As many of you know, my wife and I are expecting our fourth child (see Kristi’s belly here). In light of this, I have, understandably I think, been thinking some about what the Bible says about children. Some of these appeared in a post challenging us on whether or not we believe it when the Bible says that children are a blessing (read that post here).

Since that post I’ve been, perhaps, a bit more sensitive to this contrast between what the Bible says about children and our actual attitude towards them. It shouldn’t take much convincing to say that the world we live in does not value children. If you do need convincing, consider the recent proposal out of Australia to put a carbon tax on children.

For those who might not be familiar with the idea of “carbon” taxes, credits, footprints and the rest, the idea is simply that everything we do has impact on the earth. This impact is often measured in what are known as “carbon footprints,” which Wikipedia defines as the:

measure of the impact human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of green house gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide.

To help offset these “footprints,” an elaborate system of emissions trading has been developed in which you can buy “carbon credits.” The idea is that certain people are allocated certain levels of allotted levels of pollution. If you have “left-over” pollution rights, you can trade and/or sell them to who need more. That’s a gross over-simplification, but let’s be honest, pollution is really what we’re talking about.

A new proposal in the Medical Journal of Australia is now proposing imposing a carbon tax on every child born in the country. Currently, Australia is battling a decreasing birth-rate by offering a bonus of nearly $5,000 to have children. Yet, many are arguing that this policy is actually harmful to the environment and instead of a financial bonus, these people want to tax families for the impact to the environment the children will undoubtedly have. The report, penned by Barry Walters, “an associate professor of obstetric medicine at the University of Western Australia” says that:

every family choosing to have more than a defined number of children should be charged a carbon tax. He goes on to argue that those purchasing condoms or undergoing sterilisation procedures should be awarded carbon credits.

In other words, when we cut to the core of what’s really being said here by this and other Australian doctors, we find that the environment is more important than children. This shouldn’t surprise us, the very notion of abortion is that children are less important than any number of sundry issues: finances, comfort, image, convenience. These Australians have simply added another item to the list of what is more important to us than children and in their case, it happens to be “the environment.”

As Christians, we must be prepared as such thinking becomes more vocal and more accepted. We must be ready with a caring, compassionate but bold and thoughtful response. And yet what might we say to such things, after all, the environment is surely important, is it not? Yes, it is, and regardless of your position on “global warming,” Christians should be at the forefront of environmental efforts.

• The Environment Was Made For Man

We should care for the environment because the environment was made for us. This is the clear message of the Creation Accounts in Genesis 1 and 2. God lovingly and carefully created the Garden as a home for the first man and woman and then charged Adam with the task of “tending” to the Garden, that is, taking care of it. The Environment was made for man, to be our habitation. We, in our first parents, were given the charge to rule over this creation as God’s stewards, to care for it, to protect it. Yes, we have often failed miserably, but that does not provide the justification to somehow now pretend that the environment itself is more important than us.

• The Environment Reminds us of God

There is also another aspect that should drive Christians to care for the environment. Not just was it made for us, but it reminds us of God at every turn. Psalm 19:1 reminds that “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” Paul, in Romans 1 argues that because of creation itself, no one has any excuse to say that there is no God. God continues to care for us, sending rain on the “just and the unjust” (Matthew 5:45) and its beauty and complexity remind us of God at every turn.

• We Cannot Reverse Our Priorities

While the creation was made for us and reminds us of God, though we have been charged with the care and protection of it, we cannot elevate it to a place it does not deserve in God’s scheme. This is exactly what these Australian doctors are doing, lowering the value of children while elevating that of the environment. They are guilty of, what Paul describes as exchanging the “creation for the Creator” (Romans 1:25).

We Christians must be more vocal and forceful about joining in the pursuit of protecting the environment, precisely because it is God’s gift to us and it reminds us of Him. We ought to be wary of siding with political interests that forsake the environment, we should actively seek opportunities to take care of the earth, but we must also remember that it is ours because God gave it to us.

God established an order into the very creation itself and what we find in so many environmental proposals like this one is an effort to overthrow the very order of creation, as though the environment were more important than those it was made for. May be be more thoughtful, more active and more bold as these priorities are continually skewed by those who would worship the creation rather than the Creator.

• Read about the Australian proposal
• Read Consider the Lillies: A Plea For Creational Theology by T.M. Moore
• Read Crunchy Cons by Rod Dreher

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