Like anyone interested in stewardship, I consider caring for creation to be a top priority. I despise littering. I don't like waste. There is something fundamentally wrong with walking along a beautiful stretch of beach in the morning and seeing cigarette butts, soda cans and beer bottles all over the place.Or visiting a national park and finding plastic bags and trash everywhere I look. When I see these things, I long for Heaven and a day when things will be continually cared for. There will be no more littering. No more spoiling God's beautiful creation.
The environmentalists would have us believe that as the planet grows wealthier, we are in greater danger of seeing our planet implode. They would argue that economic progress is environmental destruction. What say you evidence?
Mark Perry- an economic professor at the University of Michigan- has a blog called Carpe Diem that I read regularly. Today, he came out with some great charts and EPA based evidence that would indicate our environment is getting healthier as the population grows and people prosper.
Here is a good editorial piece in the NY Times that argues: the richer we become on Earth, the greener our planet will be.
Finally an editorial in Investment Business Daily that urges us to have a day to honor capitalism for being responsible for a better Earth.
This evidence fits perfectly with what I understand the Bible to reveal about stewardship and progress. We are not called as believers to re-pristination as many environmentalists would desire. Re-pristination is a belief that the Garden of Eden is ideal. We should shun technology, consumption, material blessings and live a life of austere simplicity.
But the Bible teaches something different. Genesis 1:28, "God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, birds of the air, and every living thing that moves on the earth.'"
We are to improve on God's good Creation by using technology and resources in a way that improves life for all of God's creatures. The Bible starts with mankind in a Garden in Genesis and ends with mankind in a City in Revelation- Heaven or the New Jerusalem.
There has to be incentives and regulation that encourage good stewardship of the environment. But don't discount technological improvements as the basis for why this planet is not teetering on the edge of environmental disaster.
Looking Forward to a Perfect Planet One Day,
Ashley Hodge
