As an ecotheologian or Christian writer/thinker, I don't find this a particularly helpful idea. Indeed, it's not even biblical.
I spoke this weekend at a conference of Franciscans on climate change. In their bible study just before my talk they were looking at the Lord's prayer. God's will is to be done on Earth as it is in Heaven; indeed Earth is in the emphatic position. Combine that for example with Romans 8 where creation has a future at the resurrection, and such silliness is undone. To be in the world but not of the world means not to be a part of a culture of sin. It does not refer to God's good Earth, which itself will be liberated.
'Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world, for if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.'
ReplyDeleteCompare and contrast with:
'For God so loved the world...'
Both statements by John. How easy to make either of them exclusively normative.