Several years ago at Nazarene Theological Seminary, I had to read Norman Wirzba’s book Food and Faith for a class on Christian ethics. When I first opened it, I rolled my eyes. Being somewhat close-minded on the topic at the time, I thought, “Oh boy… hippie ideology.”
I was wrong.
First of all, I cannot recommend the book enough. Wirzba writes with clarity and humility. He points out failures in our relationship with creation without making the reader feel like a complete failure themselves. It’s thoughtful, biblical, and surprisingly practical.
The reason I’ve been thinking about this again is pretty simple.
I’m forty-eight years old as I write this, and I have a wide range of hobbies — WWE, college wrestling, fishing, reading, building models, birdwatching, you name it. Recently, I decided I wanted to turn my flower garden into a real spot of tranquility (as much tranquility as one can find in a development with an HOA). I can’t turn the entire property into a wild nature garden… I don’t think the neighbors or the HOA would appreciate that.
But as I’ve been working on it, I’ve been reflecting again on what it actually means to care for creation in a distinctly Christian way.
Ecology Has Become Political
Unfortunately, “green living” has been hijacked and turned into a political ideology. You see jet-setting celebrities and politicians lecturing the rest of us about our carbon footprint while they fly private and destroy local environments. One very famous actor reportedly trashed a beach so badly it had to be closed. Meanwhile, some on the other side reject any concern for the environment simply because “those people” care about it.
Both extremes are foolish.
I suppose you could say I was “green” before it was cool — or hated. But my version didn’t come from political activism. It came from my childhood in West Virginia.
Learning from Pappaw
I was blessed to grow up next door to my mother’s parents in a very small community. By my earliest memories, my grandfather (I called him Pappaw) was already retired from the coal mines. He spent his days working in his basement workshop and tending to three rather massive gardens.
It’s the gardens I remember most.
Every spring, summer, and fall, I helped him lug 5-gallon buckets of water up and down each row so he could give every plant a half mason jar of water. But what stuck with me even more were his stories and practical wisdom.
He planted massive sunflowers for no other reason than “to feed the bees, Casper. We have to be responsible.”
One of his gardens rotated every year. He’d plant soybeans and then simply plow or till them back under “to restore what the plants took from the soil last year.” It was green living without the name or the politics — just good stewardship.
If I had an apple, I was expected to eat all of it, right down to the seeds (he called them “eeples”). Nothing was wasted. A lot of that was hard-won by living through the Great Depression, but a lot of it was simple common sense transitioning into a “more modern era.”
Back to My Garden
I really like birds. I’ve recently gotten into birding. I have several bird feeders on my property and will be installing a couple bird houses shortly. I watch the birds hop around, eat seed, whatever. We’ve had a rabbit — we call her Fluffy — living under one of my knockout roses in the daytime. Her den is in my neighbor’s yard. I like honey bees.
I got to thinking: “What can I plant that will grow back year after year that will attract birds, bees, insects, all the pollinators — AND look pretty?” Pretty is nice, but secondary to functional.
According to my research, the answer was Black Eyed Susans, Catmint, Butterfly Bushes, Bee Balm, Purple Coneflowers, Shasta Daisies, Irish Moss, Creeping Phlox, and Salvia. I also added a raspberry bush. They’re just now starting to show flowers, and Fluffy is even more at home… eating the Phlox.
The benefit is seeing the bees all over it. I’m actually very allergic to bee stings, but I can sit and watch European Honey Bees all day long. The birds have been coming more and more — House Finches, American Goldfinches, Mourning Doves, the occasional Northern Cardinal, Red-Winged Blackbird, Chipping Sparrows, and others. The Robins love the worms the gardening scares up.
So… what does this have to do with Wirzba’s book? Hang on — I’m getting there.
Dominion Is Not Destruction
First thing we need to remember: while God gave us dominion over this world, He absolutely did not give us a mandate to destroy it. There is an old Alabama song that says “it’s only ours to borrow, let’s save some for tomorrow.”
This is also true. I’d like to think we’re well past the “whatever works for me right now and to hell with the future or those who complain about it.”
Here’s the thing: there’s something about growing your own food — or even just tending a garden with care — that will change you. I’m not allowed to grow food in my current neighborhood, but I have this daydream of an ecological homestead of, say, 30 acres where only fewer than 5 will be developed for human use… the rest of it left alone or developed to the benefit of the other creatures that inhabit it — deer, coyotes, Pileated Woodpeckers, black rat snakes. Nothing is too “vile” or “scary” to be stewarded.
To set this up, I have to tell you a couple truths: I don’t hunt. I fish, but every fish I catch gets a kiss and tossed back. I don’t like killing animals.
But I have zero problem with those who harvest animals responsibly, and I still eat meat that I buy at the grocery store… which is where the problem begins for me, and most of us.
Wirzba wrote, “Food is about the relationships that join us to the earth, fellow creatures, loved ones and guests, and ultimately God. How we eat testifies to whether we value the creatures we live with and depend on” (Wirzba, p. 6).
Eating is necessarily destructive — there’s no way around that. But we can limit that destruction.
As I’ve said, I love to fish, but I’m a catch-and-release guy. In Ohio, the minimum limit to keep a Walleye is 15 inches and you can only keep 6. Walleye is a huge deal here, especially in Lake Erie and the Maumee River… and the conservation-minded will call you out if you’ve foul-hooked one or try to keep those you shouldn’t.
But… what if people aren’t watching? If you’ll only do it when nobody is watching, that’s an indicator you know it’s wrong. Pretty soon everybody keeps a few that are 14”, then the bar gets lowered; or “what’s the harm in keeping 8?” A million people keeping 2 extra is two million extra fish kept when they shouldn’t.
That expedites the destruction of the fishery and does irreparable harm to the ecosystem, eventually bringing stricter restrictions or shutting down the sport entirely.
Factory farming has removed us too far from the destructiveness of our eating habits, causing us to be a bit more gluttonous and more animals to needlessly die. We just need to pause and think a bit more.
Giving Back More Than We Take
Then the “real green” comes in: giving back more than you’ve taken. Setting up a refuge. Don’t kill a coyote just because it exists. Simple stuff like that.
God gave us dominion over creation (Genesis 1:26-28), but dominion is not domination or destruction. The Hebrew word for “subdue” (kabash) and “rule” (radah) is balanced by Genesis 2:15, where humanity is placed in the garden “to work it and take care of it” (avad and shamar — the same words used for serving God and keeping His commandments). We are stewards, not owners. The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it (Psalm 24:1).
Wirzba reminds us that how we eat reveals whether we value the creatures we live with and depend on. When we forget the cost of our food — the soil depleted, the animals treated as commodities, the waste generated — we live as if creation exists only for our convenience.
My Pappaw didn’t call it “ecology.” He just called it being responsible.
Maybe we need to recover that kind of simple, humble stewardship — free from both political ideology and careless indifference.
What do you think? Have you seen practical ways to care for creation that feel faithful rather than performative? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Rooted & Reckoned 
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