Christianity and the Environment: Guest Essay, Part Two

This is the remainder of Chris Baroody’s essay, the first portion of which I posted previously, used with permission.

“And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth (Genesis 1:28).

Many Christians denigrate environmentalism, citing the above scripture as justification, yet they ignore the second command give: we have indeed dominated, yet we have been exceedingly loath to replenish. Furthermore, many Christians claim as something of a self-evident truth that God will not allow nature to fail us. And yet the Bible clearly states that wicked men bring desolation to the land:

“How long will the land lie parched and the grass in every field be withered? Because those who live in it are wicked, the animals and birds have perished. Moreover, the people are saying, 'He will not see what happens to us'”( Jeremiah 12:4).

How much more so then now in the wake of technology and Global Warming?

Many Christians hold that environmentalists, in claiming that nature holds spiritual value, merely perpetrate a new form of paganism; however, many of these same Christians have adopted a doctrine that holds the free market and pursuit of wealth as sacred and vigorously attacking environmental regulations that in anyway impede the pursuit of wealth. However, in the time of Christ, the spirit of wealth went by the name of Mammon, and Christ warned that one could not serve both God and Mammon. John Milton, author of the epic Christian poem Paradise Lost, wrote the following of Mammon: “Men...by his suggestion taught, Ransack'd the Center, and with impious hands, Rifled the bowels of their mother Earth for Treasure better hid.

To shrug off one’s responsibility to the world which provides all natural resources, from lumber and coal to complex pharmaceuticals, epitomizes the most dangerous form of arrogance, neglect, and greed. Yet service to Mammon demands the dereliction of responsibility. Just As the Pharisees once fooled themselves into believing that they served God when they served themselves and their own selfish pursuits, a great many Christians today have been led into sanctifying the speciously alluring doctrine of the unrestrained pursuit of wealth. John Milton also wrote: “Hypocrisy [is] the only evil that walks invisible, except to God alone.” Often the sin of hypocrisy is invisible to one’s own eyes. When Christians justify environmental irresponsibility as a God given right, the specter of hypocrisy thrives.

My thanks again to Chris Baroody, author of the above essay (in two entries).