Ecology and Calvinism (Outside Reading)

            For one of my outside readings, I will be evaluating the Calvinist position on environmentalism and ecology. My main source will be the words of Calvinist, Belden Lane. In Lane’s article on the Huffington Post, he begins by contrasting the stereotypical views of Calvinism with the content that actually exists in the Reformed Tradition. He states that Jonothan Edwards, author of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, actually wrote with such beauty and mysticism about God’s creation. He emphatically states Calvin’s view of nature which is that nature is the “theater of God’s glory”; Calvin also stated that we should be “ravished with wonder at the beauteous fabric of the universe”. God’s theater is always met with the thunderous applause of God’s creation. As a supporter of the ever sovereign decrees of God, Calvin knows that each thunder clap and every fall of snow is a marvelous display of God’s holy and infinite glory; it is as an orchestra constantly moving whether or not it is experienced in forte or pianissimo. Nature was a book (second and never ahead of Scripture) that God has given us, and to desecrate nature is to “burn the book of nature”. Calvin’s spiritual descendants, the Puritans, were even among the first in the modern period to pass legislation forbidding animal cruelty, citing Calvin as saying, “God will not have us abuse the beasts beyond measure, but to nourish and care for them”. Overall, this is a powerful lesson in stereotyping; a group who some would consider the least likely is truly the one which promoted ecology for the sake of loving our Lord God.