Saturday, January 30, 2010
...for the earth is Mine
In years gone by, an ‘environmental enthusiast’ was somewhat a figure of fun - a principled individual who renounced the luxuries the rest of us took for granted. But today even those who are entirely disinterested in the great-outdoors and what lesser-spotted creatures might be endangered, can no longer claim ignorance of the fact that we should all adopt a more environmentally friendly lifestyle.
We’re using up our coal, oil and gas, at an alarming rate; and in the process we’re not just polluting the environment and damaging the earth’s atmosphere. We’re also buying the present at the cost of the future. Unlike wind, solar and tidal energy, the fossil fuels we burn now won’t be there for our grandchildren. Regrettably those of religious faith have been amongst the most lazy or careless towards the environment believing that the world is for our enjoyment and is big and old enough to look after itself.
But when we look closely, we will find no licence to pollute or destroy in the Bible. In Genesis 1 we read of how humanity was told to fill the earth and subdue it, our responsibility for science and technology. But in Genesis 2 we’re told that mankind was placed in the garden to serve and protect it, meaning that nature has its own integrity that we must respect and preserve.
The line that resonates with me is that remarkable verse in which God says, ‘The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the earth is Mine; you are only temporary residents’. What this means is that we don’t own nature; at most we hold it in trust on behalf of God who made it, and the generations who will inhabit Bathford in the future. So all those laws in the Bible – don’t work the land on the seventh day and the seventh year; don’t mix species, don’t destroy fruit trees in the course of war – possibly the world’s first environmental legislation are far clearer than any Communiqué to come out of Copenhagen!
It took the modern experts in ecology to make us go back to the Bible and realise what it was whispering to us all those centuries ago. We’re the guests of nature, the guardians of creation; not the owners who can do with it what we like.
And looking over Bathford Hill covered in snow or as the first shoots of Spring push through, it is a wonderful world and one worth preserving. Speaking personally, this particular world is far better than anything else I’ve seen…
Best wishes,
Michael Craine (Reader)