In 2021, Singapore joined the global urgency to address what the United Nations called a “triple planetary crisis”: Climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss.

Nine days after declaring climate change a “global emergency” in Parliament, the Green Plan 2030 was launched to chart Singapore’s path towards net zero emissions by the year 2050. 

In his keynote message at the recent Creation Care Conference 2025 (September 12-13), Rev Dr Edwin Tay, principal of Trinity Theological College, reminded participants that Christians do not need a crisis to justify creation care. While it is right to respond to today’s environmental challenges, he stressed that Scripture gives believers deeper reasons.

Creation Care Conference 2025 was organised by Our Father’s World (previously known as Creation Care SG). It was hosted at Faith Methodist Church and Queenstown Chinese Methodist Church.

Drawing on the theme of the conference, “On Earth as it is in Heaven”, Rev Tay unpacked the relationship between Creator and creation, and humanity’s role in creation. 

Below is an extract of his message, edited for brevity.

The relationship between the Creator and creation

When Scripture opens with “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1), it places the relationship between Creator and creation, not humanity’s relationship with the universe. 

There are three theological convictions about God’s relationship with creation which are foundational for Christians. 

1. God’s transcendence over creation

God is distinct from and superior to creation. As Hebrews 11:3 reminds us, “the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible”. 

God in His infinite power creates out of nothing. This means the created world has a starting point. It is finite and dependent on God for its existence. But God is infinite, eternal and self-existent. His existence does not depend on the world He has made.

The Psalmist declares God’s supremacy over all creation when he compares the being of God to everything else in the cosmos: “Who is like the Lord our God, who is seated on high, who looks far down on the heavens and the earth?” (Psalm 113:5–6). 

Isaiah 55:9 adds: “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways”.

2. God’s immanence in creation

Our God who is transcendent is also immanent – present in His creation to sustain and order His world according His purposes.

God says through Jeremiah 23:24: “Do I not fill heaven and earth?”

Psalm 104:10-24 helps us appreciate this filling: “You make springs gush forth in the valleys … You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate … O Lord, how manifold are your works!”

Acknowledging that God is both transcendent and immanent is key to our practice of creation care. Why? Because these two theological affirmations help us to avoid two dangers: 

Danger #1. Treating nature as divine

Granted, the heavens declare the glory of God, but no matter how spatially expansive, the heavens are not divine.

The red deer stag may be “The Monarch of the Glen” as the title of Sir Edwin Landseer’s famous painting suggests, but no matter how  stunningly majestic, the stag remains a creature. No matter how complex and interdependent the earth’s ecosystem may be, the earth is not a deity, not an organism to be venerated.

In our care for creation, Christians do not worship nature. Affirming God’s transcendence helps us to avoid treating creation as objects of worship.

Danger #2: Treating nature as devoid of its own value – or only valuing its usefulness to humanity

Examples of this danger abound. Think of blood sports, where animals are wounded or killed for the sake of entertainment. Or deforestation for commercial profits, or animal experimentation that has no regard for their well-being.

If creation exists only for the needs of humanity, then creation care’s ultimate aim is human survival. But this is not the Christian position.

God’s active presence in creation to sustain and order it, gives to nature its own value and goal. 

Creation has intrinsic value. Jesus puts this point most clearly when he says that our heavenly Father cares for the birds of the air, the lilies and the grass of the field (Matthew 6:26-30).

God is immanent, present in creation to care for what belongs to Him even when they are in the wild, not cared for by humans. 

(This, of course, opens up questions about the value of wildlife in creation care – perhaps something that can be explored another day.)

The key lesson here is realising how precious we are to God as a creature of God.

If we are precious to God who cares even for the birds and plants, surely God will care for our needs. The argument works only because Jesus also affirms the value of the non-human creation. Jesus says to his disciples, “Are you not more valuable than they (the birds)?” (Matthew 6:26). This means that they are valuable. God the Father feeds and cares for them.

Why so? For the simple reason that they belong to God. God owns all of creation. God in Psalm 50:10-12 says, “every animal of the forest is mine and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains and the insects in the fields are mine … the world is mine and all that is in it”.

When we stroll in parks and forests, when we hear the joyous chirping of birds or the rhythmic buzz of the cicadas, remember, we are treading on God’s property. These creatures are residents in God’s home just as we are.

As the owner of the earth and all its inhabitants, God is present in the world to care for his cherished creation. Affirming God’s immanence in creation helps us avoid treating nature as devoid of its own value.

3. God’s triunity

The third conviction for creation care is that God our Creator has revealed himself as the one God who is Father, Son and Spirit. The Lord’s Prayer reminds us of this.  

This trinitarian way in which God communes with us is the way God has been engaging the world from its very beginning. Creation is a work of the triune God.

The author of Hebrews tells us that God “in these last days, has spoken to us by his Son … through whom also he created the world” (Hebrews 1:2). Scripture also teaches that God created the world by the Spirit. We read in Genesis 1:2, when the earth was “without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep”, God’s Spirit was “hovering over the face of the waters”. Like an eagle that hovers over her nest to nurture her young, the Spirit of God “hovers” over creation. It is to bring to life and order, what the Father creates through the Son. The work of creation of God the Father, the Son and the Spirit is inseparable.

Biblical and historic Christianity has consistently taught that creation is a work of the triune God. The Nicene Creed (AD 381), for instance, begins with the confession of “one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.” It goes on to confess “one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God … through him all things were made”. Finally, it confesses belief in “the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life …”

All three Persons of the Godhead are involved in the work of creation.

Why is our faith in the triune God important for creation care? Because it is only with the doctrine of the Trinity that God reveals to us with clarity that creation cannot be divorced from redemption. They are like two sides of the same coin.

Listen to this  statement by the Apostle Paul, he brings creation and redemption together. Writing to the church in Corinth, he says, “there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we exist”. (1 Corinthians 8:6)

That is to say, creation originates from God the Father – He created all things: “Through whom are all things, and through whom we exist”. This means, all things were created through Christ and are being sustained by him.

Paul is not thinking of Jesus apart from his work of redemption. He is thinking here of Jesus who died for our sins, who was raised and has ascended to the Father. He is thinking of Jesus who has been given the Name above every name. He is the Lord through whom all things are created and sustained.

The Saviour who redeemed us is our Creator who made us. We cannot separate redemption and creation. This is a very important point. Proclaiming the Good News that “Jesus Christ is Lord” is to proclaim that Jesus is Lord over all creation, not just Lord of humanity or the church. The creation for which we care, is under the lordship of Jesus Christ who created it.

This is why creation care is integral to Christian discipleship. We learn from Christ to care for his creation over which he is sovereignly ruling.

These three aspects of the Creator-creation relationship anchor our thinking about creation care. It is within this relationship that we now try to make sense of humanity’s place and role in God’s creation.

Humanity in creation: Our solidarity and vocation

How should we make sense of our place in God’s world as human beings? We begin our search of answers with God’s order of creation. We read that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh (Genesis 1:1-31).

On the first three days, God created by separation: Light from darkness, heavens from waters, dry land from sea. On the next three days, He created by adornment: filling the heavens with planetary bodies, the skies with birds and the seas with sea creatures, and finally the land with land creatures – including Adam. On the seventh day, God finished His work of creation and rested.

Sometimes it takes a child to teach us spiritual lessons. For me, that child was my younger daughter, Chloe. At four, she freed a bird trapped in a drain, saying simply: “I don’t know, it’s an instinct.” At eight, she would rush home from school to garden, telling me: “It was just nice, I like the soil.” At 15, recovering from surgery, she pulled herself out of bed to rescue a shrew stuck on a glue trap. When I asked why, she said, “How can I just leave it? I saw something wrong, and I wanted to correct it.”

There is something about being human that connects us with the earth, animals, and the rest of creation. It is why even grown people grieve when an animal they care for dies, or why conservationists weep when they see devastation. How should we make sense of our own humanity in God’s world?

There are two things that must be said about being human.

1. Humanity’s solidarity with creation

To be human is to be a creature of God who shares things in common with the non-human creation. Adam, for instance, was made on the same day as the land creatures. Humanity – ,just like non-human creatures – was formed “from the ground” Genesis 2:7, 19) and gifted with the “breath of life” (Genesis 1.30; 2:7).

God’s divine pronouncement of “very good” was pronounced over all creation together, not over humanity alone. Our solidarity with creation is part of what makes us human.

2. Humanity’s vocation for creation

To be human is also to be made in God’s image and likeness. This distinguishes humans from the rest of creation.

Being God’s image bearer comes with a divine commission: “Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the heavens … and over all the earth …” (Genesis 1:26). Psalm 8:4 captures this: “You made them rulers over the works of your hands.”

Our dominion is not exploitation. It is to “cultivate and guard” the earth (Genesis 2:15) for its full flourishing, to exercise delegated authority in service. We are called to reflect God’s own character in the way we rule.

How does God rule? Scripture tells us we are to rule as a shepherd.

When David became king, he was reminded, “You shall be a shepherd of my people Israel.” (2 Samuel 5:2). David himself declared, “The Lord is my shepherd” (Psalm 23:1). God rules by providing, nourishing, healing, leading and protecting (Psalm 23) – qualities we are called to mirror in our dominion over creation.

Holding the two realities together

In our practise of creation care, it is important that we hold these two realities together: First being earth-bound creatures in solidarity with the rest of creation; and second, being God’s image-bearers, delegated with authority to govern creation as God governs us.

If we deny we are image-bearers, human life loses its dignity and becomes no different from weeds. But if we deny our solidarity with creation, we make ourselves into gods, ruling for selfish interest rather than God’s purposes.

At the root of today’s ecological crisis lies this distortion: We no longer reflect God’s character. We instead reflect our own selfishness, greed and apathy – the top three environmental problems according to environmental lawyer and advocate, James Gustave Speth.

Yet there is hope. The eternal Word through whom the world was made took on flesh and became the “last Adam”. Jesus, the true image of God, exercised dominion not through domination but through service and obedience to the Father’s will. As the Good Shepherd, Jesus laid down His life for His sheep. Through His death and resurrection – in the very stuff of creation – He redeemed creation and began its renewal.

There is no greater sign of God’s commitment to creation than the incarnation, the cross and the empty tomb. The Gospel is not just about salvation for humanity. It is about the reconciliation of all things, “whether on earth or in heaven” (Colossians 1:20). 

And so, we care for creation not in fear or despair that the earth will fall apart, but with hope. We labour as shepherds and servant-kings after the manner of Christ, knowing that one day, “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption” (Romans 8:21). And in Christ, “all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17).

God’s new humanity in Christ, the church

Let me conclude with “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

That is our prayer as God’s new humanity in Christ, the church. We long to see the glory of God in the world He has made. We long to see creation flourish and display the glory of His wisdom and power.

Prayer wall at the back of the hall where the conference was held – a space for participants to quietly reflect, intercede and contemplate.

So we pray for God’s rule to be established on Earth as it is in Heaven. In addition to our prayers, I have three recommendations for our practice.

1. Consider creation

The Psalmist says: “When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars …” And Jesus says: “Consider the ravens…Consider the lilies, how they grow…” (Luke 12:24, 27). Creation care has to stem from our inner desire to behold the glory of God in His creation. We will feel for our Father’s world if we have seen our Father’s glory in His world.

As Saint Augustine once said: “Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: The very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Note it. Read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead, He set before your eyes the things that He had made.”

So, slow down. Spend time at the parks, the beaches and the reservoirs. Be refreshed by the winds. Be ministered to by the repertoire of birds in the freedom of their songs. Be gripped by the creative colours of the flowers. Be surprised by the reciprocity of animals as we relate with them. And then commune with God as you discern His presence and the wisdom of His ways. God displays the splendour of His attributes through His works.

2. Care for creation

(Watch this space for a report on this).

3. Celebrate God

What is the end of creation’s existence? It is nothing less than the glorification of God. All of creation owes its existence to God our Creator. Therefore, all of created reality owes God honour and praise.

Paul celebrates this truth in his doxology in Romans: “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things” (Romans 11:36). He praises God as he is taken up with a vision of “all things”, the whole cosmos. The ultimate end of creation and creation care is the praise and glorification of God.

We are given a glimpse of this in the throne room of God in Revelation 5:11-15. We find all the creatures in heaven and on earth, united in the praise of God. 

What a moving vision of Earth and Heaven, united in Christ, glorifying God our Creator and Redeemer. That is our future – but our future has already broken into the present in Christ Jesus.

So let us consider creation. Let us care for creation, seeking its full flourishing. And let us join with all creation to celebrate God on Earth as it is in Heaven.

Rev Edwin Tay’s keynote message drew from a number of sources including Creation Care and the Gospel by Lam Kuo Yung, Leow Wen Pin and Dennis Tan (Singapore: Armour Publishing, 2023). The book has been republished by Graceworks as Loving Our Father’s World, in English and Mandarin.

Churches unite in support of creation care

Building on the success of the inaugural conference organised by Our Father’s World in 2022, Creation Care Conference 2025 was designed to equip Christians with a theological understanding of creation care, to empower them to love and care for creation, and to connect like-minded believers to effect change together.

Held over two days, it attracted 500 attendees from 130 churches and 10 countries across several denominations.

On Day 1, Bishop of The Methodist Church in Singapore, Rev Philip Lim, opened the conference in prayer.

Dennis Tan, co-founder and executive director of Our Father’s World, told Salt& Light: “This was the first time a sitting President of the National Council of Churches of Singapore (NCCS) has publicly attended a creation care conference and prayed for creation care. It is also the first time that NCCS has addressed environmental stewardship, and we hope this encourages further action from its member churches.”

Later that evening, Rev Tony Yeo, Senior Pastor of Covenant Evangelical Free Church closed the session in prayer.

Said Dennis: “This too was a milestone, representing the first public participation in a creation care conference – and public prayer for creation care by a sitting Chairman of the Evangelical Free Church of Singapore and All Asia (EFCSAA).

“Notably, CEFC has recently launched a Sustainability Task Force, signalling a growing commitment within the denomination to environmental responsibility.”

On Day 2, guest-of-honour Minister Mr Desmond Lee gave the opening address. Mr Lee is Minister of Education, Minister-in-charge of Social Services Integration, MP for West Coast – Jurong West GRC.

“Minister Lee was very happy to hear that there is growing interest in creation care, and thanked OFW for bringing  the community together to steward the environment,” Dennis told Salt&Light.

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