God's purpose in Christ is to heal and bring to wholeness not only persons but the entire created order. . . . In Jesus Christ, believers are forgiven, transformed and brought into God's kingdom. "If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation" (II Cor. 5:17). The presence of the kingdom of God is marked not only by renewed fellowship with God, but also by renewed harmony and justice between people, and by renewed harmony and justice between people and the rest of the created world. . . . We believe that in Christ there is hope, not only for men, women and children, but also for the rest of creation which is suffering from the consequences of human sin. (An Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation )

Stewardship

The earth and the seas are the Lord's. We are stewards—called to represent God's interests. Further, when we harvest the creation, we should not only avoid damaging God's world, we should share God's blessings with other humans. Just as we are responsible to God for our finances, we need to be responsible with natural resources. (Susan Power Bratton, “Rockfish, Redfish, Stockfish, Foodfish: Seven Biblical Principles for the Care of Creation,” Sojourners, March 2004)

Greed can blind us to our own destructive business practices. Proverbs 20:21 admonishes, "An estate quickly acquired in the beginning will not be blessed in the end." The rush and unrelenting work of the Protestant ethic can backfire when we damage forest soils and the forest does not regenerate; or we capture far too many juvenile redfish with the shrimp hauls and the redfish population collapses. Christians should discourage complete efficiency and speedy implementation of new technologies in harvesting natural resources. It is better to test each new scheme carefully and seek selective and lower-impact methods of resource harvest. Although environmentally sound methods of resource extraction may cause small increases in the cost of fish or timber, the patient consumer will find that respect for the normative working of divine providence is the superior business strategy. (Susan Power Bratton, “Rockfish, Redfish, Stockfish, Foodfish: Seven Biblical Principles for the Care of Creation,” Sojourners, March 2004)