Responsibility, Authority, Freedom: The Three Elements of Concious Stewardship
Vincent Rossi holds a Ph.D. from Oxford University in Patristics. He has written numerous articles on the connections between religion and environment, and was founder of the Eleventh Commandment Fellowship.
1) Responsibility
Stewardship is first of all an awareness of one's personal responsibility for the creation. When this awareness is fully active and not abated by the various forms of self-centeredness with which fallen human nature is unfortunately afflicted, the sense of responsibility for creation is felt as an innate impulse to care for all living creatures. Contrary to popular belief, selfishness is not innate to humans; it is learned behavior. A Ònaked apeÓ cannot know the impulse to stewardship. A normal human being is hardwired with an ecological conscience, a natural desire to share the goods and fruits of the earth fairly with all other creatures. It is a conviction that being fully human means using with wisdom and discretion the power that human nature possesses to create and destroy. This awareness of responsibility is part of what makes us human; even little children possess it instinctively. It is revealed in the impulse to protect infants and growing things of all species. It is a fundamental datum of the normal and healthy human psyche
2) Authority
The responsibility of stewardship would be empty without the authority to fulfill it, and so authority is the second key element of conscious stewardship. Authority must not be confused, as it so often is, with power. This is true in all cases, but especially with regard to stewardship of the earth. Authority, which fittingly comes from the Latin augere, to create or increase, has to do with rights; power has to do with capacities. The authority inherent in the responsibility of stewardship of the earth which is laid upon human nature by the Creator is the right of human nature made in the Divine image to "be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it: and have dominion...." Stewardship is, above all, the sense of being a steward; that is, someone who is working for the true Owner and landlord (the Lord of the land). It is the Owner and Lord of the realm who has the authority to decree what he wants done with his creation and to delegate that authority to whomever he wills. That authority, which the Bible calls "dominion," is delegated by God to human nature. The acts of 1) being fruitful; 2) multiplying; 3) replenishing; 4) subduing; 5) dressing and keeping; 6) naming; and 7) forming and making, are rights granted to human nature by the Creator who delegated his own authority to human beings to act on his behalf in the creation.
3) Freedom
The responsibility and authority of stewardship would have no human dimension whatsoever without the freedom which gives meaning and purpose to all human acts. Human nature is inherently ordered toward being the representative (i.e. steward) of God on earth. Nevertheless, human beings must own stewardship by consciously and freely choosing to take up the responsibility and authority of stewardship of the earth. By freely choosing to assume with full awareness the burden and authority of stewardship, human beings will free a powerful creative force in human nature, which seeks to protect, preserve, and bring order and harmony to creation. By so doing, we will also be protecting, preserving, and bringing order, harmony, creativity and balance to our individual lives and to life in the human community.
It is only by nurturing the conscious awareness of our responsibility, authority and freedom with respect to creation that we can become conscious stewards. The crucial question is: what makes us irresponsible, without authority, and resistant to behavioral change toward the earth? Unless we become aware of the social, political, economic, cultural, and spiritual forces that suppress or destroy our ecological conscience, we will not create the society of stewards the earth so urgently needs.
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