Our lives are a story in themselves. But not just any story. Each one of us is an image-bearer of an even greater story. It is the story of creation and our role in guarding and protecting its beauty and grandeur.
Sadly, our individual stories often go untold. Not because they’re not interesting. Our stories go untold because other stories overshadow our own. We’re expected to listen and be mesmerized by the stories of a handful of others.
You likely know one or two. They’re quick to tell you their own grievances and capacities. They are self-centered narcissist. In their opinion, the world revolves around them.
Of course, we all need a dose of self-confidence. We need enough self-confidence to know our story matters and to want others to know and love us. Our stories shape us. How our story fits into the greater story adjusts and colors how we see the world and how we hear the greater story. It is our filter that allows qualified information in and keeps the rest from changing our minds.
When the imbalance of self-confidence reaches a point of doing harm, psychologists call it narcissistic personality disorder. Persons suffering from this condition are extremely thin-skinned despite a rather grandiose sense of self-importance.
Jenette Restivo, in an article published by the Havard Medical School, states that persons with this condition demand excessive admiration and have an unreasonable expectation of being treated favorably or for others to comply with their demands and expectations.
The harm comes when their behavior turns to exploiting others to achieve their own ends, particularly since they lack empathy and are unwilling to identify with the needs of others.
Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist, writes about her uncle: ”This is far beyond garden-variety narcissism. Donald is not simply weak. His ego is a fragile thing that must be bolstered every moment because he knows, deep down, that he is nothing of what he claims to be.”
Kyle Meyaard-Schaap, in our companion book, explains how evangelical Christians came to support a candidate for president who exhibits all of the symptoms associated with a narcissistic personality disorder. Most evangelicals agree with the former president’s denial that climate change is real, or at least that the problems aren’t caused by human negligence.
Yonat Shimron, writing for the Washington Post, “Among White evangelicals, the view that the Earth is in crisis dropped — from 13 percent in 2014 to 8 percent,” according to a Public Religion Research Institute survey conducted in 2023.
“Nearly half of White evangelicals (49 percent) still believe climate change is caused by natural patterns in the environment,” notes Shimron in her article.
Schaap argues, “When it comes to climate change, we have been formed by stories other than the story of God… However we received it, the message was plain: we don’t need to care about the Earth because the Earth has no eternal significance…from the beginning, the pursuit of oil in America has been inseparable from Christianity.”
Schaap concludes, “Our faith is not informing our climate politics; it’s the other way around.”
In the first Genesis story, God turns chaos into order and declares creation good seven times during the process. The number seven is significant. Creation is complete; it is whole, and it is holy. Creation is as good as it gets.
But in the midst of creating all creatures, God chose to create humankind. We are image bearers, co-dependent within the rest of creation but not independent or above creation.
In the 2nd creation story, God forms the first human from the soil of the earth. The scene is intimate. For God, creation is personal. Out of the dirt, God forms Humankind from adamah, “soil people.” God then places the soil people into the garden as caretakers. We are the guardians who are given an awesome responsibility as guards of all the good God created.
In the beginning, the Word already existed; the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:1
This is the bigger story that should inform how we view climate change. We are the on-duty guards, and our sense of urgency should reflect our role and obligation.
When sin entered into our world, relationships suffered. Not only relationships between humans but our connection to creation itself was badly damaged. But there is good news. God is reconciling all of creation.
The Gospel of John reminds us of the greater story. “In the beginning was the Word,” writes John. “Word” is translated from logos in Greek. It is the force that brings life into the world. Schaap writes, “The logos was the ever-present energy—variously described by the competing philosophical schools as wisdom, logic, rationality, or beauty—that both created the world in the beginning and sustained it from one moment to the next.”
John reminds us the Word is the source of life and a light shining in the darkness. God will reconcile all of creation, repairing the brokenness and making the old new again. The earth was not created with planned obsolescence in mind. The earth was created out of love.
The earth and its guardians are part of God’s love story.
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Pastor Tommy
Parts of our series are inspired by Kyle Meyaard-Schaap. Following Jesus in a Warming World: A Christian Call to Climate Action. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2023.
Mary Trump. Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2022.
Jenette Restivo. Reviewed by Stephanie Collier, MD. “Narcissistic personality disorder: Symptoms, diagnosis, and treatments.” © Harvard Medical School, January 8, 2024. Retrieved from: link
Yonat Shimron. “U.S. faith groups do not view climate change as a crisis, new poll finds.” © Washington Post, October 6, 2023. Retrieved from: link