Anything Else

Reprinted with permission from As I See It, which is available free by writing to the editor at dkutilek@juno.com

From time to time, I run across a statement in modern environmentalist literature of the frothy-mouthed extremist sort that summarily accuses conservative Christians of justifying the plundering of the environment—the natural world—by the mandate of Genesis 1:28.

God blessed them and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.” (HCSB, italics added)

The gist of their accusation is this:

See, you Bible-thumpers think you have Divine approval to over-populate the earth, pollute the air and water, destroy the lakes, rivers, fields, forests, and soil, and drive species after species into extinction!!!

Frankly, I have never—not once—read or heard anything by any Christian writer or speaker that suggested in even the smallest way that this verse authorized mankind to exploit and plunder the planet and its natural resources, animal, vegetable and mineral, to gratify his own whims and feed his own cravings, without a thought or care for the consequences to the ecosystems of earth or the effects on subsequent generations. To impute such a view and interpretation to conservative Christians is pure caricature, the strawiest of straw men. In fact, the environmental emphasis of the Bible is one very much to the contrary, one of wise use and long-perspective stewardship, the very thing environmental activists claim to be in favor of (though I suspect that there is another agenda afoot among modern “greens” under this facade).

Introduction

On June 16, 2012, a seemingly innocuous comment made by a Christian businessman in support of traditional marriage during an interview on a radio program sparked a national debate on homosexuality. Media outlets covered the issue at length and a fast food chicken company was thrust into the limelight as the poster-child for “intolerance.” Pundits, politicians and celebrities disapproved of the businessman, Dan Cathy’s, stance on homosexual marriage. These were Cathy’s statements:

We are very much supportive of the family—the biblical definition of the family. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that. We want to do anything we possibly can to strengthen families. We are very much committed to that…. I think we are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say ‘we know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage’ and I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about.¹

This essay will examine the worldview of those who call Cathy’s statement “intolerant;” this worldview will broadly be labeled “Secular America.” There will not be sufficient space to examine Secular America’s entire worldview, so we will study only the rational basis for morality within Secular America. In a larger context we will see the intellectual bankruptcy of the secular worldview and, hopefully, demonstrate the absolute sufficiency of the Christian worldview as the only coherent way to make sense of this fallen world which we, by God’s grace alone, inhabit.