post 1 of 2-i hesitate to even share this...

This a letter one of the students at OC sent to the editor of the schools newspaper...

Letter to the Editor
By Special to Opinions

By: Drew Sandlin

I recently received an email asking me to fill out a survey evaluating the campus recycling program. I generally discard emails of this nature, and as I was doing so a thought occurred to me: “Why are we so concerned about recycling or how green our campus is?”

Over the past few weeks, there’s been some hubbub over how environmentally friendly our campus is, and how much energy each student here uses. To be quite honest, I find it a bit disturbing.

I don’t know if we’ve thought about consulting God’s word on this subject, but it has some interesting things to say about our relationship with the earth. Since God created it, it’s only fair to see what he planned for us to do with it.

In Genesis chapter 1:26, God clearly puts man in charge of the earth: “…and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth.”

If God gave us rule over the earth, there is absolutely no need to “save” anything.

I find this whole “Green” movement dangerously secular in nature. Romans 1:25 reads: “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator.”

I wonder how many students at Oklahoma Christian University feel a greater obligation to the doctrine of “recycling” or “save the earth” than they do to the doctrine of baptism? I hope that they are few and far between.

The fact of the matter is this, and this simply: this earth is just a temporary house that we humans will live in for a little while until God burns it all up. There is no point in trying to save it.

I realize that all of this is terribly politically incorrect. To be fair, recycling, if it is cost effective and done to keep our campus clean or to make a few dollars here and there for a good cause, is not a bad thing.

I’m not trying to say that it’s okay to litter, and that picking up trash on the ground is a sin. It becomes a bad thing when we let it eclipse the real work that God has put us here to do.

We need to stop trying to “save the planet” and start worshipping the God that created it. Can you imagine how much more effective we as Christians could be if we stopped wasting our time trying to be “green” and started doing some real work for God?

Why not take the resources that are being used to see how “green” our campus is through surveys and polls and allocate them for the Wishing Well program? I can think of many other ways to use our time and resources in a better fashion.

I hope that we haven’t forgotten what our real purpose here on earth is. It’s not making sure that there isn’t a pop can lying on the ground around the corner. And it’s most certainly not the saving of trees; it’s the saving of souls.

We need to get out there and do some purposeful work in this life; something that we can be proud of when we stand before God on Judgment Day.

God cares more about the lost than he does about the 2% rise in carbon emissions last year.
Let us never forget that. I hope that we will never, ever be found guilty of exchanging the truth of God for a lie.