Beyond Stewardship

Beyond Stewardship is intended to equip Christians to live better in this world by helping us all think more intentionally about the relationship we have with the nonhuman creation in which we are necessarily and thoroughly embedded. It responds to the questions “What if God didn’t place humans on earth to be stewards of creation but something else?” and “If not stewards, then what?”

The chapters in Beyond Stewardship were written by scholars from diverse disciplines who share a deep passion for a flourishing creation. Each chapter begins with a compelling story that draws the reader into new ways of thinking. Each author then looks beyond stewardship from the context of his or her own discipline and experiences. Some reimagine creation care by expanding on the traditional notion of stewardship. Others set aside the stewardship model and offer alternative ways to understand our presence within the broader creation. The chapters mark out ways to better live in the places we inhabit as individuals, communities, and institutions.

Collectively, the essays in Beyond Stewardship offer an expanded and enlivened understanding of the place of humans in the context of God’s creation.

Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xi

Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xiii 

Bill McKibben

Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Matthew Kuperus Heun and David Paul Warners

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 

David Paul Warners and Matthew Kuperus Heun

Part OneRETHINKING: Expanding Awareness

1 Smashing Prototypes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Matthew Kuperus Heun

2 Words Matter, but Audience Matters More. . . . . . . . . 31

Kathi Groenendyk

Part TwoREIMAGINING: How Things Could Be

3 From Foreign to Family: Kinship as Pathway toward Radical Care for the Earth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Kyle Meyaard-Schaap

4 The Responsibility of Earthlings for the Earth: Graciousness, Lament, and the Call of Justice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Clarence W. Joldersma

5 Symbiotic Stewardship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Aminah Al-Attas Bradford

6 From Stewardship to Earthkeeping: Why We Should Move beyond Stewardship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Steven Bouma-Prediger

7 Stewardship and the Kingdom of God. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

James R. Skillen

Part ThreeREORIENTING: Hopeful Ways Forward

8 What’s That? Naming, Knowing, Delighting, Caring, Suffering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Debra Rienstra

9 Reimagining Our Kinship with Animals. . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Matthew C. Halteman and Megan Halteman Zwart

10 A New Worldview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

Becky Roselius Haney

11 Making Visible the Invisible: Environmental Racism. . . . . .147

Gail Gunst Heffner

12 Who Can Be a Steward?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Dietrich Bouma

13 From Stewardship to Place-Making and Place-Keeping. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Mark D. Bjelland

14 Walking through a World of Gifts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

David Paul Warners

Afterword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Loren Wilkinson (with Eugene Dykema and Cal DeWitt)

Postlude: No More Room. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Gabrielle Eisma, Leah Knoor, and Hannah Riffell

Additional Resources

Appendix 1: Discussion Questions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Appendix 2: Further Reading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

List of Contributors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231