Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - July/94

Contributor - John P. Hommersen

Title - Stewards Over God's Creation! How Have We Done?

Topic - Creation

Genesis 1:28 states:..."And God blessed them, and God said to them: Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." Read also Psalm 8.

Clearly the Bible gives mankind "dominion" over His creation. That means the power to govern and regulate His creation. That makes us stewards. A steward is someone who manages a property for another person or persons. So God has made us stewards over His property-the earth and all that is therein. Not over the heavens or the universe, just over the earth.

Christians have been blamed for the deterioration of our environment, supposedly because we are the ones who have ruled with greed and an iron hand. This is patently wrong. God gave the order to Adam and Eve, that is to all mankind. So all are culpable.

The sorry state of our environment can be blamed first on ignorance, then on greed, then on negative attitudes. It is no secret that things are getting worse. This, of course, is in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics (see article in Pioneer of November 1993).

Our environment, in short, consists of

a. The troposphere: the airmass extending to about 2OKM above the earth in which life is possible and cloud formations take place.

b. The lithosphere: the land masses of the earth, the upper crust where life is possible.

c. The hydrosphere: the water masses of the earth including atmospheric water.

Without these three parts human life would not be sustainable, if indeed any form of life would be able to exist.

The dangers to the environment are twofold:

1. Natural causes.

2. Man made causes.

Natural causes, such as volcanic eruptions, forest fires, natural carbon dioxide, methane gas, occur frequently and with great force. However, there is nothing we can do about them, except clean up afterwards. So we should concentrate on the man-made causes.

Again there are 2 causes:

1a. Destruction, wilful or accidental.

2a. Pollution, wilfully or accidental.

In some locations there may be evidence of improvement in air and water quality, but on a worldwide basis the decline is very pronounced.

The media are always stressing "sustainable development" as something achievable. That may be true at a very localized level. On a worldwide basis sustainable development is an impossibility.

A few years ago the writer advanced the concept of "sustainable regeneration".

Through the ages nature has always regenerated itself in the face of adversity: pollution caused by nature. Even with a growing world population there was no big change until the coming of the industrial revolution.

At this point the irresponsible squandering of resources started, for instance the deforestation of Great Britain until the discovery of coal as a fuel, at which point air pollution really took off.

Later on, with the growth of the chemical industry the Ozone layer came under attack.

Up to a certain level of pollution nature could regenerate itself. That level will be called "I 00" on a scale from 1 to 100. Below 100 nature can regenerate itself and depending on its position on the scale could even gain on pollution.

Above 100 pollution outstrips regeneration so we must cut back on pollution to bring the state of affairs down to or below 100 to attain the status quo once again.

This is clearly a worldwide problem. If the third world starts industrializing and brings the pollution to say 120 then the western world must cut its pollution down by 20 percent and this means a cut in standard of living!

The United Nations should get involved in this question and impose stringent controls on every nation. In the meantime we can do our bit in Canada.

Voluntary controls don't work, hence the force of the law should be brought to bear.

Please get involved and become stewards, sit down and put some suggestions on paper and send them to Pioneer and they will be forwarded to the pro per authorities.

Think about the travel industry, where 85% is used for pleasure travel. Think about the Concord supersonic aircraft that squander resources and pollute the upper atmosphere. Think about throw away consumer items, as for instance, throw away cameras, lighters, ballpoint pens, and so on. What about the wilful dismantling of our railways? There are numerous other examples, but for the sake of space the discussion has to stop here.

As can be readily seen, the powers of stewardship have to be wielded in a fair and equitable manner over the whole earth. Pray for wisdom for our leaders and for our country: Canada.

P.S. The writer first proposed the regeneration theory at a workshop he ran at Redeemer College as Ontario Policy Director for the CHP.

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