Back in the early 1960s, well before the first Earth Day celebration and even before the Club of Rome report on the threat of human growth to the natural environment, Lutheran theologian Joseph Sittler issued one of the first theological calls for ecological awareness. He urged that environmental ethics take their cue from the opening question of the Westminster Catechism in the Calvinist tradition. What is the chief end of man and woman (and of all creation, for that matter)? The answer: to glorify God and enjoy God forever.5
