The recent Christmas season illuminated homes and hearts worldwide, drawing us in to the manger in Bethlehem—a humbling yet radiant scene where divine love entered humanity through the birth of Jesus Christ. “For unto us a child is born,” proclaimed Isaiah, speaking of a Savior who would bear the sins of humanity, redeem the broken, and restore the lost (Isaiah 9:6).

Many of us see Christ’s coming largely, even entirely, as relevant to our individual personal destinies. But there is more—much more.

The Incarnation revealed God’s unyielding love for a wayward world. Through Christ, we are not merely forgiven; we are invited to be partakers in His redemptive mission. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:20 that we are “ambassadors for Christ.” This is no passive calling.

It demands that we, as stewards of God’s creation, embrace our responsibility to co-labor with Him in transforming the world—not just spiritually but physically, socially, and materially. Just as He equipped Noah with the knowledge to build the ark and Joseph with the wisdom to store grain for famine, He continues to empower humanity with the tools to solve today’s problems.

The twentieth and twenty-first  centuries are a testament to the astonishing potential of human ingenuity. Take, for instance, the “Green Revolution” of the mid-twentieth century—spearheaded by scientists like Norman Borlaug—that dramatically increased crop yields and saved millions from starvation.

Life expectancy has more than doubled since 1900 (from a mere 30 to 73), with advancements in medicine reducing maternal mortality, eradicating diseases like smallpox, and transforming what were once terminal illnesses into manageable conditions. Technological innovations have connected distant continents, provided clean drinking water to billions, and grown enough food to feed a global population once thought unsustainable.

But we are only halfway there.

We Are Able … Are We Willing?

While the post-war West has reaped the fruits of innovation and hard work, vast swathes of the global South remain mired in poverty. Sub-Saharan Africa, in particular, faces persistent challenges: inadequate access to clean water, unreliable electricity, and fragile healthcare systems. Life expectancy in some countries is still below 60 years, and nearly one in five people lacks access to sufficient food.

Jesus healed the sick, fed the hungry, and uplifted the marginalized—not just as acts of compassion but as a foretaste of the Kingdom to come. As His followers, we are called to do likewise, working tirelessly to transform our world into one that reflects His justice, mercy, and peace. To those in the West, blessed with resources and expertise, the question isn’t whether we can help—it’s whether we will and how we do it.

Standing between the poor—in Africa and elsewhere—and their socioeconomic upliftment are a plethora of issues, both intrinsic to the regions and those that arise from the West. One of the latter is the policy landscape imposed upon the masses by a few elite policymakers. Prominent among them are environmental, climate, and energy policies.

In today’s politically and morally corrupt world, it seems that even standing up for the basic rights of humanity’s developmental needs, such as the use of fossil fuel energy resources for basic needs like electricity, is proving to be a challenge.

From dimly lit, electricity-starved hovels to slow suffocation by the toxic breath of primitive cooking fires, the cruel deprivation of reliable and affordable energy resources continues to annihilate the hopes and health of millions trapped in energy poverty.

From my perspective—both as an environmental researcher who has worked under prominent scientists with the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and as a Christian who has witnessed immense poverty in India—there is no reason to justify the “climate panic mode” that our lawmakers and policy institutions have embraced now.

Time to Change the Conversation

Environmental rhetoric has been increasingly used to control and limit personal lifestyle decisions that are naturally sustainable and align with biblical teachings. From requiring cows to ingest methane-controlling pills to asking senior citizens to freeze in cold in the United Kingdom’s old-age homes, the list of practices being implemented across the world is truly astonishing.

As theologian Wayne Grudem says, “It does not seem likely to me that God would set up the world to work in such a way that human beings would eventually destroy the earth by doing such ordinary and morally good and necessary things as breathing, building a fire to cook or keep warm, burning fuel to travel, or using energy for a refrigerator to preserve food.”

I firmly believe that we as children of God have a responsibility to voice our support for the downtrodden in the West and in the underdeveloped parts of the world.

Support Cornwall Alliance. Click here to donate.

The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation’s document on “Protect the Poor: Ten Reasons to Oppose Harmful Climate Change Policies”—signed by prominent scientists, policymakers, and theologians—best elucidates the way forward: Christians should support the call  for “political leaders to abandon fruitless and harmful policies to control global temperature and instead adopt policies that simultaneously reflect responsible environmental stewardship, make energy and all its benefits more affordable, and so free the poor to rise out of poverty.”

By aligning our ingenuity with God’s unwavering love, we transform the world—not for our glory, but for His.

This article first appeared in The Stream February 8, 2025.

Featured image by Ian Schneider on Unsplash.