Today environmental issues are very topical. My friend Ben Clarke [1] has written an essay titled "A Christian Response to Environmental Destruction and Poverty". This is a thought provoking look at very current issues considering things from a Christian rather than humanistic view point.
Here are a few quotes:
"We have taken luxuries, made them cheap and then learned to live with them as necessities. Thanks to fossil fuel, we have the equivalent of 40 000 personal slaves in the forms of “time saving” devices that have so captured our imagination that we work longer and longer hours to be able to acquire and upgrade them."
"When people are not able to influence the fundamentals of their life they are poor, whether that is because of a lack of education, lack of finance, or because of cultural limitations. It is God’s plan for mankind as a whole, and as individuals, to be free to respond to Him. Circumstances that limit the potential of our response are an offense against His goodness and inevitably dehumanize all people involved."
"Jesus' antidote to sin is as far reaching as the sin was."
"God’s ultimate human destiny is not a city on a cloud in the sky. Rather it is planet earth. It is on an earth that has been restored from the affects of sin, recreated to be better than before the fall, just as Christ’s resurrected body was totally human and yet new."
"We need to learn to see ourselves as a part and not the whole. This requires us to move ourselves from the centre, to put God, the glorification, or worship of God, at the centre of our lives and readjust to live as God intended us to live. To love what he loves and care for what he cares about."
If you would like a copy of the entire essay please ask and I'd love to pass it on. Ben would also like to correspond with people interested in discovering more what our place is here on God's planet earth.
Links:
[1] http://www.jonomiller.com/northernclarkes%40bigpond.com