I’m now sitting in the Hostel for the last morning of the conference for this year. Luckily, the last keynote, as well as the workshops and dinner speakers were all on topic, though some of them still missed the centrality of Jesus Christ (though not everybody). I also managed to get the names of some evangelical conservationist people, and I’m going to start a Google group for Canadian Christian Environmentalists when I get back to my PC.

The reason I feel the need to do that is simple. While listening to the many varied talks, I heard a great many reasons to care about the environment, while most missed the central reason to care and also the central reason to have hope about it. In the first place, those of us who know Jesus in a saving way are generally captured by a desire for God, to glorify Him, to enjoy Him with everything we have. While that desire falters from time to time, it is a general basis of where we are. That desire transcends EVERYTHING else. So, any reason to care for creation that is not centrally tied to a love for God is doomed to failure, as it is only the ultimate desire for God that God will bless with His strengthening Spirit. Other people may have strong desires to do things, but a Christian that sees God as ultimate, and glorified in creation can be fully consumed by it.

That consuming desire to express God’s glory in nature would lead to despair were it not also attended by the fact that it is God that will bring all things to renewal in a new heaven and a new earth (Isaiah 65:17, 66:22, Rev. 21:1). It is the children of God (Romans 8:19-22) whose revealing will ease the groans of the creation presently subjected to futility.

Thus in two ways, the greatest omission in the majority conference, and the greatest power for a true environmentalism is the same thing. The glorious, all powerful, redeeming Son of God; Jesus Christ.