Dual Citizenship
John Fischer

Save the Whales! Collect the whole set!

Okay, I’ll admit, I was pulled in by the joke, but it did start me thinking about the environment and what a purpose-driven Christian should do about it.

Christians do not have much of a reputation for caring about the environment. Traditional doctrines of dispensationalism and pre-millennialism have led us to be pessimistic about society and the world we live in. Since God’s going to destroy this world anyway and build a new one (and get us out of here first), why care about it? This has created a detachment to culture and the environment that has made faith appear irrelevant and aloof. What do we care what happens to this place? It’s not our home anyway.

But this kind of thinking reflects negatively on our neighbors and on us as good citizens, and ultimately limits our opportunities to share Christ with those who don’t know Him. Jesus told his disciples to render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God, what is God’s (Matthew 22:17-21). Well, in a democracy as we have in America, part of our responsibility to “Caesar” includes being knowledgeable about our society and the world we live in. In a democracy, citizens have more of a voice than they did under Caesar, and I’m sure in this context that Jesus would mean in “rendering unto Caesar” more than just paying our taxes.

We had an election in California yesterday. Only 42% were expected to turn out. If those 42% didn’t include 100% of all believers (and I’m sure it didn’t), then we are not fulfilling our responsibility to “Caesar.”

As Christians in a democracy, we need to see ourselves as responsible for bettering the lives of those around us. God’s salvation plan for us involves caring about the world we live in. He doesn’t save us to take us out of the world, but to send us into it (John 17:15-18). The world should be a better place because of Christians who take up residence in it. The message of salvation is not just for us.

Remember? It’s not about us. We got saved for someone else. That “someone else” includes our neighbors, co-workers, communities and yes, even the whales. The environment is a part of the splendid creation of God that He left us in charge of. Some of our non-Christian

friends care about this mandate more than we do. We need to change that. We are citizens of this world as much as we are citizens of the next. We need to live as good citizens of both.

PDL