Dear Trekker,
By the time you read this, Spring will have sprung, the daffodils will have begun to open, and the long night of winter again will be over. Let me say it simply: the seasons of life on planet earth occur year after year because God designed it that way! We do have an Intelligent Designer!
I have a confession to make… no, I am not going to declare all the folks out there who have made the “environment” a new religion to be whacko, but I will say emphatically and without apology: If one does not start with God in any so-called discipline of life, sooner or later that person is going to fall to earth like a spring kite that cannot get aloft… because the wind of the Spirit is not lifting it.
My thoughts along this line began to take shape over 50 years ago when an undergraduate philosophy major. I discovered Cornelius Van Til, a fellow Hoosier transplanted from Holland, who graduated and taught briefly at Princeton, then moved to Westminster Seminary as Princeton strayed from its traditional theological moorings. His basic thought was that a firm belief in God was an epistemological (read “how we arrive at truth”) as well as a religious and metaphysical principle. Start with a sovereign God and you’re on the right trail; leave God out of the picture, and you’ll never arrive home”, is my wording of his life thesis.
Recently, a book entitled “Environmental Stewardship in the Judeo-Christian Tradition” came into my hands. (Get in touch with the Acton Institute in Grand Rapids, MI. They will send you a copy.) It is straightforward, succinct, and sound. I commend it to you. The arguments therein shoot down specious, even spurious thoughts on the environment like a wounded duck on a crisp winter morning.
Here is what bugs this old trekker on global warming! Not all scientists out there agree… period! There is so much special pleading and scurrying around to prove questionable assumptions. If earth is actually warming and everybody were to believe it, is what we are doing to abuse it, really causing it? And if so, is it bad in an ongoing, cosmic sense? And even if so, can we really do anything about it through horrendous hand wringing and pious yet pejorative protocols? Whew… I don’t know whether the Creator laughs or cries? We’ve met the enemy… us!
I drift back to the nuclear winter nonsense of the 80’s! Look trekker, the earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof. (Ps. 24… only 10 verses. If you haven’t read it lately, I strongly urge you to do so.) This world is not going to end until the God who made and sustains it calls a halt! It may change, and certainly has done so over the eons of time, but all under the sovereign, unfolding will of God. As God said to Job (38:4), “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” (Genesis 1:1) Well, trekker, Job didn’t exist, and you and I, and Al Gore, didn’t exist either except in the loving and benevolent heart and mind of God! Keep it simple, trekker… sanity begins when we say there is a God and you and I are not him or her or it! We must be discerning in how much difference we think we can make in our “time in the box” to alter Divine determined and orchestrated outcomes.
This is not to turn our back on human responsibility to steward the creation of God. No… never! Genesis 1:27-28 nails us! We are responsible! Leave no doubt. We are to tend, fill, subdue, rule, multiply! But forever we are stewards, never abolishers, never owners of planet earth! Here is another thing that bugs me: We who believe in God have been so profusely profligate in our consumption, along with everyone else, and so derelict in our stewardship, it is as if we have deeded responsibility and integrity to an unbelieving, godless populace at large, even when it is “senseless and odious”(Sir Isaac Newton) not to believe in God.
So knowing that God is, and that we have responsibilities to govern and maintain His planet, what do we say in this stampede toward irrationalism concerning the environment? Let me take a crack at it: Man is responsible to his Creator, whether he recognizes it to be so or not. By going against God’s laws, we defied God and His creative order. Consequences have ensued. But God has not abandoned His creation, and has acted in history to restore man to Himself, and in so doing, empowers man to accomplish His designed stewardship until God says ultimately to His children… “enter the eternal glory of my Being”, and earth and heaven (sky) pass away.
Trekker, this means we can never turn a deaf ear to environmental concerns. But man, as the crowning order of creation, the only earthling destined to be (or not to be) with God forever, needs our “first” attention. Second, wholistic thinking (read theology driven) and careful application of science (read thinking God’s thoughts after him) must guide all stewardship and views concerning ecological relationships. Liberty “in Christ” is essential in determining or attaining ecological (or any), man-desired or aspired goals.
Ecology, a relatively recent word creation associated with the modern era, actually joins the Greek words oikos (home) and logos (reason). Too often these concepts are set opposite each other, usually in the form of over emphasis on the reality of greed, as opposed to human ignorance and needed growth in stewardship. Now, greed is sin and cannot be snuffed out, only forgiven by a loving Savior. Yet, as we progress along Creation’s evolving path, we must be ever more responsible intellectually and spiritually if good stewardship is to take place. The delicate balance between lopsided over-simplification and wise stewardship begins with a God Creator who rules over all outcomes and deserves our worship and praise. (Psalm 103:19-22… check it out.)
Keep believing and tending, trekker,
Jim Meredith