The Madison-based ministry Care of Creation is building on Wisconsin’s environmental heritage (and the Bible) to spread a message of Christian environmental stewardship around the world.Â
Wisconsin’s environmental reputation is rooted in the legacies of John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and Gaylord Nelson. Christian environmentalism has been nurtured under the influence of Calvin DeWitt, a longtime professor at the University of Wisconsin’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, and co-founder of the Evangelical Environmental Network.
DeWitt is also director-emeritus of AuSable Institute of Environmental Studies which serves students of Christian Colleges. For a number of years AuSable Institute had an office in Madison directed by DeWitt and his Chief Operating Officer, Ed Brown. Brown went on to found Care of Creation in Madison in 2005.
Brown credits DeWitt for mentoring him in Christian environmentalism. Previous employment at the national office of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in Madison, as well as an earlier career as a pastor and missionary, gave him access to a global network of Christian leaders through organizations like the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students and the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization.
Following the Lausanne Global Consultation on Creation Care and the Gospel in Jamaica in 2012, Care of Creation went on to coordinate regional conferences in almost every region of the globe to promote environmental stewardship. “Creation Care is the most active of Lausanne’s 30 different movements, because of the urgency of the situation,” Brown said. “People all over the world know that people in their country are dying from environmental problems. They get it. (Even) people who don’t believe in God get it.”
He is glad to see Christian relief and development organizations that are changing their objectives to expand efforts in creation care. “A half dozen missions organizations are now giving staff time to creation care,” he noted.
With his global perspective, Brown is optimistic about where the care of creation movement is headed, comparing it to a new reformation. In the U.S. though, environmentalism is a hot potato in conservative circles. “We try not to politicize it or focus on one problem such as climate change, although that is a problem,” he said. He also noted erosion, deforestation, air pollution, etc.
“We do it all from an approach that is solidly biblical and centered on the church,” he said. “We are making a compelling case why we should care for God’s creation and we want to share that with the Madison church community.”
Care of Creation has embarked on a campaign to raise $1 million over the next five years, to expand the work that the organization does out of its small 5-person Madison office. Brown relates a conversation with one philanthropist who told him, “Most organizations would need a budget three times larger than yours to do what you have done.”
The organization is having an outsized impact. But there’s much more work that needs to be done.