A Response to Scott Sabin’s ‘Whole Earth Evangelism’

Scott Sabin rightly mentioned the heartbreaking situation of Haiti. In video images of the recent tragic earthquake, we saw a striking contrast between the denuded wilderness of the west side of the island and the green of the Dominican Republic on the east side of the same island. Why such a disparity? Acute poverty! The poor have to cut trees for fuel to cook with, or, worse, they use cow dung. And so poverty is perpetuated and the environment is destroyed.

Psychologist Abraham Maslow developed the theory of the pyramid of needs. Maslow explained that man has to fulfil his physiological needs (eating, drinking, sleeping) before he can turn his attention to other values—such as caring for the environment. If Haitian people—and others who live in widespread poverty—are to take care of the environment, they must first increase their wealth, because it is the wealthy who reach a state of development that allows them to pay attention to environment. This is what has happened in developed countries.

The rule of law combined with technological and economical progress is necessary to improve the environment. But some tell us that progress must be stopped in order to protect the environment. This reasoning lies at the heart of the Green movement: there are not enough resources in the world, and ’we can’t go on like this.’

The public at large is convinced that the world today is highly polluted. But this environmentalist mantra is simply not true: it does not stand up to straightforward analysis.

The simplest indicator to measure material life quality is life expectancy. Since the industrial revolution, life expectancy has constantly increased. This would simply not be the case if the world were as polluted as some say. Take water as an example, a problem Sabin also raises. We are persistently told that water is either increasingly scarce or is highly polluted. But from the time when God created the world to now, not one single molecule of water has disappeared. And thanks to technology, we have vastly improved the quality of water. Typhus, plague, and others endemic illnesses have disappeared.

If some parts of our world (mainly the developing world) are directly suffering as a result of environmental degradation, the solution is to increase their prosperity. Ultimately this is nothing more than the creation mandate of God to multiply and prosper. If other parts of our world (mainly the wealthy countries) see nothing but gloom and doom, we must direct them to the hope that comes from Jesus Christ, to the God who is Jehovah Jireh, the God of Providence. Because although it might have escaped some Christians’ notice, the ongoing debate is not just one of protecting the environment but also one of religion. For underlying some environmentalists’ agenda is a pagan philosophy that is ready to sacrifice man to defend its love of nature and of Gaia their idol.