Creation Care

As introduction (and caveat) to this blog entry let me first say that I'm fairly passionate about this issue. Let me 'second' [sic] say that my blog entries are best viewed using Mozilla Firefox WebBrowser. The main reason is because I use so many blasted links! With Firefox, if you press 'ctrl' when you click on a link it opens up in a new 'tab' (the same thing happens if you click your wheelmouse button on a link). VERY handy for reading an article full of links you would like to check out without going back and forth forever. (That, and it just works better than Internet Explorer).

70% of China's fresh water is undrinkable! (I'm sure this didn't help). Check here and here for more info.

Well, this is good news!
Funny, the world's top scientists have been making this case for years (probably close to 50 now) and it took a terrorist backed government being elected to finally 'tip' the iceberg [bad pun and allusion intentional].

I'll hold back and stop linking to global environmental problems (oops!), but I would like to make a point of all this. That is, what is the Christian response? First, should our perspective be shaped by our faith or is this purely a non-spiritual issue (like wearing a red rather than blue sweater-vest). I think it's significantly more important than cardigans. Ok, then what is the faith response? I see three possible responses:
1. Ignore it--don't care
I'm not even going to bother refuting that position! The consequences are obvious.
2. Interpret Genesis 1:28 as "domination" or "despotic rule" and generally hold disdain for the earth. Hey, the world is evil, right? And it's all going to be destroyed in the end anyway, right?
May I suggest reading Revelation 11:18b? Did you even know the Bible said that?
3. Interpret Genesis 1:28 as "benevolent rule" or "stewardship" and drop the neo-platonic undertones that have cursed Christian communities since the days of Paul.
But what responsibility does that then leave us? Check this book out for a start.

However, there is another responsibility. That is that taking on a holistic (and fundamentally Hebraic) view of God's Creation automatically gets you labeled a heretic and "New Age Sympathizer" by folks in response #2. (I suppose they wouldn't be particularly fond of this book!). However, the issue of syncretism and symbiosis is for another entry. So is the nature of Christian holism. I'd better leave this topic for now, but please comment.