“I have always found the typical Christian perspective on the environment difficult to understand. When people were chaining themselves to trees to save a patch of forest, for some reason the Christian thing to do was haul them off to jail, level the forest, and make room for new factories and shopping centers to be built.”

I have never come across this perspective put forward as a Christian viewpoint. It raises all kinds of questions for me. I can certainly recall people chaining themselves to trees and blocking roads and being fined or jailed for doing so. I just don’t recall any specifically Christian treatise that took sides on this issue. I would be interested to see that.

At the same time, Christians generally take the stand that the law is to be obeyed except when it violates other Biblical imperatives. Thus, Christians have argued for civil disobedience in refusing to go to war, protesting abortions, and not sending children to public schools among other issues. Since it is hard to argue that the environment is on the same level of moral import, it is not surprising that Christians didn’t rush to defend those who were violating the law.

Nevertheless, my point remains, I don’t think the position you stated in your introduction is a valid depiction of the “Christian perspective.”

I think the Green Bible is a cool idea. I am a little annoyed with all of the marketing that goes into printing and publishing Bibles these days… you can get a Bible for Teen Girls, for Golfers, for Law enforcement officers, for Soldiers, for Teen Boys, For Young Adults, for Adventurers, for Mothers, for Firemen….. you get the picture.

On the other hand, i am actually glad there is a market for this kind of Bible because it means more Christians are starting to realize that we are responsible for caring for God’s creation.

The cynic in me suspects that somebody recognized the growing ‘green’ trend in Christianity and created a brilliant product to make money with. Dont get me wrong – I am glad the Green Bible is made from recycled materials and eco-friendly ink. Why wouldnt I be? Will someone really say that using more energy and creating more waste for landfills is a great idea, and reusing materials and conserving energy is evil? It doesnt bother me that they chose to highlight words that deal with creation in green. I guess I am just bothered in general that Christian publishers and bookstores are able to make a lot of money selling nifty new Bibles and inspirational books because the general Christian population has bought into the dominate spirit of our age – consumerism. On the other hand, if we are going to be consumers, why not be a consumer of something made of recycled materials, right?

As far as I know about the end times, is that the earth will be destroyed in part by the tribulations, and come the New Jerusalem, we’ll be helping to restore earth.

Yet although I so strongly disagree with the second half of this kill the unborn children (as you do Mike), I also agree with you that we should strive for saving the whales. I am bothered by the area in which I live that the environment is so uncared for. Everyone feels that they have a right to own and drive the most gas guzzling pick up, or SUV, and never recycle. I don’t dispute these rights! I think they do have the right to do these things, but I think they are stupid for insisting on exercising this right with no purpose. With gas until just recently as 3.00 a gallon, there was no logic in owning such a vehicle for the majority of people (this is in regards to those who live in a city; for all of you in rural areas, or use it in business, I have no dispute with you). Not only do these cars use a lot of fuel they also pump chemicals into the atmosphere (dangerous or not, no one would think the sky line of Los Angeles pretty because of it). I am not ignorant that it is mostly corporations that contribute to pollution, but what is a corporation than a group of individuals, and so that is where I direct my statement.

Before I moved here everyone where I lived recycled. They didn’t do this because they had to but because they thought it best. Why throw things in the trash when they can be used again? I have even known of ministries starting up because of soda cans. The tab from the top of your coke can is made of a different metal than the rest of your can. This type of metal, that the tab is made out of, is the same as what they make wheel chairs out of. There was a ministry that realized this and began collecting all the tabs from cans. As people recycled the rest of their cans they gave the tabs to this group. Because of this, it cut costs down in manufacturing wheel chairs significantly, and helped a great many people out.

The town I live in now does not recycle at all, that I know of. I am encouraged that the school next door to me, started a compost pile for dead leaves and old food as a science experiment. Yet this is a small step, but a good one, and I would be encouraged to see more of them.

I am constantly thrown by the fact that people need to, time and time again, exercise their “rights”, even if those rights aren’t healthy for them, or those around them. I would like to say, everyone has the right to own and drive an SUV, and never recycle. But can’t we do it just because it is helpful and healthy? It is the kind of people who do something just because they have the right to, that I am bothered by, and sadly the majority I’ve come across (in this area) call themselves Christians. Furthermore, they often defend their “right” by some sort of Christian doctrine. The part that bothers me most is that this right will not last forever.

People will only have this right as long as they choose to use it responsibly. As more people become frustrated with others acting irresponsibly, there will come a backlash. This backlash will be in the form of laws being signed, not necessarily by people who disagree with the “rights” of these people, but simply with how these people exercise their rights. This will in turn ruin it for the rest of us who do act, for the most part responsibly.

All this is to say that I enjoyed your post Mike, and I agree God enjoys his green earth. Yes, invention is a good thing, but God did put us in a garden and since that point we have only fallen. The only other true progression for man was Jesus, and again he wasn’t born by our invention or science, but by God.