How concerned Christians should be about environmental care.
Cal Beisner I care for my aunt who has Alzheimer's disease and for her mentally handicapped daughter. That is, their needs are often on my mind, and I sympathize with them. My aunt's doctor hardly knows her, but in terms of outward, objective action,he cares for her more than I do. My daughter, who lives with them and manages their household, cares for them both subjectively and objectively, much more than either the doctor or I do.
How concerned should Christians be about care for the environment? It depends partly on what we mean by "care for the environment." Are we talking about subjective, emotional care, or objective, active care?
I suppose we all are capable of a good deal of emotional care for the environment,for what that's worth. But our resources are more limited for objective, outward care—time spent removing litter from a streambed, protesting toxic waste at a chemical plant, inventing a more fuel efficient and less polluting engine. Time and money and bodily energy spent on those cannot simultaneously be spent on HIV/AIDS care and prevention, hunger relief, evangelism, fighting human trafficking, or reading Bible stories to our children.
Prioritizing is inescapable. The apostle Paul's statement about gifts in the church applies: "There are many parts, but one body.The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I don't need you!' And the head cannot say to the feet, 'I don't need you!'" (1 Cor. 12:20-21).
Suppose Julie dedicates full-time service to Earth stewardship and no time to her church's clothes closet for the poor. Ron does the opposite. Jean divides her time unevenly among homeschooling her children, teaching a women's Bible study, following up on visitors to her church, and contacting her state and federal representatives about public policy concerns. Is one of them wrong? "Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand" (Rom. 14:4).
How concerned should Christians be about caring for the environment? It depends on the Christian and his or her gifts; it's not something we can generalize about. But we can state some principles, as I did in a monograph for the Institute on Religion and Democracy, What Is the Most Important Environmental Task Facing American Christians Today?
The more important tasks in caring for the environment include testing claims about environmental degradation and how to fix it, doing cost-benefit analysis of problems and proposed solutions, and promoting economic development for the very poor, since poverty is a great threat to the environment. It is also important to promote transparency, accountability, and integrity in government structures, since good environmental stewardship depends in part on them.
Finally, we should remember that people are more valuable than many sparrows, and let that knowledge guide our priorities.
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