Environmentalism - Glenn Conjurske

Environmentalism

by Glenn Conjurske

Environmentalism is for all practical purposes a religion, as militant as Islam, as hypocritical as feminism, and more pernicious than humanism. Humanism is perverse in exalting man to the place of God, but environmentalism debases him to the level of the beasts that perish. Humanism recognizes the primacy of man. Environmentalism denies it. It is an unnatural religion, for its rudiments are a denial of the most fundamental facts of natural religion—-not to say of common sense. It is an ungodly religion, for its foundations are a denial of some of the most fundamental principles of revealed religion. Yet it is a popular religion, securing the commitment and stirring the passions of a vast multitude of deluded souls. It is diligently taught to the children in the public schools, by a pervasive system of brainwashing, and in story books designed for the youngest who can read, in which man is always presented as a rapacious villain, and the darling little wolves and tigers—-depicted in comic style, with human intelligence, as cute as kittens, and as sweet as angels—-are presented as the persecuted sufferers.

This new religion is an outgrowth of an older and more innocent thing, called conservationism, but environmentalism is the profane extreme to which this has been carried by a generation utterly godless. Conservationism aimed to curb the exploitation of the earth’s resources, to “conserve” them for the use of future generations. Environmentalism aims to curb the use of the earth by man, and reserve it for rocks and rivers and toads and owls. Though we have nothing to do with political or social movements, we have little quarrel with the principles of conservationism. Waste and greed and exploitation are sinful, and as men are wicked, they may require laws to prohibit the waste and exploitation of the creation of God. But it is one thing to prohibit the abuse, and quite another to deny the use.

But we do not write to change the world. We write for no political ends whatever. We do not aim to impede the progress of the environmental movement. We have no hope of accomplishing that. What we aim at is to deliver ignorant and sentimental Christians from this snare, and perhaps to convict worldly Christians of their error—-perhaps even to wake up some of the ungodly, by demonstrating to them the Satanic character of this movement.

Those fundamental truths which environmentalism denies are all found in the first chapter of Genesis, where we read, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.”

And again, in the second chapter of Genesis, “And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.”

Here, then, are the plain facts of revelation, concerning both man and his God-given domain. Man is the image of God, and is lord over all the lower creation. The earth as God made it, before it was subjected to the curse, required the care of man. God commanded man “to dress it and to keep it.” This was not mere busy-work. The earth was not made for snakes and turtles, nor for grass and trees, but for man, and in order that it should be suitable and profitable and pleasant for man, it required man “to dress it and to keep it.” This in its pristine state, as it came fresh from the hand of God. What that dressing and keeping consisted of was left to man’s discretion. Adam may have chosen to keep the ferns from overgrowing his foot paths, or Eve to keep the trees from shading her favorite flowers, or her tomato patch. They may have chosen that the berries should grow here, and the hazel nuts there, or that some pervasive ivy should be banned from their domain altogether. Whatever it was, it was at their own discretion, to make the earth pleasant and profitable for themselves, and this was necessary even in the pristine and uncursed earth, and enjoined of God even in Paradise. God never designed that they should leave the earth to nature, but “dress it and keep it” at their own pleasure, and for their own benefit.

Man was commanded to “replenish the earth, and subdue it.” The earth as God created it required to be subdued, and subdued for man’s sake and profit. Though it came fresh from the hand of a wise and good creator, and though he pronounced it all to be “very good,” yet he commanded the man to subdue it. This was necessary. Fields required to be cleared of trees and rocks, and levelled and tilled and planted. Swamps and “wetlands” required to be drained or filled, wells to be dug, springs to be confined, streams to be dammed or diverted, bridges to be constructed, roads to be built, fences made to keep his animals or to protect his crops, hills removed or valleys filled, ponds filled up or ponds created, just as men should please, in whatsoever fashion was required to make the earth pleasing and profitable for man, for whom it was created. All this from the beginning of the creation, though man lived a simple and rural life, before the first hint of modern technology existed, and all this by the express direction of God. Thus was man to subdue the earth, according to the command of God, given in Paradise, ere the first breath of sin or curse had entered. And if God commanded this, it is certainly as right as it is necessary.

Yet environmentalists deny all this, and fight against it with all their power. The earth must be preserved in its natural state. Swamps and “wetlands” are sacred, and may not be touched by man. They must be preserved as a habitat—-not for man, but for frogs and cattails. Lakes and rivers are not to be touched. Trees are not to be cut. No roads are to be built in the forests. In plain English, environmentalism denies man the right to subdue the earth, or, in a little plainer English, denies man the right to keep the commandment of God.

We are very well aware that the greed and rapine of modern man have gone beyond subduing the earth, and proceeded in many ways to pollute and destroy it. This is altogether too true, but environmentalism is an immoderate reaction against this, which denies the basic rights of man and God—-for whoever denies man the right to keep the commandment of God, on any plea whatsoever, denies the rights of God. But environmentalism does not recognize the existence of God. Nature is its god. “Nature’s way is best,” these folks contend, and will therefore have such parts of the earth as they choose left to nature, directly in the teeth of God’s first command to man, to subdue it. The hypocrisy of this is glaring, for all the environmentalists drive automobiles, and drive them on roads, too. When did “nature” ever make an automobile, or a concrete highway? The environmentalists in our area have been fighting tooth and nail for years against a proposed copper mine, and yet they all use electricity, carried to and through their houses by copper wires. Did those copper wires grow on trees? They all use aluminum and steel—-and plastic!—-none of which ever came to them by “nature’s way,” but only by the art and industry of man, in subduing the earth, and making it profitable to serve his ends. We do not believe there is a sincere environmentalist on the face of the earth, who actually lives according to “nature’s way.” Their whole life is one grand tissue of hypocrisy, professing one thing, and living another, insisting that the other fellow should abide by “nature’s way” if he wishes to cut a tree or build a road or drain a swamp, but driving automobiles and using electrical power—-and glass and plastic and paper—-themselves.

But it will not suffice for me merely to assert that the earth was created for man. This will be self-evident to those who recognize the primacy of man, according to the creation of God, but for those whose minds are perverted by godless ideologies, the fact must be proved. To prove it, of course, I appeal to Scripture, for I do not write for any who do not acknowledge its authority. In Isaiah 45:18 we are told, “For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited. I am the LORD; and there is none else.” To leave the earth to nature is to have created it in vain. The Lord made it to be inhabited, and for this purpose it must be subdued. Land must be cleared, houses and barns and fences built, ditches dug to drain noxious swamps and lagoons, and whatsoever else might prove necessary that the earth might be inhabited, according to the purpose of the God who created it.

But some whose minds are perverted, who believe in the fancied rights of animals, and deny that God has given man dominion over the earth and every living thing in it, will no doubt answer that the earth was created “to be inhabited” by wolves and owls, as much as by man. I turn back a few verses, therefore, to Isaiah 45:12, where the Lord says, “I have made the earth, and created man upon it.” Why does he not say, “I have made the earth, and created spotted owls upon it”? Why not, “I have made the earth, and created wolves and elk upon it”? This is in fact true, but it is not the purpose of God. The plants and animals were all created for man’s benefit, as much as the earth was, and man was given dominion over them all. But the environmentalists argue as the man who would walk into a department store, and claim that the store was made for the sake of merchandise, and so forbid the manager to remove or alter anything. The store may have been made for the merchandise, but the whole business was made for the man who owns it. “The earth is the LORD’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” The Lord is the owner, and he has made man the manager. He has given to man dominion “over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”

The animals know the primacy of man, if deluded men do not. The animals know by nature those things which man has been deprived of by godless education, for God has written it in the very souls of the beasts, as he has written it in his word. “And the fear of you,” he says, “and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.” (Genesis 9:2). It is true enough that “every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind,” (James 3:7), but those which are tamed of man submit to him as lord, so that all the beasts of the earth recognize the primacy of man, either by their fear and dread of him, or by their submission. This is of God. “Into your hand are they delivered.”

Thus man, if he please, may harness the ox to his plow, or the horse to his wagon, and require them to do his work. Nor is this a case of “might makes right.” Man has not acquired this right by his superior wisdom or wit. It is God who gave that right to man, on the day that he created him. Nor does man’s right extend to domestic animals only, but to “every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”

The Lord has thus given to man the power over every living thing, to determine its habitat, to use it for his own ends, and certainly, if the thing proves noxious, to kill and destroy it. It has been the custom in Texas, once a year, to have a sweeping rattlesnake hunt, and destroy thousands of the venomous creatures. This is man’s God-given right. I have read of men, in the frontier days of America, surrounding a large area of woods, and marching to the center from all sides, so as to surround and exterminate all the wolves and bears and panthers, and it is God who has given man the right to do so. “Into your hand are they delivered.” The Lord says to his apostles, “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” (Luke 10:19). When Paul was attacked by a venomous serpent, he shook it off into the fire, for though it had no power to hurt him, yet it might hurt others. Ah! and what if it had belonged to an “endangered species”! The fact is, any beast which threatens or attacks a man must thereby render itself “endangered.” This is “the power of the enemy,” and the Lord himself gives us the right to tread on such beasts, and certainly to exterminate such of them as pose any threat to man, or to man’s interests. We are engaged at the present moment—-we and thousands of others in northern Wisconsin—-in a war of extermination upon the armies of caterpillars which threaten to destroy our trees, and we hold that man has more right to his shade than the caterpillar to his life. Every man who swats a mosquito believes that man has more right to his comfort than the mosquito to his life.

Those who object to this are inspired by godless ideologies, the spawn of Satan, whose way it is always to oppose all that God has ordained. If man determines that certain beasts shall have no “habitat,” so that they must die off and become extinct, this is within the rights and commission which God has given him. If he does this for greed or sport, we condemn it, but if he does so for his own safety, subsistence, or well-being, this is as God has ordered it. “He formed it,” formed “all the earth,” not to be left to nature, but “to be inhabited,” and in this all plants and animals must give way to man.

But again, that the Lord created the earth “to be inhabited” by man is evident by his own actions in giving the land of promise to Israel. Though it was inhabited by peoples so wicked that they were devoted to destruction, yet God himself would preserve them so long as was necessary to preserve the civilized state of the land. So he says in Deuteronomy 7:22, “And the LORD thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little: thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee.” Though those nations were so wicked that God would not suffer them to live, yet he would not allow the land to “revert to nature,” nor to become a “habitat” for the beasts, but would preserve those peoples even in their ripened wickedness, precisely to prevent the land from becoming a habitat for the beasts. If God made the earth to be inhabited, it was for man he made it, not for the beasts, and he gave to man the right to inhabit it, and to so control every thing in it as to make it suitable and comfortable for his own habitation. In this scripture we have the explicit word of God himself, as to his own purpose and course of action, and this scripture assumes the obvious fact that the beasts must be diminished or destroyed, and their habitat eliminated, in order to make the land a proper habitation for men. In the case before us, God himself worked to exclude the beasts, to preserve the earth as a habitation for man, for whom he made it. If the earth is large enough for both man and wolves and bears, they may both have their share of it, but where it is needed as a habitation for man, the habitat of the beasts must give way, according to the purpose and explicit declaration of God himself.

“But I would like my grandchildren to be able to see wolves and eagles.” Yes, and I would like my children to see mammoths and dinosaurs also. But what if they cannot? What dire calamity is this? I would like them to see wolves, or to hear them at any rate, but then I would not like my neighbor’s sheep (nor my own children) to be carried off by them. Pleasure and convenience must yield to necessity.

I give the experience of one of the early settlers in Canada. “My father,” he says, “brought some cattle with him. One was a nice heifer two years old. One morning just outside of the clearing the bones of the heifer were found picked by the wolves. The first settlers often lost their cows and young cattle in this way. And for some years the life of a sheep was worth nothing, unless kept in an inclosure with a fence so high that a wolf could not get over it.

“And the black bears were by no means scarce in the locality, as more than one empty pig-pen bore its testimony in the early days of the settlement.” The same experience was repeated ten thousand times over, throughout Canada and America, “in the early days” of many another settlement. In the later days, man was successful in subduing the earth, and exercising his God-given dominion over the wolves and the bears, so as to eliminate them or their habitat, judging—-and judging quite rightly—-that their own pork and butter were more important than the howl of the wolf in the wilderness, however pleasing the latter might be as a midnight serenade.

All this is opposed and denied by the environmentalists. They deny the right of man thus to intrude upon the habitat of the wolves. Indeed, they now preach, and maintain by law, the sacred right of the wolves to intrude upon the habitat of man. Though loons are much in use also, it is the wolf which has become the primary symbol of the environmentalists, and his image appears everywhere on pictures and posters—-even on “environmental” license plates in Wisconsin—-so that even silly girls must display the visage and form of this vicious predator on their walls and their clothing. We could relate accounts enough of this dangerous creature, from the books which we have read, but one shall suffice. James Evans, an early missionary to the Indians of Canada, kept a train of sled dogs which were half wolf. “These four hybrids,” we are told, “never lost their wolfish disposition. Only their owner and one or two of his Indian drivers could manage them. They had to be chained up each night at the close of the day’s work. And in the summer time they had to be kept like wild animals, imprisoned inside a high stockade. But when harnessed up in tandem style to Mr. Evans’ sled, with Henry Budd or Mustagan, or some other famous Indian runner accompanying them as guide, they must have been the finest train the country ever saw. Their end was sudden, and very tragic was the event that preceded it.

“One morning Mr. Evans, accompanied by an Indian driver who could also master them, went into the high stockaded yard to let them loose for a little exercise. The strong door was securely closed behind them, as they entered, but it was not locked, as it fastened from the outside. The two men, armed with their heavy whips, were inside with the fierce brutes, which they had unchained and allowed to gambol about as was their wont and delight. In the meantime an old chief had come to the mission house, and on asking to see Mr. Evans, was told by Mrs. Evans that he was somewhere about the premises. He left the house, and after looking in various places, opened the door of the stockaded yard, and went in. The ferocious animals sprang upon him in an instant, and before Mr. Evans and his companion could tear them away, they had so mangled the old man that he died of the wounds and shock. Of course the brutes were shot immediately, and thus ended the train that had been more talked about than any that ever existed in that country.”

Now the nature of the wolf has not changed. Environmentalists make many claims as to the harmlessness of the wolf, and while we can grant that he is more damaging to man’s interests than he is to man himself, yet it is just ignorance and prejudice which make him harmless. He is a cunning and dangerous predator, who hunts in packs, and therefore fears nothing. This is the dangerous creature which has now become the symbol of these brainwashed and infatuated souls, who know nothing of the reality of the matter, but who would certainly sing another tune if they met a wolf in the wild. The rights of the wolf are held sacred, and the rights of man are subjected to them. Those who maintain this folly do not believe that man ought to have any precedence over the beasts, for they do not believe that man is made in the image of God, or that there is any intrinsic difference between man and beast, and they do not believe that God has given man dominion “over all the earth,” and “over every living thing that moveth.” This is the advanced fruit of the godless doctrine of evolution, which has been diligently propagated in the public schools for three generations.

A recently passed zoning ordinance in the county in which I live—-230 pages in length!—-denies man the right to a year-round dwelling on any property “zoned” (by a few power-grasping officials) as forest land. Thus does man, under the sway of this new religion, deny to his fellow man the right to keep the commandment of God. Swamps and “wetlands” have long since been held as sacred to “the environment,” and off limits to man. Men are forbidden to erect houses within seventy-five or a hundred feet of a lake, and now the same restriction is placed upon the land adjoining swamps, wetlands, and lowlands. Thus does environmentalism deny the rights of both God and man, and exalt nature, which was created of God to be man’s servant and possession, to be his master and lord. God made the earth “to be inhabited,” and commanded man to subdue it for that purpose. God gave man dominion “over all the earth,” but this new religion reverses the decree of the Almighty, and denies man the right to subdue and inhabit the earth, in order that it may be a habitat for wolves and frogs and mosquitoes. This is all directly against God and the Bible, as much as it is against common sense. Though no sparrow can fall to the ground without the will of the heavenly Father, yet God says that man is of more value than many sparrows. Man alone is made in the image of God, and one man is therefore of more value than all the owls or wolves on earth. This is what is passionately denied by godless environmentalism. It does not believe that man is made in the image of God, but is founded upon the profane theory of evolution, which makes man and plants and animals all equal in dignity and worth. In theory and ideology it reduces man to the same level with the plants and animals, and practically it debases him below them, shutting man out from the use of the earth, over which God has made him lord, in order that it may be given to plants and animals and rivers and rocks, over which God has given man dominion.

But I must turn aside here, and offer a word of clarification for the sake of those who see only words, and not things. I have nothing to do with Reconstructionism, or “dominion theology”—-have no sympathy with it. The dominion of which I speak is another thing altogether from that for which they contend. Their dominion is social, civil, and political. They seek the dominion of the church over the world. The dominion for which I contend has nothing to do with the church, but is only the dominion of man over the lower creation. I aim at no redemption of social institutions, no bringing in of a new world order, no establishment of the kingdom of God without the return of the King, but only the right of man as such to exercise dominion over rocks and rivers and trees and beasts and birds. Dominion theology claims the right of the church to exercise dominion over the world. I only assert the right of man to exercise dominion over the earth. The social and political system which is now known as the world did not so much as exist when God gave man dominion over the earth. What I contend for is the right of man to clear and fence his ground, to fill up the puddle in his drive way or the swamp in his field, to eliminate the raccoons or rabbits or caterpillars which destroy his garden, or the chipmunks which eat his strawberries, or to kill the wolf or the eagle which kills his chickens or his sheep. Such dominion God has given to man as man, because he is made in the image of God. This has nothing to do with the church, nor with any spiritual commission to subdue the earth for the kingdom of God. It is only the right of man as man to subdue the earth for himself, for his own habitation, and to that end to have dominion not only “over all the earth,” but “over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” It is this dominion which environmentalism denies.

But let it be understood, we do not believe in any wanton or purposeless destruction of species, any more than we do of so destroying individual creatures. These are the creation of God, and he cares for their preservation. It was God who commanded Noah to build an ark for the preservation of the species, and the Lord cared also for the preservation of the “much cattle” in Nineveh. The Son of God informs us that not one sparrow can fall to the ground without the will of our Father in heaven, but then the purpose for which he tells us this is not to move us to protect the sparrows, but to teach us that man is of more value than many sparrows—-and he is of more value than many species also. We stand against any waste or wanton exploitation of anything which God has created. We write only to oppose the godless philosophies by which the environmentalists make void the decrees of the Almighty, and cast his word to the winds.

The command of God must take precedence over the “balance of nature” and “nature’s way.” God has given dominion to man, over all the earth, and commanded him to subdue it. “All the earth” includes the forests and the jungles and the swamps and the “wetlands” and the mountains. That certain men have abused their dominion is notorious, but this gives no man the right to revoke the dominion which God has given. God made all the earth “to be inhabited,” and gave to man the right to subdue it for himself, for his own habitation. The fundamental fact which environmentalism ignores or denies is that man is the image of God, and that man therefore must take precedence over rivers and wolves and eagles and beetles and ferns and trees. The earth was made for man, not man for the earth. The birds and beasts were all made for man, and it is God who gave man dominion over them, it is God who delivered them into man’s hand, to control them and use them for his own ends. It is God who gave man the right to break a horse, and saddle and ride it. It is God who gave man the right to “kill and eat” fish and fowl and beef and venison, or to exterminate rattlesnakes.

And the hand of man is required not only to subdue the earth, and to have dominion over it, but “to dress it and to keep it” also. When “there was not a man to till the ground,” when “nature’s way” had free course, the earth was unsuited to the purpose for which the Lord created it. The proliferation of forest or jungle may be beautiful to poets and dreamers, and a paradise for panthers and mosquitoes, but it provides neither food nor habitation for man. “Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken,” but we cannot till a jungle or rain forest till first we clear it. This is necessary for the well-being of man. We have read more than one account, from the pioneer days of America and Canada, of men clearing their land, and burning the trees in heaps. The first settlers in the place where I live cut the trees and floated them down the river. This was necessary if man was to till the ground. There were more trees than any man knew what to do with, and they stood in his way. Well—-we have often seen men clear the land and burn the trees in the present day also, and we think there is little excuse for it today, for the land is not now cleared for necessity, but for greed, not to raise food, but to raise condominiums and shopping malls. The unscrupulous greed of modern man is a reality, and this gives plausible occasion to all the preposterous claims of the environmentalists. Still, we resist those claims as fundamentally unsound, and directly opposed to the revealed will of God.

God has commanded man to till the ground, and to dress and keep the land. This is as necessary as it is right. There are thousands of domestic flowers and fruits and vegetables which are never found in nature at all. That is, they are never found in the wild. These are generally among the most useful and valuable of plants, and the fact is, they require man’s cultivation and care. Who ever found a corn stalk growing in the woods, or peas or beans or radishes, or any garden vegetable? Some domestic plants, such as chives or lilacs, may survive in the wilderness for generations after man has ceased to dwell there, yet they are found only where man has planted them. Others may survive where they have been planted, but without man’s cultivation will degenerate. I was walking in a field in the county forest a year ago—-a field evidently cleared by man, but where no man has lived for many years, there being no trace remaining of house or barn—-and I was surprised to find parsnips growing. The tops were tall and luxuriant, but when I pulled them up I found the roots gnarled and thin and woody—-practically inedible, though they were certainly parsnips. Without a man to cultivate the soil, and to select and plant the best seeds, the best of vegetables had degenerated to something unfit to eat, and most garden vegetables will not even survive in the wild. Whatever may have been the case in Paradise, ere the earth was cursed for man’s sin, it is unquestionably true now that many of the most useful and beneficial plants cannot survive or thrive without the hand of man. We read in the parable of the sower, that when the sower went forth to sow, some of the good seed “fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them,” and this is a plain fact of life. The beneficial plants cannot compete with the weeds, and if man does not till the earth, and remove or subdue the weeds, they will take over the ground, and choke out the useful plants.

The most useful of the domestic animals also require the care of man. A dog or a cat may thrive in the wild, but sheep and cattle will not. No man has ever found a barnyard fowl which has survived for generations in the wilderness, and no man ever will. The thing is simply impossible. Such creatures have none of the speed or sagacity of the wild varieties. They require the care of man. Left to nature, they must quickly die out, and thus man must lose some of his most beneficial servants—-for who ever knew a wild bird to lay an egg a day for months on end, or anything but a domestic cow to give six or eight gallons of milk a day?—-and I have known one cow to give ten. Why would any wild bird lay an egg a day? For what—-for whom—-would she lay them? What would she do with them? What could become of them? These laying hens were obviously made for man. Why would any wild beast of any description give eight gallons of milk a day? Left to nature, with but one calf to suck her, and no man to milk her, such a cow must groan in pain and agony, or burst. It is patent from her very nature that she was made for man, and it is certain that she cannot survive without his care. It is certain too that man has the right to milk her, to confine her within fences, to hang a bell about her neck, and to exercise whatever other dominion over her which may suit his ends—-yes, and to kill the wolves which would attack her. All this has been given by God to man as man.

For all this God has enjoined upon man that he subdue “all the earth,” and that he “dress it and keep it,” and exercise dominion, not only over all the earth, but over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And all this, not to preserve the earth in its natural state, but to render it pleasing and profitable as his own habitation.

But supposing all the claims of the environmentalists were legitimate, is not this a poor and petty business for a man who professes to be a Christian—-who believes in a coming day of judgement, a heaven and a hell? Peter writes, “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming?” Those days have come. Nevertheless, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” (II Pet. 3:3-10). And shall men who know and believe these things occupy themselves with preserving the earth for future generations?—-for generations which in all likelihood will never exist, and which will be wicked and bound for hell if they do? Has the Lord given you no higher calling than this? We are taught to pray, “Thy kingdom come.” We know that the coming of that kingdom will be by the return of the Lord Jesus Christ in power and glory. We know that the ungodly multitudes which now populate the earth will be destroyed at his coming. “Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” “For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.” And can a man who believes these things, and sincerely prays “Thy kingdom come,” can such a man occupy himself with protecting endangered species for future generations? The plain fact is, the most endangered species on the face of the earth is man, who is shortly to be overtaken by sudden destruction at the hands of an angry God, and they shall not escape. Neither will they trouble themselves then about the fauna and the flora, nor the water quality, but will then be crying to the rocks and mountains to fall upon them, and hide them from the wrath of the Lord and his Christ. And with such things immediately before us, have we nothing better to do than preserve the natural resources for future generations?

We do not speak to those who believe nothing of the Bible or God or eternity—-whom evolution and godless education have robbed of the only knowledge which could give any meaning to life—-whose existence and outlook are as empty as that of a dog. These who have nothing solid or spiritual or eternal to live for must find some flag to follow. They must embrace some cause or movement to give some meaning to their empty existence, and the devil will provide them with causes enough, from communism to environmentalism, all of them profane and godless, all of them laboring for this life and this earth, all forgetting God and heaven and eternity, all mindless of the coming day of judgement. But what have the children of God to do with such things? Even if we could grant the legitimacy of the whole environmental scheme, yet we must say to the child of God, “Let the dead bury the dead, but go thou and preach the gospel.”

Glenn Conjursk