For too long, we evangelical Christians have maintained an uneasy ecological conscience. I include myself in this indictment.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve had an inadequate view of human sin….<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve had an inadequate view of human life and culture.<\/p>\n
What is being threatened in the Gulf states isn\u2019t just seafood or tourism or beach views. What\u2019s being threatened is a culture. As social conservatives, we understand\u201d\u00a6or we ought to understand\u201d\u00a6that human communities are formed by traditions and by mores, by the bond between the generations. Culture is, as Russell Kirk said, a compact reaching back to the dead and forward to the unborn. Liberalism wants to dissolve those traditions, and make every generation create itself anew; not conservatism.<\/p>\n
Every human culture is formed in a tie with the natural environment. In my hometown, that\u2019s the father passing down his shrimping boat to his son or the community gathering for the Blessing of the Fleet at the harbor every year. In a Midwestern town, it might be the apple festival. In a New England town, it might be the traditions of whalers or oystermen. The West is defined by the frontier and the mountains. And so on.<\/p>\n
When the natural environment is used up, unsustainable for future generations, cultures die. When Gulfs are dead, when mountaintops are removed, when forests are razed with nothing left in their place, when deer populations disappear, cultures die too.<\/p>\n