For those Americans (and it’s only Americans) who believe that humans do not cause global warming you have a strong kinship with that .00001% of the population that needs to be told how to buckle your seatbelt in an airplane (Two metal things fit one way, when connected, a single mechanism releases it=Humans polluting, Earth warming). I just have a very brief commentary for you hundred-thousandths-club people. If you are a secularist, well, there’s a simple motive for your ignorance: money. For example, you own a coal factory… or you are fortunate enough to sit over a division of a large corporation called “Hummer”.
But for Christians, you really have no excuse for ignoring this. The scriptures that point us toward environmental stewardship are few and far in between (unless you count the thousands of indirect quotes of God revealing himself to us via nature found in the Psalms and the book of Job). I will make my point for environmental stewardship by quoting a single verse.
“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’” Genesis 1:26, NIV, italics added.
God has given us “rule” over all the Earth, thus according to this we can do whatever we want with it, right? No, God says in the same sentence that we are made in his likeness, thus we are to rule in his likeness. Does God rule us in a self-destructive way? Does God command us to live addictive and non-sustainable lives? No, God commands us to live modest lives sustained by Love, not consumption. Why do we need to wait for more than the 99.9999% of scientific agreement to get another (effing) 9 on the end?? Believers should be the first ones to lay down their rights for others and for this Earth we are to Christ-like-rule.
This single verse should be enough to galvanize the church into green living. We have taken 1 or 2 verses about abortion and homosexuality and blown them way out of proportion (and the effect is not only dis-unifying but hurts our credibility in the world). If the Faithful were pioneers of conservation and sustainable living, we would be effective organic saltshakers and fluorescent lights to the world.
