Farmers ponder relationship between environment, human population, and religious belief

By JULIET BRISKIN | Central Texas Edition

Dr. Larry Lehr, professor of Environmental Studies at Baylor addresses participants at a Waco Farm & Ranch Club meeting about the connections between religion and environmental stewardship. -Staff photo by Briskin

April 25, 2002 -- The Waco Farm and Ranch Club and the McLennan County Soil and Water Conservation District Board hosted a meeting on Friday, April 19 in Waco. The meeting featured a talk on environmental stewardship and the religious responsibilities of humans by Dr. Larry Lehr, a professor in the department of Environmental Studies at Baylor.

Ministers from across the county were invited to attended the meeting to learn more about environmental stewardship and pass the information along to their congregations.

"There are two important issues that we need to think about," stated Lehr. "The first is that the historic decline of at least seven great civilizations can be directly attributed to the human-caused decline in the fertility of the soil. The second is that most people on the planet have some sort of religious belief. I think we can couple these two things together."

Lehr stated that no matter which religious philosophy one subscribes to "we all need food, air, water and shelter." He then asked the group "what if any are our religious responsibilities to promote and ensure responsible use of natural resources?"

Another question Lehr asked the group of ministers was "do we as humans have the right to modify the plant in such a way as to allow unlimited growth for us to the point that other organisms cannot survive?"

According to Lehr there is over 6.5 billion people living on the planet. "All of these people have to be fed, watered and maintained under some sort of standard and quality of life," he said. "There are problems of fair and just allocation and distribution of resources. This issue of environmental justice has been the topic of discussion at all the major environmental conferences worldwide."

With the population of this planet soaring, humans must produce more food in the first 10 years of this century than was produced in the entire previous century, explained Lehr. "It is going to be difficult to achieve this with the competition for natural resources at an all time high," he said. "No matter how much technology we've got in the form of tractors and combines, we can't keep farming if we don't have the fuel to run the machines."

Soil erosion is another issue that needs to be addressed according to Lehr. "It is my understanding that over the last 250 years we have lost over 20 percent of our topsoil," stated Lehr. "The question that I have to ask is how can we produce the food we need when we are loosing so much topsoil?"

According to Lehr, there are a number of theologians who have observed the responsibilities of humans in regards to the stewardship of the environment. "The Garden of Eden is one of the most familiar of all biblical landscapes and it offers the wisdom to reshape our values towards nature," he said. "No other story in our religious heritage so clearly shows that we are linked to our landscapes. Our work needs to be in the service of nature."

Lehr went on to explain that by being called to have dominion over the earth we are not given the right to exploit it. Instead we must exercise care and responsibility for the land. "We must also address social injustice and poverty and seek to expose the intrinsic link between the oppression of people and the oppression of all creation," said Lehr. "These are not new ideas. They have been expressed by theologians and agrarians alike."

In conclusion Lehr stated that if the ecological machines that supply food for the 6.5 billion people on this planet break down we may not be able to restart them. "Environmental stewardship is a choice that we have to make that will require willpower to reshape our values in the context of our religious convictions; no matter what those convictions are."