Liberating the Earth

According to an AP report on MSNBC early this morning in Woodinville, WA, crews battled fires at four multimillion-dollar show homes called "The Street of Dreams." Near the fires, a sign had the initials of the Earth Liberation Front and mocked claims the luxury homes were environmentally friendly.

The Earth Liberation Front, whose members sometimes call themselves elves, is a loosely organized collection of radical environmentalists responsible for other arsons in the Northwest. A woman is currently on trial in Tacoma for a suspected ELF fire at the University of Washington in 2001. ELF burned the building because they mistakenly believed researchers there were genetically engineering trees.

Wikipedia says ELF has only been in the United States since the early 90s and has a loose-knit, cell-group structure. According to their own documentation, ELF has three main tenets:

1. To inflict maximum economic damage on those profiting from the destruction and exploitation of the natural environment.
2. To reveal to, and to educate the public about the atrocities committed against the earth and all species that populate it.
3. To take all necessary precautions against harming any animal - human and nonhuman.

Oddly enough, ELF harms the environment fighting those who are harming the environment. Remember the SUV dealership fire in 1999? Imagine the chemicals all those burning SUVs put into the atmosphere. I'm not sure how green those homes were in Woodinville, but I imagine there were still quite a few chemicals as well as ash and soot that polluted the air.

I said all that to say that Christians are supposed to be stewards of the environment (Gen 1.26-31).

1. Being created in the image of God means we exercise the same kind of generally benevolent dominion of the earth that God exercises over the cosmos.
2. Christians will conserve energy, food, water, and fuel.
3. Christians will strive to recycle all we can.
4. Christians will put our garbage in proper receptacles. We will not litter.
5. Christians will eat organically when we can.
6. Christians donate stuff to others rather than just throwing it away.
7. We don't needlessly kill animal life. We hunt only what we eat or to protect ourselves and our livestock or pets.

I personally struggle with the desire to have more and more stuff and the realization that I don't really need more and more stuff. Jesus taught us to travel through life as lightly as possible, but we have listened to our culture and its belief that he who has the most and best stuff wins.

Most of all, we remember that the earth waits longingly for Jesus' return probably more than we do.

"The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God (Romans 8.19-21)."

ELF offers a satanic solution to the waste and environmental damage being caused by greed. Let's practice a godly solution and show them the right way.

~Shawn