Beyond Stewardship? Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Nature

This article questions whether the model of stewardship is helpful in considering Christian responsibility towards non‐human nature and proposes a different way of treating the issue of care of the environment. In an extended engagement with the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the article argues that human relations to non‐human nature are best understood by seeing humanity as historical, political and natural. In theological formulation, humanity must be understood asimago dei, imago civitatis andimago mundi. Therefore the place of humanity cannot properly be understood without reference to both God and nature. Humanity, nature and God thereby constitute a ‘common realm’. A new test of Christian responsibility towards non‐human nature is introduced: of primary interest is how historical, political and natural humanity acts in ways which either reveal or obscure the ‘common realm of God, nature and humanity’. At this point, theological self‐understanding moves beyond the model of stewardship.