Christian environmental stewardship

[nebula]

I'll be honest -

I love the outdoors, love clean air, love clean water, hate litter.

If I had more time and money and better health, I would support the Appalachian Trail Conference and volunteer to clean up local parks and streams.

(I hope to figure out how to do so.)

But I will not support such organizations as the Sierra Club. Why? Because I believe they go to far. But I don't want to sidetrack the point of this thread by delving into this. Most of you, I am sure, have an idea of what I am talking about.

Anyway, I share this to let you know where I come from. Now for the discussion.

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I have come to understand that Christians take offense at taking care of the environment. These are the reasons I am familiar with:

1. The environmentalism movement is driven by people who worship the environment.

2. Environmentalism is associated with the New Age movement.

3. The world is not my home; I'm just passing through.

4. The Earth will be destroyed anyway, why should I care?

5. People are more important.

6. Taking dominion of the Earth means dominating it, not taking care of it.

So, what does the Bible have to say about all this?

1. Obviously, for starters, it does not say the Earth is our mother! So we can scrap that New Age myth. But what is the Earth?

"The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it" (Psalm 24:1)

So we begin with the understanding that the Earth is the Lord's.

2. To save on time, I'll summarize the next point - but I am sure we are familiar with the Scriptures stating how Creation glorifies and praises the Lord. Correct?

3. We know from Scripture that the Lord gave the Earth to man. So we ask, what did the Lord give us the Earth for? And what does He want us to do with it?

Does "dominion" over the Earth mean oppressive subjugation, to strip it of all its resources, to lay it waste, to pollute the air and water? Or does it mean to take care of it, to be a steward of it, to tend to it the way the Lord meant for Adam and Eve to tend the Garden of Eden?

4. How does God feel about His creation? (This is my challenge for you to answer. )

But there is one verse I wish to point out for your consideration:

The nations were angry; and your wrath has come. The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your saints and those who reverence your name, both small and great-- and for destroying those who destroy the earth." (Rev. 11:18)

So what does that mean to us as Christians?

There is tons more that can be said about this, but I throw this out as a starter.

What say you to these things?

[forrestkc]

The vast majority of Americans when polled consistently agree with the positions of mainstream environmental and conservationist organizations, even those of the Sierra Club.

However, there are those who for ideological reasons have knee jerk reaction to anything related to conservation or environmental protection. Just the same, the scripture is very clear on this as you pointed out here, and I did in the news section under Climate Change.

The basic summation of it is:

God created the earth and all life on it to Glorify Him.

God sees his entire creation as he created it as good.

God created man in his spiritual image and gave him dominion over his creation.

God's creation is his, not ours, we are to be stewards of his creation.

We can use his creation, but not exploit it.

We are to live simply (I did not quote the scripture on this one, but there are hundreds of references to this in scripture).

If we are good stewards of his creation, then God's creation will provide for our needs.

If we are poor stewards of his creation, then we will bear God's wrath come judgment.

I would disagree with you on most environmentalists being pagan or earth worshiping. Most environmentalists are either from a scientific background, or really in most cases they are into various forms of outdoor recreation, be that backpacking, hiking, canoeing, fishing, fly fishing, or hunting. Environmentalism is mainstream, not some extremist movement. Sure there are extremists within the environmental movement, but they are by far the exception, not the rule.

[nebula]

I would disagree with you on most environmentalists being pagan or earth worshiping.

True or not, there is a huge stigma among us Conservative Christians that environmentalism equals Earth worship. Thus, it needs to be addressed appropriately, IMHO.

[forrestkc]

I would disagree with you on most environmentalists being pagan or earth worshiping.

True or not, there is a huge stigma among us Conservative Christians that environmentalism equals Earth worship. Thus, it needs to be addressed appropriately, IMHO.

Yes, because Conservative Christians have aligned themselves with a political movement that has a financial motive in demonizing conservationists. You are right though, regardless it needs to be addressed. Regardless of what some Christians think of environmentalists, the scripture is plain as day on our being good stewards of God's creation, so obviously as Christians our goals are much more closely aligned with those of conservationists than those who would exploit God's creation.

[eric]

This is a very good topic, Neb, very important and one I have considered often since my committment to the Lord. Ther's a similar verse to the one you gave from psalms, in rev.4.:11, that implies that God did create everything for His own pleasure and in genesis, He did say........ and give man domonion over everything.'''''' So there is no argument up to that point.

The next thing we have to ask is.......how far are we to stretch the "dominion over" phrase, as this was stated before the fall. After that God put a curse on the world and everything in it, to the extent that adam would have to work his tripe out in order to subdue it and that's why we have mozzies fleas weeds and a whole lot of other nasties that we could do without.

Later, when Christ had been revealed. and His plan of salvation was laid open to man, we are left to decide which is more profitable to Him, souls or creation of all His work. There is such a thing as balance, and we have to weigh the two, and find that point, that glorifies God the most considering the pros and cons or whatever.

I will leave my conclusios until later. because it is not a topic on which snap coditions should be made, so I'll have to mull it over for a time.

Thanks, Neb, good post, but is it in the right forum. I will get back.

[buckthesystem]

I certainly believe in responsible stewardship of the environment. We should not just irresponsibly use what God has provided and then throw it away, or bury it for our descendents to find and have to clean up.

However, I draw the line at the idea that man has created global warming or even that he greatly worsens it. Sure it is true that man "adds" to it, but he does so in such a small amount that what ever he does will make hardly any difference to the planet as a whole.

We often chide ourselves for "using and abusing" the earth, but past generations were a lot more irresponsible and selfish. The generations that stripped Europe of trees to feed the great ship building of the 15th and 16th centuries could be far more easily accused of being selfish and irresponsible. However, I guess they no idea of what they were doing. As far as they were concerned the trees were there to be used and they had no thought for replacing them.

I recently read that the "Sailsbury Plains" in UK were not always "plains" and once were covered with forest.

Polluting water supplies is something that mankind has definitely got to take responsibility for, and clean them up. But then, God takes care of this in a way, as he ensures that water evaporates and is recycled as rain. However, this takes a lot of time, and how many people die because they have no clean water?

One thing is certain though: We most definitely cannot ever trust governments to clean up the environment. In NZ - as some of you may be aware - there has been a running argument between our "department of conservation" and the public, over their methods. This department has a strange agenda to kill every form of life here that is not "native" and to do so they spread 1080 poison "like it is going out of fashion". Gee I guess it really is "going out of fashion" as apparently NZ is one of two countries in the world (I can't remember the other) to legally use 1080. A recent walk through the bush on the West Coast of the SI proved to me the deadliness of 1080 as I came across dead birds everywhere. Then somebody was telling me of the numerous cases of pet dogs dying because they have eaten the carcasses of the birds or possoms that have been killed by the 1080. Now that sort of thing is mankind's arrogance at its worst, but this is under the guise of "protecting the environment", and people are tricked into providing money for things like this to happen.

I read a while ago about one of this department's horrible experiments with 1080. One of their workers was telling me that he was told to deliberately put 1080 in a creek where it would run downstream to the river "to see what affect it would have on water-life in the creek".

The word "environmentalism" has a lot of emotional connotations to it, and is used as an excuse for governments to make all sorts of ridiculous edicts and persuade people that it is "only right to do as we say". Some years ago I used to be one for tramping through the national parks and staying in the huts overnight. A few years ago, in the middle of winter BTW, some idiot bureaucrat - who probably had never been out of his air conditioned house or office in his life - proclaimed that there would be no more open fires or even stoves in any of the huts. So workers were dispatched to remove all fireplaces and stoves and replace them with ...NOTHING! It was absolutely freezing.

Anyway, recycling is good, overpackaging (or in a lot of cases, packaging at all) is bad, we should try to use only things that will rot in good time and not be hanging around to dirty our grandchildren's environment, and we should try to keep the place as clean and tidy as we can. But apart from that I don't think there is much that we can do. God is in charge of the weather, making things grow or not making them grow and how the earth copes with the ravages of mankind, animals, technology in general, etc. etc. We would go a long way if we dropped the arrogant attitude and realised that we are not capable of creating anything or causing anything to happen on our own. God created all matter, and we cannot destroy it - we can change it - but it still belongs to God and he will do with it what he wants through various means.

I just hope I haven't "stepped on too many toes" with this attitude.

[Marnie]

I know everybody thinks I don't care for the environment, however, let me say that I love the outdoors. I own a hundred acres of the great American Southwest and spend a lot of time riding my range and exploring the caves, etc. I believe in responsible stewardship of earth. Adam, not G-d, was given the responsibility to looking after it and naming G-d's creation. I believe it is the responsibility of all believers to caretake what the Lord has given. The problem with the whole green movement, with apologies to Forrest, is that their motivation is what gets the ire of believers up. Most of those who protest and picket environmental concerns are the following: unemployed, feminists, lesbians, very young people.* You can generally find the same people picketing Wal-Marts, water plants, Bush's ranch and so on. The people behind such towering examples of humanity are almost always socialists and/or people with a decidedly leftist agenda. This is another thing that gets under the believer's skin. Christians are not some stupid, uninformed voting block.

The other reason why Christians, and many other rational thinkers for that matter, scoff at modern environmentalism is summed up in one word: ALAR. Just google it for a good laugh. This one single incident is a perfect example of the wackiness and hysteria of the this movement.

*tongue-in-cheek humor

[nebula]

Later, when Christ had been revealed. and His plan of salvation was laid open to man, we are left to decide which is more profitable to Him, souls or creation of all His work. There is such a thing as balance, and we have to weigh the two, and find that point, that glorifies God the most considering the pros and cons or whatever.

Glad you asked, because I do plan to address this - just didn't want to make my first post too overwhelming!

Thanks, Neb, good post, but is it in the right forum.

Not sure. But I didn't want the new posters to not be able to post, which would have happened if I put this in "Controversial."

[nebula]

OK - so I am puzzled by the "either-or" mentality. Either we save souls or we save the environment.

My question is this: what puts the two in conflict?

Consider, do taking the time and money to clean your house, fix your car, or making your lawn look nice take away from your spreading of the Gospel? Do you cease from being a responsible home owner in order to save souls?

So, why do Christians fight against recycling, why do Christians not throw garbage in the trach can, why do Christians not care that their car fluids are going into the ground water?

Likewise, how does volunteering to help with a stream clean-up hinder the work of saving souls? Would I not be putting myself in a position to witness to people I would never have interacted with otherwise? And showing myself to care, might they be a little more open to listen than if I, say, knocked on their door or bumped into them at the grocery store?

Now, I don't know about picketing and boycotting and all those things, but if there's a way to decrease the pollution run-off that makes the local streams unhealthy - sure I am all for it! How does this distract from saving souls?

Now here

[forrestkc]

I do not understand the either or thing either. I do not come from an evangelical background though, so maybe it