The statement Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope, and Justice establishes the ELCA’s teachings on ecology and the environment, grounded in a biblical vision of God’s intention for the healing and wholeness of creation. It speaks of human beings as part of God’s creation and of the human responsibility as servants of all God has made. It provides a framework of hope rooted in God’s faithfulness for understanding this human role in creation, the problem of sin, and the current environmental crisis.
Caring for Creation expresses a call to pursue justice for creation through active participation, solidarity, sufficiency and sustainability, and states the commitments of the ELCA for pursuing wholeness for creation — commitments expressed through individual and community action, worship, learning, moral deliberation and advocacy.
You can read or download the full social statement Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope and Justice in English or en español. This statement was adopted in 1993 by the ELCA Churchwide Assembly.
Follow these links to find resources for understanding this social statement:
The ELCA has adopted a social message about climate care entitled “Earth’s Climate Crisis.” You can access the official message here in English and here in Spanish. Printed copies of the social message in English can be ordered here and Spanish printed copies can be ordered here.
A four-session study guide is also available to download here.
Drawing from existing social teaching, social messages provide theological rationale and social analysis to foster discernment and engagement on a relatively narrow social issue. This project was authorized in light of the grim contemporary situation affecting our global home and the need for fresh action on the part of this church. It draws its framing themes from several social statements, particularly Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope, and Justice.
The social message was called for from several sources and was adopted by the ELCA Church Council on April 20, 2023. A draft version social message first went through a public feedback process and was edited in light of public comment.
Every day, Nevadans pay the price of bad policy — through eviction notices, higher bills, and communities left behind. But hope costs less than despair.
When you give to Lutheran Engagement and Advocacy in Nevada (LEAN), you invest in real solutions: policies that make housing affordable, energy clean, and communities strong.
Together, we can ensure our resources fuel justice, not crisis.
Water is life. Yet in the driest state in the nation, too many Nevadans lack access to clean, safe, and affordable drinking water.
This burden falls disproportionately on:
Tribal communities
Immigrant and farmworker families
Rural households relying on domestic wells
Low-income neighborhoods served by small or aging water systems
In a state defined by drought and scarcity, water access is not only an environmental concern, it is a matter of public health, economic justice, and human dignity.
Nevada Realities
Nevada receives less than 10 inches of precipitation annually, making it the driest state in the U.S.
More than 20,000 Native people in Nevada have lacked complete indoor plumbing, a sign of ongoing infrastructure inequity.
Groundwater over-pumping threatens long-term water security for communities, agriculture, and ecosystems.
When water is unsafe, families must rely on expensive bottled water, forcing impossible choices between water, food, housing, and medicine.
Water insecurity in Nevada is both geographic and racial, reflecting historic underinvestment and ongoing economic inequality.
Why This Matters to Lutherans
Water is central to our faith.
In baptism, we are:
welcomed into the body of Christ
marked with God’s promise
called into a life of love for our neighbor
If some of our neighbors cannot safely drink from their own tap, the church is called to respond.
As the ELCA teaches:
Caring for Creation: Water is a sacred trust, not a commodity to be used without regard for future generations.
Sufficient, Sustainable Livelihood for All: Access to basic resources like water is essential for human dignity.
Human Rights: Clean water is necessary for health, life, and community.
Because we are people of baptism, water justice is a faith issue.
LEAN supports policies and public investments that:
1. Strengthen Water Infrastructure
Fund upgrades for rural and small community water systems
Prioritize underserved and historically excluded communities
2. Support Tribal Water Access and Sovereignty
Honor and implement Tribal water rights
Invest in safe and reliable water infrastructure for Tribal nations
3. Protect Rural Nevadans Using Domestic Wells
Provide free or low-cost well testing
Expand access to arsenic and nitrate treatment systems
4. Ensure Water is Affordable
Create equitable rate structures
Prevent water shutoffs for vulnerable households
5. Safeguard Nevada’s Water Future
Promote responsible groundwater management
Protect water for people, ecosystems, and future generations
A Matter of Faithful Witness
At the font, we proclaim that water is a sign of God’s grace for all people.
That promise calls us into public life so that every household in Nevada—urban, rural, and Tribal—has access to water that is:
Safe Reliable Affordable
Water is life. Water is dignity. Water is a sacred trust.
Over 80% of Nevada is public land, stewarded by federal agencies on behalf of the American people. These lands include vast deserts, mountains, forests, historic sites, and waterways. They are also the ancestral homelands of many Indigenous nations who continue to steward and care for these landscapes.
Public lands provide essential benefits to our communities. They protect clean water sources, preserve wildlife habitat, sustain biodiversity, and offer open spaces for recreation, renewal, and connection. For many families, these lands are where lifelong memories are made, hiking, hunting, fishing, camping, and gathering in the beauty of God’s creation.
These landscapes are also economically significant, supporting outdoor recreation, tourism, ranching, and renewable energy development when managed responsibly.
At the same time, most public lands do not carry permanent conservation protections. Decisions about land use including mining, drilling, grazing, recreation, conservation, and renewable energy, are ongoing. As Nevada continues to grow and as economic pressures increase, questions about how these lands are managed will remain central to our state’s future.
A Lutheran Faith Perspective
As Lutherans, we believe creation is not a commodity to be exploited without limit, but a gift entrusted to our care. The ELCA social statement Caring for Creation reminds us: “The earth and all its creatures are God’s good creation… Human beings, created in God’s image, are called to serve and keep the earth.” Public lands represent a shared inheritance, meant to serve present and future generations. Stewardship requires discernment, balance, and humility. It asks us to consider:
How do land-use decisions affect clean water and air?
How do they impact Tribal sovereignty and Indigenous stewardship?
How do they protect wildlife and fragile desert ecosystems?
How do they sustain rural communities and future generations?
Faith calls us to resist both indifference and fear. Instead, we are invited into thoughtful engagement — ensuring that public lands remain places of access, ecological health, cultural respect, and shared responsibility.
Why This Matters for Nevada
Nevada’s deserts, basins, and mountain ranges are uniquely fragile. Water is scarce. Wildlife corridors are essential. Climate change intensifies drought and wildfire risk. Decisions made today will shape the ecological and economic health of our state for decades to come.
Public lands are not simply political territory. They are places of:
Baptismal imagination: water as life.
Sabbath rest: space to breathe and be renewed.
Neighbor-love: protecting shared resources for all.
Intergenerational justice: ensuring future Nevadans inherit a thriving landscape.
LEAN’s Calling:
We are called to:
Support responsible stewardship of public lands.
Advocate for policies that protect clean water and wildlife habitat.
Respect Tribal sovereignty and partnership.
Promote sustainable economic practices.
Ensure public lands remain accessible to all people.
Caring for public lands is not about partisanship. It is about vocation, our shared responsibility to “serve and keep” the earth.
In Nevada, this is not abstract theology. It is our backyard.
Lutheran Engagement and Advocacy in Nevada 