Question of the Week 8 - Why don't Christians care more about ecology? (04/24/2003)
(http://www.pfm.org/Content/ContentGroups/BreakPoint/Columns/ Worldview_for_Parents/200311/Question_of_the_Week8.htm)

The BreakPoint answer is: The only religion that can solve our ecological problems is one that acknowledges our uniqueness and then gives ethical guidelines that direct our unique capabilities. Christianity does just that: It teaches that God made humans in His image to be stewards over His creation.

I did not find anything in the Bible to indicate where God directed man to be stewards of creation. In Genesis 9:1-3, And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.

When reading that, it sounds as though man is being freedom to eat anything and everything.

If man toils just to seek eternal salvation there is no incentive to steward the earth’s resources. Nothing on this earth would be as important as trying to determine what God’s plan is for getting to heaven.

Ecology is the branch of science that studies habitats and the interactions between living things and the environment. People might steward the earth’s resources better if an understanding of ecology would be emphasized. Decisions that affect the environment must account for the effects on that environment. The ‘cheapest’ alternative might be wrong for the long-term. In other pages I have also expressed my own perspective on ‘why am I here?’ and our place in the environment.

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created - Dec. 2004
last change - 12/30/2004