religious stewardship

Happy New Year from Ecclesiastes

To all who are celebrating Rosh Hashanah, a big Happy New Year from Legal Planet. And what would a Jewish holiday on a legal website be without a text?  In this case, the text is Kohelet Rabbah, the 8th Century CE rabbinic commentary on the Book of Ecclesiastes.  The rabbis read Ecclesiastes’ line (7:13), “See …

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An Unlikely Environmentalist: Samson Raphael Hirsch

Orthodox Judaism today has presented several strong views on many issues, usually centering on hot-button social issues such as gay marriage, or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  That’s why it was a real surprise for me to read about the strong environmentalist stance of Samson Raphael Hirsch, the founder and true intellectual giant of Modern Orthodox Judaism. …

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The Real Mistake in Dominion Theology

At about this time last year I wrote a post on dominion theology, a type of Christian belief that, when it comes to the environment, takes the notion of humanity’s rule over nature very seriously and sees humanity’s rule as something close to absolute.  It comes from the passage in Genesis 1:26, which reads: And God …

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Does Christian Environmental Thought Rest on a Mistake?

Talk to Christians interested in relating their faith to environmental concerns, and at some point the phrase “Dominion Theology” will arise.  This comes from Genesis 1:26, which is conventionally translated as And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …

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Christianity and Environmental Stewardship

The title of this post refers to a subject that I lack standing to discuss.  But this being Christmas, I thought it might be appropriate to link to the Evangelical Environmental Network, which has this to say: The earthly result of human sin has been a perverted stewardship, a patchwork of garden and wasteland in …

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