Stewardship and the Creation: LDS Perspectives on the Environment

What do Latter-day Saints believe about the environment?

A BYU team from several disciplines has just published a volume sharing LDS views on the environment in a book called “Stewardship and the Creation.”

George B. Handley from Humanities worked with Terry B. Ball of Religious Education and Steven L. Peck of Integrative Biology to edit this volume, which “offers a vital perspective on, and a foundation for, effective environmental stewardship that encompasses the best impulses of both liberal generosity and conservative restraint,” Handley writes on the back cover. The book is a required textbook for Humanities 490 and Honors 347, “Religion and the Environment.”

“Stewardship and the Creation” talks about how the views of LDS church members compare to the world’s views about the environment. The book also addresses issues such as the debate about reintroduction of wolves into the western U.S., the impact of our pioneer ancestors’ beliefs on current environmental policies in Utah, and the need to address issues such as urban sprawl and limited water supplies in the West.

The book is “a groundbreaking work, one of the first books to discuss LDS perspectives on the environment,” said Devan Jensen, executive editor at the Religious Studies Center at BYU. Jensen said that the book was primarily directed at LDS church members and people in the western U.S. but adds that the principles involved have much broader application.

 “People should take better care of the earth,” Rachel Goodwin, an Exercise Science major at BYU, said concerning the amount of litter that people leave on the ground. Goodwin mentioned that her apartment recycles as much as they can.

Media contact:
George Handley
Phone: 422-7151
E-mail: george_handley@byu.edu

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