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Sport Utility Vehicles unbiblical?Tis an

Sport Utility Vehicles unbiblical?

Tis an interesting combination: conservatives and environmentalists. All too often, in the printed, television, and radio news services, conservatives are juxtaposed against environmental causes. Conservatives are seen as the hurdle to cleaning up our environment.

At first glance, a conservative, such as myself, would want to simply wave away those allegations as untrue and misleading. Another part of me is inclined to think that, just maybe, there is something to this notion that conservatives perhaps behave willy-nilly with environmental concerns more often then we might want to admit.

The reason I bring this up is that it seems that it is a fair generalization to say that theologically conservative Christians are usually politically conservative as well-- this places Christians into the category at issue. Are Christians all too often "unfriendly" towards environmentalism? If we are, is this sinful?

Clearly, from the creation ordanances, we are mandated to be stewards of God's creation. We are to exercise dominion over the animals in a way that is pleasing to God. If God sees it pleasing to feed the sparrows, and ants such that they are never anxious for tomorrow, certainly we too ought to exercise benevolence in our stewardship.

If it is true that we ought to be benevolent stewards, is it the case that Christians ought to be more concerned with environmental issues in general, and perhaps even side with environmentalist causes more often?

Those questions, it seems to me, surely must be answered on a case by case basis-- I don't recommend adopting any one platform cart blanche without biblical reason, and it seems that often the environmetalist legislation is clandestined socialism-- and therefore ought to be defeated. However, not all environmetal concern entails a "socialist" solution. In other words, there seem to be plenty of enironment-friendly things that Christians can do, without compromising their capitalist convictions.

What about the air?

I know that I am fed up with the air quality in southern California: breathing in all those toxins 24 hours-a-day simply cannot be a healthy way of life. I do not want my children growing up in such poor air.

It seems the Christian community ought to be involved in finding answers to the air quality problem, which is just one of thousands of environmental concerns. The first step is proper diagnosis of the source of the problem. Is it industry that causes all the air polution, is it all the automobiles on the road, is it a combination of the two? Or is it something not in our control? Can the air problem be solved without breaking the backs of industry and car producers?

This last question seems to be the common conservative response to enviromentalists, "but you're gonna destroy jobs; the economy will suffer." I believe that often the conservative is correct about these claims. But what about those times when the conservative is simply, and without warrant, protecting the "free market" at the cost of the enironment? Is this a biblical sacrafice?

I do not believe SUV's are evil, nor do I believe that purchasing one is necessarily a sin, but I do believe that we ought to start asking environmetal questions when we consider making such purchases. What else ought we start doing?