Interfaith Perspectives on Land Use
Preserving Our Forest Heritage: A Declaration on Forest Conservation for the 21st Century
cont.

1-3. Christians and Jews are called to care for creation and the forests. cont.

This means we should treat the land and its forests as the Lord would treat them: with love, care, respect, humility, and restraint. Neither dominion nor stewardship allow an arbitrary domination or a commodification of Creation. Others prioritize a covenantal relationship, reflecting the promise which God declared to Noah and all Creation, as crucial in shaping our attitude toward the land. This view also requires responsibility to God to care for Creation. Still others emphasize a relationship of mutuality between God, humanity and Creation. Regardless of the spiritual principles which one holds sacred, for all Jewish and Christian people, acknowledgment of God leads to care for Creation and respect for forests.

And God said... "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.... " and the Lord God took them and put them in the Garden of Eden to dress it and keep it. (Genesis 1:28; 2:15)

1-4. Forests represent a spiritual test.

In the Creation story as told in Genesis, God commands care of the Earth. In the primordial Garden God places two trees before the first humans. The choice of whether and how to eat from the Tree of Life or the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a spiritual test for those first people. The way in which they chose to eat set them at odds, first with God and eventually the Earth. In our day, the way we treat trees and Creation's fruitfulness continues to be a spiritual test. Our interaction with trees still represents the way we choose between obedience to God and disobedience, the health of the whole Earth or personal selfishness, and ultimately between life or death.

The tree of life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil... but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die. (Genesis 2:9, 17)