Christian Consumerism

The other day, a couple of people from back home that I know were joking online about the recent event wherein everyone on earth was supposed to turn their lights off for an hour at the same time. These friends of mine joked that they were going to go out and buy as many lights as they could and turn them all on during that hour in order to spite the environmentalists.

Thats stupid, and here is why:

In the ongoing rhetoric war between the "conservative Right" and the "liberal Left", caring for the environment has been pigeon-holed as one of the dominant traits of left-wing radicalists and hippies who hate capitalism and the big-spending prosperity that it incites. "Environmentalism" has, because of ignorance and sensationalism on both sides, become a political orientation akin to the Right's Abortionalism (i like my new word). This is important because it then becomes easy for Christian conservatives to dismiss environmental concerns from their spectrum of important issues because of their resistance to the political ideals of some of the more vocal advocates of the environmentalism movement or agenda. There is no excuse for liberals or conservatives to dramatize and politicize this issue. The fact still remains that whatever our political affiliation may be, we are facing some very real environmental issues. This article discusses some of the social impacts that the massive water shortage is having in California, an issue that has arisen in large part because of a lack of responsibility both on the part of agricultural corporations and individual consumption.

So what does this have to do with Christian Consumerism?

It is time for us, as Christians, to stop our addiction to the excesses of prosperity. For too long, many of us have seen the ethos of concern for the environment's structure and longevity as a political issue, like the issue of public education (more on that later). Our response to a movement to reduce our consumption and increase our material self-control shouldn't be one of mockery, rejection, or resentment but rather of action and encouragement. Christians should be the ones spear-heading the movement for conserving and protecting the environment. Just as Adam was, so we too are commanded by God to be good stewards of the earth and, more specifically, the resources He has given to us. There are alot of sticky situations that arise in the discussion of value judgments concerning the environment (i.e. do we build a dam for clean hydroelectric power and thereby ruin the surrounding ecosystem), but answering those questions is not the purpose of this article. Instead, I think that we as Christian conservatives could use a recalibration of our view of the environment.

God has called us to be good stewards of His Creation, not to continue in harmful excess in order to spite political rivals. Environmentalists are wrong about alot of things, but their campaign to raise awareness of the excessive and unnecessary levels of our material consumption as Americans, and the impact it is having on our environment, is something that we should pay close attention to.

It's not only rational, its Godly.