Ecology and Salvation

A Wesleyan Methodist Meditation on Stewardship

Abstract

As crises of global warming mount, commitment to ecological theology and practice becomes urgently relevant. That John Wesley reveals prescient elements of an ecotheology calls Methodists to more active realization of the responsibility for “the Natural World” already taught in the Social Principals. Wesley calls us to become good stewards of the creation and all its creatures. While much ecotheology rejects “stewardship” as too close to “dominion,” it will be more effectual to reclaim it in terms of Wesley’s teaching on “the use of money” and “the soul of the universe.” He found the suffering of nonhuman creatures, who “travail together in pain,” to call us to responsible use of the creation. Salvation of our souls becomes inseparable from whether we respect the graced soulfulness that defines all creatures’ relation to the Creator.