Francis Schaeffer’s Pollution and the Death of Man was prescient when it was published in 1970 and has retained a striking and enduring relevance. Schaeffer wrote in response to the claim that the ecological crisis was Christianity’s fault; that humanity has degraded and exploited nature without limit because the Bible teaches we have dominion over the Earth (Gen 1:28). Schaeffer also responded to the suggestion that the alternate spirituality of pantheism (that all of reality is itself divine) is the solution. His answer to both claims centres on the intrinsic value of nature by virtue of its createdness. Human dominion should not be destructive when we recognise that we are under God’s overarching rule. But since the Fall, humanity has exercised its control wrongly. He argues that the church has not spoken out against the abuse of nature throughout history as it should have done.
The Ecological Crisis
Schaeffer understands that as the global population grew exponentially since the Industrial Revolution, the corresponding demand for resources (and the concomitant impact on ecosystems) ballooned. Waste production and pollution also escalated. Academic works that echoed Schaeffer’s concerns are now considered seminal. Kenneth Boulding, for example, wrote ironically in 1966, “let us eat, drink, spend, extract and pollute, and be as merry as we can, and let posterity worry about the spaceship earth.” An international team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) published The Limits to Growth two years after Pollution and the Death of Man. They warned,
If the present growth trends in world population, industrialisation, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years.
Over half a century later, humanity is testing and even overshooting several of the limits these authors identified. Climate change, primarily driven by anthropogenic factors, is considered by many to be humanity’s most significant secular existential threat. The past decade is the hottest on record, and the past two years are the hottest of those. Pollution of many waterways and oceans has reached epidemic proportions. Several planetary boundaries have been exceeded. By 2050, we will face the challenge of feeding an estimated ten billion people on the same (or less) land while using less water and lowering emissions. How should we respond to these complex and seemingly insoluble ‘wicked problems’ of Planet Earth?
We live in a world where, despite all the discussion about climate change action and mitigation, far more is said than done. Some of the world’s wealthiest people are proposing radical mitigation measures. Jeff Bezos suggests heavy manufacturing and polluting industries operate off-world, allowing Earth to return to an Edenic state, while Elon Musk wants to colonise Mars.
The Creation Mandate
Shaeffer grounds his treatise in God’s creation act—“If I am going to be in the right relationship with God, I should treat the things He has made in the same way as He treats them” (p. 43), with integrity. In the beginning, men and women were appointed as custodians, vice-regents of the created realm, and image-bearers who could relate to God (Gen 1:26–30). Since time immemorial, we have engaged in taxonomy and land stewardship (Gen 1:29; 2:19). We have a unique role in caring for the environment. In line with this, we ought to balance the supply and demand of the food, water, energy, minerals, and metals we require.
The mandate for Christians to treat creation with integrity even in our complex consumeristic world remains. After all, it is human sin that led to the decay and pollution of the world. Our worldview should encompass modern challenges, including climate change, pollution mitigation, environmental policy, equity, and other sustainability issues. “Christians, of all people, should not be the destroyers. We should treat nature with an overwhelming respect” (p. 55). Christians have a compelling reason to be at the forefront of recycling, ocean cleanup, nature conservation, and achieving net-zero emissions.
One of the symbols of humanity’s ravaging of ecosystems that Schaeffer presents is the tendency to exploit the environment for profit through mining. Yet we often fail to rehabilitate the site after mining ceases. He decried the land degradation caused by mine operators in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and in the ‘Black Country’ of England’s Midlands: “Why does strip-mining turn the world into an absolute desert?” (p. 59). The lack of mine closure, rehabilitation, and relinquishment remains a contemporary challenge, with an estimated 80 000 abandoned mines in Australia alone.
Future Hope
Shaeffer inspires optimistic stewardship and a vision for church leadership in a world filled with angst, pessimism and fatalism. He warns against pragmatic distortions in Christian thought—we do not simply care for creation because humanity will reap benefits from sustainability and increased efficacy. Instead, “I do it because it is right and because God is the maker” (p. 68). He further cautions against a false dichotomy between the physical and spiritual. Schaeffer argues that nature is not somehow ‘lower’ than humankind because of the created moral order. He states that this devaluation is “really an insult to the God who made it” (p. 45). Humanity is the pinnacle of God’s creation—we can relate to God in a way that a snail, a sloth, or a sealion never will—but nature has inherent value because of its creation. It is not less created.
God affirmed and vindicated his creation through the bodily resurrection of Jesus. He was the firstfruit of the future complete transformation of all things (1 Cor 15:20–55). Shaeffer reminds us that “there is going to be a total redemption in the future, not only of man but of all Creation”, so we must “treat nature now in the direction of the way nature will be then” (p. 50). We can play a restorative role in God’s world by, for example, reducing plastic pollution, protecting coral reefs, facilitating equitable food supply chains, or enhancing public and private efficiency until Christ returns and ushers in the new heavens and earth (Rev 21:22–26).
We are custodians and carers of our environment and our neighbours. Our neighbours include those across the street, but, in a broader sense, they are all fellow human beings, especially those whom we have the opportunity to serve (Lk 10:25–37). For example, our neighbours include those in future generations, and those on islands threatened by the ocean level rise. Schaeffer puts it this way:
Human life—in this present life, that is—depends on the uniquely balanced environment of this world … A Christian-based science and technology should consciously try to see nature healed, while waiting for the coming complete healing at Christ’s return. (page 58)
Shaeffer compels the reader to consider the beauty and awe of the Creator behind creation. He argues that underlying many alternative rationales of ecological care is a belief that fundamentally undermines environmental stewardship, positing that “nature and the things of nature are only a meaningless series of particulars” with no “universal” to hold them together, thus lacking in awe and wonder (p. 65). However, Christians know that this is not the case. “God is there! The personal-infinite God is the universal of all the particulars” (p. 65). God empowers us to fulfil our duty to treat creation with integrity and share the story of our loving and personal Creator who will resplendently redeem and renew creation in the twinkling of an eye (1 Cor 15:52).
