Sometimes It Is About Details

Tuesday, February 17, 2026

There is no shortage of news these days.  China is increasingly stepping up the nuclear arms race – something we thought we had left behind.  Iranians are once again, and this time at much greater risk of personal harm, taking to the streets.  Jesse Jackson is dead – leaving behind this magnificent public appearance.  It can be overwhelming – sometimes we need to turn our attention to things smaller and closer to home. And so this morning I shall.  In a religious outlet this morning appeared a piece that contends environmental stewardship is Biblical.  Fair enough – it is, but there ends all the guidance the Bible has to give us and therein lies the rub.

We rarely step back and think about it- we just run the “Save the environment” flag up the pole and use it to justify our latest thing.  But what does it actually mean to “save the environment.”  We talk about “biodiversity” and seek to save species from extinction, yet there have been massive extinctions long before mankind inhabited the planet.  So what extinctions are good and which ones are bad?  The Bible offers no clues, nor frankly have I encountered any serious discussion of the question.

We fear “climate change,” and yet the climate has changed dramatically many times thorough geological history and even human history.  So then we talk about “human-induced climate change.”  We know there is some, but we have no idea the extent of it, or what it will do in the future.  And even at that, we are part of nature, creature, not creator.  When are our actions against nature and when are they with it?  Again, the Bible offers no clues, nor frankly have I encountered any serious discussion of the question.

The population of the planet is ever increasing and those increases are enabled by modern technology.  Advances in agriculture and technology in transport and food preservation enable to feed this once unimaginable population.  Advances in construction allow us to house it.  The economies created by these advances give this incredible population vocation.  At what point do these advances become unbiblical or unnatural?  As much as we are commanded to be stewards we are also commanded to multiply.  Are we to cease multiplication for the sake of environmental stewardship?  Are these question discussed or pondered?

The thesis of the Christian piece starts here, “In recent decades, conversations about environmental care have often been framed as political, ideological, or even suspiciously secular. ”  Of course they have – because right now the idea of “creation care” is bandied about as a cudgel to point us towards some political outcome, it is not seriously examined or discussed.

Everybody likes a simple world and a simple discussion.  But sometimes things are simply not simple.  Christian ethics are not straightforward.  The Ten Commandments contain a provision against killing and yet the Pentateuch also calls for the death penalty in some cases.  Which is it?  It is not simple.

As Isaiah says on God’s behalf:

For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts.

Our struggle must be to understand the mind of God, despite our inability to ever do so.  We cannot just haul out a slogan and use it to rally everyone to our personal cause.  we must think things through, carefully and deliberately.  Simply stating that God calls us to “environmental stewardship” is in this modern and technological age nearly useless.  At best it calls us to the debate , but it solves almost nothing.

And before we can enter the debate – we need to get smarter and better at debating.  Right now this nation lacks the character to debate well.  And that is where I think the church ought to be focused.