I'm going to start this short post with an apology, I am going to break the rules of netiquette and blogging... I'm not going to post a link to the source of the following quote... why, because I simply don't want to send anybody his/her way... due to me sometimes surfing tags I came across the following post (second hand) reviewing Brian Mclaren's "Everything must change" tour... and I was just flabagasted! I know there are people (who call themselves Christian) out there who hold extreme views... but this is probably the most extreme (outside of a Chick Tract) that I have ever read... and that's saying something... and it's from a Blog which claims to be the home of "true discernment"!
Another session opened with the “Hymn of Remorse,” which bewailed the supposed desecration of the earth. “We repent for covering your colorful earth with gray cement … for cutting down trees … for scarring your earth … Lord, have mercy, can we be restored? What of the lands of tribes and nations who lived here first … the noise of traffic is drowning out the songbird’s song…”
By no stretch of the imagination can such a position be supported by the Bible. From the very beginning God gave man the right to use the earth.
“And God blessed them, and God said unto 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 moveth upon the earth” (Genesis 1:28).
Man has a divine right to subdue the earth and use its resources, to cut its trees and mine its ore and pump its oil.
I know I'm not using the KJV... but my reading of Genesis says...
“Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, all the wild animals and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
So God created man in God's own image, in God's own likeness... Now I know human efforts of ruling often fall into domination and oppression, using the people and the planet for our own wealth and power, but surely the fact that the verses say that we are made in the image of God suggests that when we "rule" the creation we should do so in a way which reflects God's rule... God does not use or dominate us, rather God treats us justly, with compassion, mercy and indeed self-sacrifice. It was humanities desire to play God which messed it all up in the first place, the fact that we fail to respect the rhythm of creation, to allow it to sustain us and to nurture it so that is itself sustained... after all God looked at it and said "It is good"! We surely must "rule" as God "rules" not as humanity so often does??? I wouldn't say to my 4 year-old Son... "You are mine to rule, get out there and work in a sweatshop... I don't care if it kills you because God has given me dominion over you! You are mine to use!" Why would God expect me to treat Creation any different??? Sometimes I despair!
Technorati Tags: Blogging: Church: Culture: environment: theology
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