For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subject to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.
The center point of a Christian Ecology is the recognition that (1) the creation itself experienced fracturing effects of the Fall and (2) that the reconciliatory sacrifice of Jesus also extends - through the church - to creation. As a result of this the Church, which acts as God’s agent in the world (ministers of the message of reconciliation) for reconciliation, takes up the prelapsarian role of caring for Creation and thus demonstrating God’s own care and creativity.
Thus, a Christian Ecology must move beyond contemporary concerns for humankind’s impact on the earth (while not ignoring those concerns); such concerns, while valid, fall short of imagining a restored relationship to the earth. Rather, a Christian Ecology must imagine and enact - for its own sake and for others’ - living on the land as if it were God’s own cherished possession - as indeed, it is.
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