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biblical command. We have been charged with the responsible care of creation. The rainbow is a symbol for God not willing to destroy the earth. But it takes two to make a covenant. The issue is whether humans will keep up their end of the deal or whether they will fail by mercilessly exploiting creation and not preserving it for future genera tions.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water, which is very useful and humble and precious and chaste. Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Fire, through whom you light the night and he is beautiful and playful and robust and strong. Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Mother Earth, who sustains us and governs us and who produ ces varied fruits with coloured flowers and herbs. On the female side, it is Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) who stands for creation theology. Her Book of Divine Works is about the af fi nity of humans with creation, describing the interdepen dence of all living creatures. Responsible conduct of humans is God’s command according to Hilde gard of Bingen. Incidentally, her knowledge about the healing power of herbs is still relevant today. One of the fi rst theologians who conside red the reverence of creation in our time was Albert Schweitzer. In his short essay Reverence for Life, he describes in 1963 how his concept evolved 1 . He sees its origins in the compassion he had for animals as a child. Later, as a stu dent in Strasbourg, he witnesses the contention of the thinking of Friedrich Nietzsche, who talks of the Übermensch (superhuman) who is not gui ded by Sklavenmoral (slave morality) of love but on the Herrenmoral (master morality) of the will. Contrary to this, Schweitzer sees Tolstoy’s texts as a conscious af fi rmation of an ethical stance. ‘I am life that wants to live, in the midst of life that wants to live’, is the central sentence in Schweitzer’s ethics.

Preservation of creation is the charge

Creation had rarely played a relevant part in theo logy before the twentieth century. The best known and fi rst theologian to make the preservation of creation his leading theme was Francis of Assisi, who lived in the Middle Ages from 1182 to 1226. He worshipped nature and loved it as God’s gift. The sun and moon were brother and sister to him. And so it says in his famous Canticle of the Sun: Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures, especially through my lord Brother Sun, who brings the day; and you give light through him. And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendour! Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness. Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars, in heaven you formed them clear and precious and beautiful. Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind,

and through the air, cloudy and serene, and every kind of weather through which You give sustenance to Your creatures.

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