Happy Earth Day?

I’m not sure if I should be sad or angry when I see Christians bashing Earth Day, purposely wasting plastic bags, or boasting about leaving their lights on.

Don’t get me wrong; I’ve got my computer going, my cell phone charging, and a couple of lights on right now. My carbon footprint is really fairly large. But I believe that this is something I need to work on, to try to minimize my negative impact on the world God gave us.

In the first chapters of Genesis, God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to care for it. I think that the fact that we’ve stopped caring for the earth is a sign of our fallenness, not our virtue.

I think that a lot of the reason that a lot of Christians are not enthusiastic about Earth Day and about environmental issues in general is that caring for the environment is a “liberal” issue. But I don’t believe it has to be.

If it is right to take care of our environment, what does it matter whose idea it was?

We, as Christians, are hurting our cause when we refuse to acknowledge that we have been wrong and when we purposely choose the opposite side of an issue, simply because we don’t like the people who support it.

Sometimes, we think that people don’t like our message because of their sin, when, often, the reason they don’t like our message is because of our sin.

I don’t have this all figured out, and I’m not trying to pass judgment here. I just want us to stop and think. What would Jesus do on Earth Day?