#7: Stewardship

Why Christians Shouldn't Colonize Mars

In Eden, God gave Adam one job: “dress it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15). No army, no conquest, just “Tend to it. Keep it beautiful.” The Hebrew is gentle—‘abad, to serve; shamar, to guard. Serve it, guard it, from sea to sea. There was no mandate to subdue a resisting world. There was none. That, of course came later, after the Fall, with thorns, thistles, Brussels sprouts, where sweat began to crease the face of man (Genesis 3:17-19). Tending was God’s first design for us. A worshipful task to nurture, as trustees, what God loaned to mankind. When your grandfather cuts the grass, or when your mother tends her garden, they both reflect the “creation mandate” better than the intergalactic spacemen of the silver screen and SpaceX. Fast-forward to today: Elon Musk wants us on Mars. Uuncrewed ships by 2026, people soon after. It’s bold, no question. But it’s not exactly tending, which is the Christian’s task. It’s dominion taken ‘off-world,’ a restless leap away from the garden we’re meant to keep.

A Man Who Sows, But Doesn’t Tend

Musk’s life will be one of the great biographies of history. It’s hard not to agree that we’re watching, in real time, an addition to the list of the most transformative men in history. Moses, Plato, Paul, Augustine, Muhammad, Columbus, Gutenberg, Newton, Marx, Einstein. Course changers, History shapers.¹ For good or ill. And each one has a back story that molded them. Stories that are every bit as fascinating as the transformation they brought. Musk’s story is bigger than rockets.

He’s fathered at least 13 children—five with Justine Wilson, three with Grimes, three with Shivon Zilis, one with Ashley St. Clair in September 2024, and rumors of another brewing.² His father, Errol, sired kids across broken lines. A messy legacy of scattering that we won’t unpack. Interestingly, Errol is now making appearances on South African blogs and independent media sites on X. They can’t go after his amazing mother (a true gem it seems), so perhaps the machine is attempting to soil Musk’s by spotlighting his father? I don’t know. Musk, to his credit, has escaped the orbit of his dad, by and large. They have nothing to do with each other. But Musk’s life is still fingerprinted by his dad’s DNA,—divorces, custody fights, a daughter who calls him absent, a mother pleading online for their son’s care. It’s messy for a whole host of reasons, again, that we won’t get into. The point is he builds vast and astounding empires; SpaceX, Tesla, et al., but his kids are raised by nannies. I take zero pleasure in relating this. This isn’t needlessly pointing fingers. It’s an observation of a pattern. Musk sows widely, tends thinly. Mars fits the paternal male mold. “Earth you’re out. Mars, my love!” A new field to seed, not a home to tend. If stewardship begins with what’s closest—family, soil, soul—then running to the Red Planet looks like leaving the plow behind.

Earth’s Still Untended

Look at Earth. Land covers 29% of it.³ The Sahara stretches 3.6 million square miles, Antarctica 5.4 million, the Outback a million more.⁴ Oceans blanket 71%, yet we’ve mapped less than 20% of their floors.⁵ These aren’t barren like Mars; they’re already habitable, bubbling over with untapped potential. The Sahara gets enough sunlight to power the world twice over with solar farms.⁶ Oceans could host towns and cities (think submerged habitats in the Gulf’s warm shallows). Musk’s tech-billions could coax life from these places, working with Earth’s ecology—water, sun, wind. Instead, he aspires to inseminate (terraform) a planet with no breathable air (0.6% oxygen vs. Earth’s 21%), no liquid water, and soil too toxic for crops.⁷ Mars demands we import life; Earth begs us to tend to life that’s already here. Which sounds more Genesis 2:15?

Escaping the Hard Work of Home Tending

Why Mars? Musk talks population collapse, Earth’s fragility—fair worries. He’s said birth rates are “the biggest danger civilization faces,” which explains his careless actions a bit.⁸ We don’t need more children strewn wide. We need sons and daughters raised in stable homes, by parents who tend with care, forging citizens foundational to society’s soul. Maybe he hears a clock we don’t, ticking toward extinction? Well, we look to the scriptures that tell us neither heaven nor earth will pass until all is fulfilled (Matt. 5:18). Stewardship doesn’t flee the thorns. It grips the plow and breaks the soil. Noah didn’t flee the flood—he tended the ark (Genesis 6-9). The servant with one talent didn’t seek new anything, and he was judged for burying what he had been given (Matthew 25:14-30). Musk’s restlessness recalls Cain, wandering east of Eden (Genesis 4:12), not Adam tending it. His childhood under Errol’s chaos birthed a need to outrun disorder, to build where others break. Mars is his Babel. A tower to the stars, fueled by rocket-grade kerosene and liquid oxygen. But tending means staying, weeding, repairing, waiting—like the farmer trusting God for rain (James 5:7).⁹

Tending as Worship, Staying as Faith

“The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof” (Psalm 24:1). For the Christian, tending is a kind of worship. Caring for our neighbor, planting a tree, cleaning a stream, raising a godly child, these are stewardships with real-Earth impact. Musk’s Mars dream—“extending human consciousness”—sounds visionary. It also sounds a lot like abandonment. It it sidesteps God’s gift. Psalm 115:16 draws the line: “The heavens, even the heavens are the Lord’s; the earth he hath given to the children of men.” Exploration can praise Him—probe Mars, mine comets, reach the great unknowns of the universe. But leave man where God created him. Christians need to be on their toes moving forward. Musk is trying to rewrite the script on us. The believer’s hope isn’t a new planet. It’s a renewed one (Revelation 21:1). We need to get busy. Christians should tend this garden until He comes, not chase a Martian dream. Christian, don’t abandon what you’re called to keep.

Earth’s climes: deserts, mountains, forests and seas whisper possibility. Mars screams “I’m leaving.” I think Christian stewardship chooses the whisper. We can’t leave a garden half-tended for a rock that can’t grow.

Footnotes

1. We will never include Jesus Christ in this list. He is the blessed God over all, the Second person of the Blessed Trinity. He is matchless, peerless, unequaled. Above history, in history, and through all history.

2. Musk’s 13 children documented: five with Justine Wilson (People, Feb 11, 2025); three with Grimes (Vanity Fair, Feb 20, 2025); three with Shivon Zilis (NY Post, Feb 15, 2025); one with Ashley St. Clair (NY Post, Feb 14, 2025); rumored 14th (Hindustan Times, Feb 15, 2025). Numbers may shift with new reports.

3. Earth’s surface: 29% land, 71% water (NASA Earth Observatory, 2023).

4. Desert sizes: Sahara 3.6M sq mi, Antarctica 5.4M sq mi, Outback ~1M sq mi (National Geographic, 2022).

5. Ocean mapping: Less than 20% of seafloor mapped (NOAA, 2023).

6. Sahara solar potential: ~3,600 kWh/m² annually, could exceed global energy use (~23,000 TWh/year) twofold (International Renewable Energy Agency, 2022).

7. Mars conditions: 95.3% CO₂, 0.6% O₂ atmosphere; no liquid water; soil with toxic perchlorates (NASA Mars Fact Sheet, 2024; Nature, 2017).

8. Musk quote: “A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far” (Twitter/X, June 21, 2022, cited in Bloomberg, June 21, 2024).

9. I hope to write on the difference between Christian stewardship and Environmentalism next.