The Christian, The Environment, And Discernment - Part One

One of the frequent reader's of this blog has suggested that the blogger's she reads should comment on Christian's and the environment, and I thought it would be a good idea to blog on that, so here goes.

1. Christians are responsible to be good stewards of the earth. This command given to Adam for all mankind has not been altered. Therefore, we must be good overseers of the planet. This means that we must properly manage the environment. We cannot control some things like the weather, but we can properly manage our own private property and give guidance to government entities on how to manage theirs.

2. The modern environmental movement is largely pagan. A strong statement to be sure but a large part of today's environmental movement is pagan at it's core. They worship the earth, or some nature god, or (if they are atheist) they are huge advocates of massive government control of the environment. This is nothing new. The Old Testament records the worship of the god Baal, which was fertility god related to agricultural production. Many of the false gods of history have had some sort of environmental connnection.

3. The modern environmental movement is based in political liberalism which traces all solutions back to government controls and regulations. Most legislation related to the environment involves taking away the liberty of some private entity. For instance, in some parts of the country, people cannot cut trees on their own private property because of environmental regulations (i.e. spotted owls live in the trees is one example given). This is an improper infringement on freedom that has no biblical basis whatsoever but is based in the false religion of political liberalism.

4. Many disasters have been made worse by political environmental regulation. Many of our western forest fires have been far more devestating that necessary because lands have not been cleared of natural debris thus making those forest fires far more likely and disastrous because this regulation has not allowed man to be a good steward of the environment in those areas, where that debris needed to be cleaned out. If lands are left in a "totally pristine state" without any management whatsoever, it is not good stewardship. The National Park service sets controlled fires in parts of their lands to help manage the environment there, so why can't Californians do the same on their property?

5. A common myth: Republicans don't care about the environment while Democrats do care about it. This has come about as the Democrats have embraced the political agenda of the pagan environmental movement and Republicans have been defensive about it. Yet, it was a Republican president - Theodore Roosevelt - who vigorously defended responsible environmental management at a time in history when many libertarian big businessmen were recklessly destroying the environment (though not all big businessmen of the time did so). Another Republican, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (the son of the oil billionaire) bought much private land to create or add on to some of our National parks. And yet another conservative businessman, Walt Disney, had great concern for environmental management (Walt's political party ID is something of a mystery, though we know he backed Ronald Reagan for governor of California in 1966 and held to politically conservative beliefs). In truth, what has happened lately, is that many Republicans have been trying to stop excessive governmental controls backed by most Democrats in this area.

6. Another common myth: man is responsible for global warming. All you have to do is exercise common sense and realize that man could not possibly warm the earth up this way even if he wanted to. Also, a study of history will reveal that there have been warming and cooling cycles throughout history. When I was a kid in the 1970's, most environmental types were worrying about global cooling. I imagine that global cooling will be back by the time I am a senior citizen.

7. Unfortunately, many evangelical leaders have failed one way or the other in dealing with the environment. Some have totally ignored our responsibility to it, while others have foolishly bought all the propoganda about man-made global warming and demonstrate an extreme naivete about the pagan nature of the modern environmental movement (this one really grieves me because some Christian leaders I greatly admire have demonstrated a real lack of discernment on this subject). I think most of these leaders on both sides have just been intellectually lazy in this area and have just run with a superficial prediposition in this area.

In Part Two, I will discuss practical ways for Christians to steward the environment.