“Green Party”

Thursday, January 07, 2016

In the book of Revelation, we are told not to hurt the earth.  But I have heard a lot of christians say that they won't recycle, drive a fuel-efficient car, or even pick up litter!  Isn't being "green" part of God's orders?  Thanks.

 

Sincerely,
Green Thumb

Dear Green Thumb,

The verses you are referring to are Rev 7:3 and Rev 9:4, but they are severely torn from their context.  In fact, the verse right before (Rev 7:2) points out that God had appointed angels for the specific purpose of hurting the earth.  The whole book of Revelation is dealing with figurative language and should not be taken literally because God says it is a symbolic book that uses figurative and picturesque language (Rev 1:1) to address a spiritual battle the first century church was fighting.  See our post “Left Behind” for further details.

As far as addressing the issue of being “green”, God did give mankind dominion over the earth to subdue it and use it (Gen 1:27-30).  As stewards of the earth, we have a responsibility to be faithful (1 Cor 4:2).  There is some debate over whether fuel-efficient cars, recycling, etc. are a necessary part of taking care of the earth though.  The specifics of environmental research are highly debatable, and we can’t be too dogmatic one way or the other.

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