Self-interest makes Christians better ecologists

Anthony suggests that the reason Christians make better ecologists is that they put people first.

The interesting thing about Christian care for the environment, especially if we take the Scriptures as our guide, is that this ‘human interest’ is front and center.  Genesis 1:26 has God putting mankind in charge of ‘the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’  This we can properly call stewardship and as we see from the text, the value of humans and the earth is set by God, and in this equation, the earth is placed in subject to Humanity.

Presumably, this means it is to humans to carefully manage what has been put under their care.

By ‘carefully manage’ we must understand that ‘human interests’ must be the guiding light, and as this command comes when man was yet unfallen the concern that mere selfishness would be the guiding light is probably not warranted.

Of course, some of the most strident Christian environmentalists are ones who have thrown out Genesis 1.  So, I don’t know what their Scriptural basis is.

Read the whole thing.