#6: A Line in the Soil:Environmentalism vs. Conservation

Why Christians Shouldn't Colonize Mars

A Marxist Foil

Environmentalism, as it’s often packaged today, carries a whiff of Marxist DNA. Christians should smell it a mile off. It’s not really about the planet. It’s about raw, naked power. Marxism thrives on crisis. Class struggle morphs into climate struggle, with mankind cast as the oppressor and nature as the exploited proletariat. The solution? Central control. Guilt-driven by carrot and stick collectivism which never moves an inch toward our fabled utopian rest. Think Green New Deal or eco-socialism. Both are less about saving trees and more about toppling old systems, redistributing wealth, and erasing individual stewardship under one secular hive, where the Queen bee (Read ‘goverment’) pumps out drones to her feeding. Karl Marx’s fingerprints smudge our lens, as creation itself is prostituted out for revolutionary power.

Scripture recoils at this. Genesis 1:28 doesn’t apologize for mankind’s existince. It commends it: “fill the earth and subdue it.” Biblical stewardship is not exploitative; it flourishes under God’s blessing. Environmentalism flips this, shaming mankind for his very presence, a stain to be removed by self extinction. Job 41:11 “…whatsoever is under the whole heaven is mine” rejects pantheistic Earth-worship. Creation always points to the Creator, not itself (Psalm 19:1). When environmentalists spoil priceless paintings, glue themselves to roadways, or push depopulation (the opposite of Musk’s birth-rate panic), they ironically mirror Babel’s pride (if not its purpose), stacking brick upon brick, to unseat God’s order. Musk and environmentalism are two sides of the same coin. Christians should reject both foils, not because the Earth doesn’t matter, but because its gospel is false.

Conservation as God’s Mandate

I am a conservationist. There, I said it. I love this planet. I have stood in awe for hours, just studying, marveling at our Savior’s creative Genius. At times it’s so beautiful, my eyes mist. I Often think in those moments, “how could something so beautiful be fallen at all?” But it is. A new, or renewed earth (depending on your hermeneutic), is what God has promised. In the meantime, conservation is the Christian’s true north for planet Earth. Genesis 2:15 hands Adam the fork and the shovel: “dress it and keep it.” As we have noted, ‘Abad (serve) and shamar (guard) are both verbs. They’re active, humble, rooted in God’s design for our flourishing. Conservation does not seek to save Earth for its own sake. We steward it for Christ’s sake, who made heaven and earth. Joseph didn’t waste Egypt’s grain, he stored it (Genesis 41). The Proverbs 31 woman doesn’t squander her household, she builds it. Conservation tills the garden we’re given, not plant an idol we dream up.

Environmentalists treat this planet like a victim to appease, conservationists, a trust to cultivate. Environmentalism is clenched fisted. Conservation is open handed, planting, pruning, preserving. Leviticus 25:2-5 ties this to rest, the land gets its Sabbath too, not because it’s sacrosanct, but because God’s. And He rested on it. Surely in part, to enjoy what He had made. Conservation rejects waste (think overfishing, plastic filled oceans, slashed forests) but also rejects despair. Earth’s doom isn’t in our our timeline. Restoration is. So conservation is practical: clean rivers, fertile fields, air we can breathe, not for Gaia’s applause, but for the King’s ‘well done.’ For that, there is a lot of work to do.

Musk, Mars, and the Point

Elon’s Mars sprint dodges all this. Why not flee a weed-filled garden you won’t tend, for greener pastures in the great beyond? Some environmentalists might cheer his “save humanity” rhetoric, but it’s just Marxism in a spacesuit, rocketing past God’s green earth. Conservation grips the plow here. Christians don’t abandon Earth for a Red Planet reboot. Instead, we should roll up our sleeves and tend the garden beneath us. Marxism wants this system torn down, and environmentalism is the ecological arm of Marxism, just as the Olympics are the physed arm of the UN.

The Christian Stance

The Christian should reject environmentalism outright. We don’t believe in “Mother Earth.” We believe in Father God. We should reject environmentalism, not because Creation is disposable, but because its cure is poison. A Marxist sleight-of-hand swapping God for nature. Young and old, embrace conservation! Not so much as a trendy badge, but as a biblical charge. We’re not Earth’s saviors or its scourge. We are its stewards for the One who made it. Jesus says, “Occupy till I come” (Luke 19:13) Let's tend His soil, until He returns and makes all things new.