Philozed

Eco-spirituality is about having a spirituality which is tied to and inspired by God’s creation. It is about being motivated to care for the environment by that sense of God’s presence revealed in nature.

Eco-Spirituality and the Christian way of life

The Christian story traces its roots back to the beginnings of creation through the message of Genesis.  The picture portrayed there is of a world which is created as a work of art by God – the creation of the world is how God expresses himself. In Genesis this world is constantly declared as good. This work of creation by God is filled with beauty, wrought with love and given as a gift to all living things. This expression of God in creation has over the ages been one of the ways in which people have experienced the presence of God and discerned something of his nature. Just as my art work cannot help but reveal something of my inner life, so God’s art work cannot help but reveal him.

But the story of Christianity may begin with Genesis but its focal point is Christ. God doesn’t just create the world and leave it he becomes a part of it in Christ. This is incarnation – the becoming flesh of God.  Christ is there from the beginning of creation – he is the one through whom all things are made. He is the logos or the pattern for being – one who has become incarnate in God’s creation.

When God created he created the web of life – everything is inter-dependent. There is not really us and the environment but the environment cycles through us. This has profound implications for those interested in the Christian approach to spirituality. Christians do not speak of the  immortality of the soul but the resurrection of the body – in other words we are our bodies as well as our minds and our spirits. You could easily say that we are incarnated and bound up in the environment ourselves and, as many have put it, what we do to the environment we do to ourselves.

If you would like to be involved in an eco-spirituality discussion check out

http://eco-spiritualityontap.blogspot.com/