re-creation.
A theology of the land is a way of thinking about the land-people relationship which has God at the center. It puts the focus on the experience of the people of God with the land, under God. It relies on both the biblical witness concerning the land as gift and trust and on the experience of biblical people to this day.
A land theology must result in a land ethic, that is, a way of behaving that is consistent with our believing, actions suited to our faith commitments about the land, God, and people. To speak of a land ethic means that concerns about the land are more than economic and political. Our relationship to the land is also a moral matter, a question of what is just and good and most likely to convey love to our neighbor.
Read the complete statement in the Environmental Anthology of Denominational Policy .
Other mainline Protestant denominations have made statements and policies on similar topics, including: Land Development, Natural Resources, Wilderness Protection, Mining.
To read more, browse the Environmental Anthology of Denominational Policy by denomination or by environmental issue.
