Christian Response to Divine Creation and the Quest for Sustainable Environment in Nigeria

The alliance between religion and ecology has continued to be a point of scholarly research because religion plays significant roles in shaping people’s understanding, emotion and philosophy. It influences people’s attitudes and relationships among themselves and with the entire creation. Sometimes, certain religious teachings and orientations are capable of negatively influencing how people relate with their environment, especially when it is considered as a pool of resources to be exploited for human comfort and consumption. This perspective has resulted in environmental degradation, which has resulted in wanton destruction of lives and properties in form of diseases, tsunamis, flooding, etc. In other words, the environment which ought to be sustainable for human survival has turned to be a threat due to human carelessness and negligence. Through a qualitative design, using interpretivism as theoretical framework, this paper examines the relationship between religion and environment, how religions, especially Christianity has contributed to environmental problems and suggests ways of responding to all the things that God created toward achieving sustainable environment. It investigates how Christians in the Nigerian context understand their relationships with the environment and how they contribute to degradation or sustainability. Fifty (50) respondents, comprising 20 clergies and 30 church members were selected for interview on Christian contributions to environmental challenges and suggestion on how to respond to them. The findings reveals that few Christians in Nigeria have proper understanding of the synergy between church activities and environmental degradation. Also, many churches in Nigeria are ignorant of the impacts of their activities on the environment such as noise pollution, poor structural setting, poor sanitation and waste management. Their activities have had negative impacts on the environment sustainability such as flooding, building-collapse, epidemic, mental and emotional stress for the people. Christians as individuals and collectively as groups need to engage in environmental advocacy, modelling and integrating environmental concepts in biblical teachings and practices.