The Christian, The Environment, And Discernment - Part Two

Unfortunately, the recent California wildfires have born out what I wrote in the first column as debris in these woods have helped to worsen the fire situation in California today. But, now for practical steps on how Christians can steward the environment.

1. Recycling helps a little bit. Do not fall for the line that you are saving the planet by doing this, but there is no reason why we can't do some recycling. I have been sometimes bad at this in the past but believe we can do better in this area. This is a small thing that's pretty easy to do.

2. Steward any land that you own. Mow the grass, remove dead tree limbs, clean up any trash disposed on your land. If you own a large enough piece of it, you can set aside apart of it for animal stewardship such as establishing a watering hole.

3. Controlled hunting. Read this carefully: hunting is absolutely necessary for stewardship of the land. You may think that your kind by banning hunting, but if you do not allow hunting, over-population of a species will cause massive starvation when there are food shortages. It is actually cruel to the animals to let them over-populate and die this way. The people of the late 1800's were wrong to hunt buffalo indiscriminately without harvesting the animals. But letting buffalo overpopulate is just as wrong. Therefore, hunt your bag limit guilt free. Attend the rattlesnake roundup with happiness. Mount that trophy on the wall with satisfaction.

4. Plant trees. They produce oxygen, so if you can do it, then do it.

5. Balance free enterprise with wilderness needs. You can't log every mountain. But some mountains need to be logged. If you do log your mountainside, then plant new trees for the future. Log only what is needed. Not in excess. The same is true for setting aside National Parks and wilderness preserves. Obviously the Grand Canyon is a national treasure that needs to be saved. But not every single canyon in the world needs to be preserved this way. Balance is the key. Do not be a libertarian recklessly exploiting the land but do not be a liberal imposing excessively absurd governmental regulation either.

6. Study the Scriptures in regard to the environment. This should be obvious (and I probably should have listed it first). A great place to study are the regulations the people of Israel were given in the law of Moses regarding the land (an example is Sabbath year rests for pieces of land). There are others to study as well.

These are some practical pieces of advice about the environment. In the words of the great theologian Forrest Gump: "That's all I got to say about that".