I just now found a comment left to me about moral reasons for caring about the environment but I have no idea how to respond to it or get a hold of the person. I think I accidentally got rid of his/her blog address. I stink at this stuff but one day I will figure out the technology. In response, I am also a follower of Jesus. God gave us this world and everything in it. I feel we are obligated to take care of it properly. In my opinion, we are not doing that. God put us here and we have the choice whether to destroy ourselves or not. So, my whole reason for my blog is based on my morals, not "proper" environmental ethics (which are subjective anyway). I have a decent science background, but I study science because I like to understand the way all these God-given wonders work. I am an environmental student, but the field is too politicized and it's getting us nowhere. I am "old", too. The young mainstream environmentalists are automatically pulled into the politics of it all and do not have enough behind them to understand the larger picture. Of course, my statements are a generalization of what I perceive. Morals don't grow from laws and regulations and without morals it goes downhill fast. It is a truly amazing world our God gave us! God even gave my this blog as an outlet to my current frustration with the way things are going. I appreciate hearing from you-I am glad to know that there are others for whom Jesus and the environment compliment each other (didn't really know how to word that).
P.S. I figured the post stuff out!
Picture: www.campusterrassa.upc.es/.../images/jesus.jpg
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Moral Environmentalism, God & A Lost Post
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1 comment:
I appreciate your response, the humility and candor with which you give it is admirable, as is your cause.
I love nature, animals and God. My wonderful wife Chocolate Girl (there is something rather captivating about using pseudonyms on blogs) takes fantastic nature and animal photos (the closest we will ever get to “shooting” an animal), and we very much enjoy our time in nature.
It is clear that God is an awesome Creator, and that we are to be proper stewards of this planet He has lent to us. He can do as He wants with it; our responsibility is to “govern” it in a responsible manner as one of our forms of worship of Him.
Time for disclosure here, I am an omnivore (not that I was keeping it hidden or something but I see that it is important to you so out of respect for you I tell you this). I have no problem with animals being killed (I will nor insult you by using a more “fuzzy” term) for food, I believe that if you do this you must do it in as humane a manner as possible. I believe that we should take care of the planet and animals as best we can but I recognize that this is a challenging issue for all of us.
I support this theologically in many ways, for example in Genesis 3:21 the Scriptures say that God made garments for Adam and Eve of animal skins to cloth them. I believe that the wearing of such clothing is allowed if there is no other resource at hand but is a last resort and today is not a time that this is a necessity, particularly in Western countries such as ours. It is interesting that God used animals (not the man or woman) as a shadow of the reality that God would someday kill a substitute to redeem sinners. Can you imagine walking in the Garden of Eden with God as Adam and Eve did? Does that make you think that God perhaps loves His Creation?
Throughout the time of the Levitical system animals were used as a sacrifice pointing at the sacrifice of Christ as a form of foreshadowing. Note that God allowed this to be part of the system; the animals were killed and eaten. I find the fact that God thinks so highly of animals that He allowed them to be giant arrows pointing at His own sacrifice to be very captivating. They are indeed very important to Him.
When Christ was among us He clearly partook of eating meat as is evident for example with the Passover meal (there are other examples but I think you would agree with this). Since the Scriptures are clear that Christ never ever sinned then I can understand that eating meat is not a sin.
This being said I fully, 100% support you in your commitment to not eating meat, and my intention is NOT to be a stumbling block for you in this regard; forgive me if I have indeed done this but I thought you would appreciate a slightly different view.
My wife and I financially support groups involved with helping endangered animals as we believe that these would be tragedies we would not want to stand as accomplices too by our inaction. We also engage with groups aimed at helping people.
There is an excellent facility in our area that helps with endangered animals in our area, here is a link to its web page:
http://www.mtnviewfarms.com/
My blog if you are interested is:
http://lifeontheblade.blogspot.com/
Keep up the good work!
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