BIBLICAL THEOLOGY Towards a Biblical View of Environmental Care

Most ancient cultures have an affinity with the earth. The Andean will tip the remains of their drink, despite the scarc~ty of it, onto the earth to honour Pancha Mama (Mother Earth). The Maoris will bury their afterbirths in the ground in an attempt to become one with the earth again: And Chief Sealth of the Duwannish Indian tribe of Washington State wrote in 1855 to President Franklin Pierce: 'Every part of the earth is sacred to my people.... All things are connfcted. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth.' It is only in so-called Christendom that this reverence and respect for the earth has disappeared. In the dominant Western world-view the earth is there to be used, to be stripped of its resources, to be raped and bled dry in an endeavour to achieve the goal of economic growth. We are in danger of sacrificing the earth to the god Economos. Christendom has moved away fro