Do Likewise
Old-Fashioned Creation Care
I am becoming my grandfather, and that is a good thing. Let me explain.
The more I have gotten involved in the evangelical creation-care movement, the more I have found myself drawn toward practices that my grandparents did—or would have done if they were available. Each time I "reduce-reuse-recycle," I become more like Grandpa Gushee from Milton, Massachusetts.
I am becoming convinced that creation care and what we evangelicals usually call "stewardship" are basically the same thing. This discovery is slowly changing my family's lifestyle. The more that lifestyle changes, the more I skip back about 60 years to the values of an earlier generation.
These are values such as hard work, modesty in consumption, consistent giving, frugality in spending, saving for the future, and squeezing every last drop of value out of our possessions. You work hard and earn an honest living, spend your money judiciously after setting aside a generous portion for giving and saving, buy only what you need, and make it last as long as you can.
To be fair, these were values that my parents tried to instill in my sisters and me. But we were children of the 1960s and 1970s. Parental values had a hard time competing with mall values, schoolmate values, and TV commercial values.
I know that I haven't warmed easily to simple living. I didn't get everything I wanted as a kid, but I did get as much as I needed and some of what I wanted.
Early married years saw some pretty simple living. As newlyweds, Jeanie and I delivered newspapers for a time while we went to school in Louisville. That was not fun. Date night consisted of cheese bread and water at Pizza Hut. A whole date for $3.00!
But as our income increased, our lifestyle went up with it. Three years ...
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David P. Gushee
David P. Gushee serves as Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics and Director of the Center for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University, where he also chairs the Mercer Lyceum initiative on rebuilding democracy. His column ran from 2005 to 2007.
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Chris
Planting trees is not as good for the environment as you might think. Research from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California indicates that planting trees in northern latitudes has a neutral or negative effect on global warming. The verdict is still out on hybrid cars as well. The mining of nickel for the batteries in Canada has a significant environmental impact (acid rain), not to mention shipping it from Canada to Wales, to China and then to Japan, all on a carbon burning ship. NASA astronauts have practiced driving moon buggies on the deforested area surrounding the nickel mine. According to CNW Market Research (the source of this information), a Prius has an energy dollar per mile cost (over the lifetime of the vehicle) of $3.25 compared to the Hummer H3 with a cost of $1.93 Our creation care should be driven by facts not political power-brokers.
Ruth
To David: Now it is time to think of getting rid of your lawn-- the largest polluter and energy-user in the American suburban lifestyle. Replace it with a rain garden or xeroscape. But it is good to see Christians adopting principles that I have held and implemented for thirty years. I don't get teased so much anymore for my "compulsive composting", and my neighbors say they love my garden with no lawn, only paths and perennials. And now the people who purchased our house in Colorado a quarter century ago are wishing they had not replaced the buffalo grass lawn with water-intensive bluegrass that is now dead. To Melody: Are we Christians not called to live simply and modestly as God directs and to let HIM worry about the world at large?
Sheryl
I agree with Melody....Very well said.