“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for He founded it on the seas and established it on the waters.” (Psalm 24:1-2)

“The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.” 

So read the church sign David and I passed on the Friday before Earth Day, 2023. I was saddened to see this declaration which seemed to be pointing directly to climate change ideology. It’s Earth Day, I reasoned. That church appears to validate the belief that we all must help ‘Mother Earth’ by saving our planet. What does that sign have to do with God? 

Since Earth Day was established in 1970, planet activism has become a pseudo-religion. Former CBS Evening News Anchorman Walter Cronkite first explained the remembrance in a special April 1970 news broadcast by defining it as “a day set aside for a nationwide outpouring of mankind seeking its own survival. Earth Day,” Cronkite continued, is “a day dedicated to enlisting all the citizens of a bountiful country in a common cause of saving life from the deadly by-products of that bounty.”

Climate activists will do anything to elevate their cause. Recent examples of such include protestors vandalizing priceless pieces of art to bring an audience to their message. In October 2022, two Just Stop Oil activists threw mashed potatoes on Claude Monet’s “Les Meules” painting in a German museum before super-gluing themselves to the floor. In explanation of their act, the protestors stated, “If it takes a painting – with #MashedPotatoes or #TomatoSoup thrown at it – to make society remember that the fossil fuel course is killing us all: Then we’ll give you #MashedPotatoes on a painting!”

In a similar October incident, two other protestors threw tomato soup on a Van Gough painting in a London gallery before gluing their hands to the wall. Similar incidents saw protestors glue themselves to Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” and other works by Botticelli and Picasso. 

In addition to defacing artwork, scaling buildings, blocking traffic, and vandalizing pipelines, activists are often willing to sacrifice their bodies to elevate their ideals. One such unfortunate incident was coordinated by Boulder, CO resident Wynn Bruce, who set himself on fire outside the U.S. Supreme Court building on Earth Day, 2022. Bruce later died from his sustained injuries. 

Zen Buddhist priest Kritee Kanko – a friend of Bruce’s – later acknowledged that Bruce had been planning the protest for “at least one year.” In an interview with the New York Times, Kanko told the paper that “people are being driven to extreme amounts of climate grief and despair.”

As an outdoor enthusiast, I fully appreciate the importance of doing our part to protect the environment – but not at the expense of forgetting the one who created it all. Genesis 1:1 reminds us, “In the beginning God created heaven and earth.” 

Conversely, I also believe what our Heavenly Father foretells us in the book of Revelation. Chapter 21:1 declares, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.” God created everything and is in control of all things. “For every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills.” (Psalm 50:10)

And so I disagree with the church sign I mentioned earlier in this post. The greatest threat to our planet is not in believing someone else will save it. The greatest threat to humankind is not acknowledging that Jesus Christ is the only one who can save both our planet and our eternal souls. In fact, He already did so when He died on the cross for our sins. While preserving the earth may sound like a noble cause, as Christians, we should be more concerned about where our fellow earthly citizens will spend eternity.

Christ’s blood covered all our sins and bridged the chasm between heaven and earth. My mission in life is not to save the planet but to share God’s love with the planet’s dwellers. I was created to serve our Creator – not any other created being – including planet Earth. Just as worshipping an idol manufactured by man is senseless, so is idolizing any other entity other than the God who created it. There is no such thing as “Mother Earth.” There is only Father God, and He has a future home for us in Heaven – far beyond anything we can envision on this terrestrial globe. 

Revelation 21: 3-4 reminds us to look forward to our heavenly home where God will dwell alongside us. “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” 

Our Creator loves us so much that He gave His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on a cross so that His perfect sacrifice would cover our sins and allow us to spend eternity with Him in heaven. More important than saving the planet is saving ourselves and others from eternal separation from God. We can never be perfect enough, do enough, or perform enough acts of sacrifice to save ourselves from the penalty of sin. 

Romans 3:23 reminds us that “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” To save my soul, I had to acknowledge that I am a sinner in need of a Savior. Jesus Christ paid the penalty for my sin by dying on a cross for me. Belief in Him is the only way I can ever be accepted into heaven. As John 3:16 tells us, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” 

My Heavenly Father cares about me and loves me. The fairy-tale entity of Mother Earth is no different than Mother Goose. Her existence, like the latter’s, is only a manufactured creation. 

If climate activists are willing to super-glue themselves to walls to draw attention to their cause, how much more so should I, as a child of the one true God who has saved my soul for all eternity, be willing to use my whole life to promote the gospel? “I desire to do your will, my God; your law is within my heart.” (Psalm 40:8) 

May I always be willing to pay any price and sacrifice anything I have for Christ. After all, I was created to worship and serve my Creator – all the days of my earthly life and beyond.