I’m all for stewardship of the good Earth and valuing all forms of life and all that other do-gooder planetary stuff. It’s the misguided attitude that all forms of life are equally precious that I’m not for. The attitude doesn’t hold up in practice and leads to dire outcomes.
The very people who say we must protect arctic seals at every cost have no problem bludgeoning roaches to death with the bottom of their shoe; or if they’re squeamish, at least paying for professional pest control measures to terminate the little creatures. Butterflies and panda bears: Good. Roaches and spiders: Bad.
Sad to the core is that many of these same selective animal rights advocates don’t see the hypocrisy in their view on the sanctity of life within a mother’s womb. An unborn child? “Why, mind your business! It’s a mother’s right to choose!” A special microbe that lives only in the Gabunga Forest? (Don’t look it up; I made up the place.) “How dare you threaten that oh-so-special microbial resident of dear Mother Earth!” I guess this hypocrisy is what one should expect when God is ignored or outright dismissed.
Through it all, these same people miss the most important principle: All life is not equally precious in God’s eyes. Some lives, namely, those which God created in His own image, are more precious to Him than others (Mt 6:26). God’s Spirit dwells in His children, not in microbes or pandas or trees. (“Great gasp!”) Well, let them gasp. And if it also causes them to squirm in the seat of their misplaced humility, they can take it up with God. For we are special, not because any of us said so, but because God said so and chose to make us so. And that reflects His glory, not ours.
It is also for His glory that He gave us the great privilege of caring for this planet (Gen 1:26-28). Which means, foremost, valuing each other over any other created thing. We are here to be God-led, not man-led. And if those who have missed that fact to date would ever take the time to see what He says on this whole matter, they would no doubt encounter a dandy little principle woven throughout His Holy Word: Worshipping God through stewardship of all that is living and precious: Good. Worshipping Earth while devaluing the most precious thing on it: Bad. Very bad.
I hope this encourages you to thank God for the sanctity of human life today.
-Kevin Murray
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