“Creation Care” has become a buzzword in the religious politically left, particularly among those who have abandoned the gospel in favor of the progressive Woke Church movement. This movement really took off when former Ethics and Religious Liberty head, Russell Moore in conjunction with the now-Southeastern Seminary professor, Karen Swallow Prior, began pushing animal rights activism in the Southern Baptist Convention.

According to Moore, certain progressive political and social issues have spiritual or religious significance. He believes that animal rights are a “gospel issue.” Interestingly enough, he also believes that defending illegal aliens from prosecution is also a “gospel issue.” So it should come as no surprise that he also considers environmentalism, or “creation care” to be a “gospel issue.”

His cohort, Karen Swallow Prior told the Wall Street Journal in a now-removed article that for the sake of the environment, factory farming must be stopped, “the economy be damned.”

But now that Moore is gone, his legacy continues to live on faithfully in Southern Baptist institutions. At Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary last year—where Karen Swallow Prior now works—Jonathan Moo, an Associate Professor of New Testament and Environmental Studies at Whitworth University was invited to give a lecture on “creation care” where he told the students that in order to be faithful to the gospel, one must take up the cause of “creation care”—or, environmentalism.

After plugging and asking people to give money to his own environmentalist organization, Climate Stewards USA, where he sits on the board, and then urging students to buy “climate credits” if they take any flights, he then told the students that “creation care” is not an option.

“I have an argument this evening, which is pretty obvious I guess from my somewhat perhaps controversial title,” he said during the lecture, “that is, that in order to be faithful to the gospel, we must care well for God’s creation. It’s not an option.”

“It’s not just something we might add on to lots of other programs we might do,” he added. “It’s not even just a clever strategy for evangelism, although I do consider it one of the ways in which faithful Christian witness must be lived out in our time, and one that many people around us, many of my students are longing to see the church do more fully.”

He continued, “And the reasons why this is absolutely vital and to be woven into all that we do and proclaim, is first and foremost because it is part of the Gospel. It is part of what it is to love God and neighbor. If we love God we will care for the world that God created and declared good. If we love our neighbor, we cannot help but care for the world of which they are part. So, to love God and neighbor is to care well for the creation.”

Moo argues that it is partly our responsibility to restore the creation as spoken of in Romans 8 and those who don’t practice “creation care” do not have the full gospel. What does that make Moo? According to Scripture, a heretic. Paul makes clear in 1 Corinthians 15 that the gospel is that Christ died, was buried, and rose on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures and tells us in Galatians that those false teachers who add works to the gospel should emasculate themselves.