What about stewardship?

coberst · 10-28-2007, 06:34 AM

What about stewardship?

Stewardship-- the conducting, supervising, or managing of something... the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care...

Stewardship is a word used often in the Bible and was at one time used often in England. It was used in England because the youth of the landed aristocracy was taught that they were responsible for the care of the family properties in such a way that they passed on to the next generation an inheritance equal to but more appropriately larger than that received. Each generation was not the owner but was the steward for the family estates. Any individual who squandered the inheritance was a traitor to the family.

I am inclined to think that each human generation must consider itself as the steward of the earth and therefore must make available to the succeeding generations an inheritance undiminished to that received.

In this context what does "careful and responsible management" mean? I would say that there are two things that must be begun to make the whole process feasible. The first is that the public must be convinced that it is a responsible caretaker and not an owner and secondly the public must be provided with an acceptable standard whereby it can judge how each major issue affects the accomplishment of the overall task. This is an ongoing forever responsibility for every nation but for the purpose of discussion I am going to speak about it as localized to the US.

Selfishness and greed are fundamental components of human nature. How does a nation cause its people to temper this nature when the payoff goes not to the generation presently in charge but to generations yet to come in the very distant future? Generations too far removed to be encompassed by the evolved biological impulse to care for ones kin.

How is it possible to cause a man or woman to have the same concern for a generation five times removed as that man or woman has for their own progeny?

I suspect it is not possible, but it does seem to me to be necessary to accomplish the task of stewardship.

The questions I would like to ask everyone are:

Do you agree that the acceptance of stewardship responsibility for this planet is vitally important?

Do you have a different idea whereby this stewardship might develop?

pensacola_niceman · 10-28-2007, 07:28 AM

My primary concern with this discussion is that the wine steward is knowledgable enough to recommend the proper white to go with fish.

CrazyFlamingos · 10-28-2007, 11:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by coberst

Do you agree that the acceptance of stewardship responsibility for this planet is vitally important?

Do you have a different idea whereby this stewardship might develop?

Yes I agree. You mentioning of the references to stewardship in the Bible is very apropos. It puzzles me how "Christians" can ignore their duty to care for the Earth. And I am not saying that all do. But in the U.S., it would seem that the majority do.

In answer to your second question, I have to say that I have hope.

I have hope because I hear my 13 year old nephew talking about how we cannot keep cutting down all the trees. He tells everyone who will listen that without trees we have no oxygen and without oxygen we have no animals -- including people.

I have hope because last night -- in the wee hours of the morning actually -- I saw on PBS what Germany is doing to promote the generation of solar power. They have a government initiative to reward anyone who installs solar panels, whether it be on their own roof or on a couple of acres on a pig farm or down the sides of the autobahn.

As long as people of conscious keep telling whoever will listen that stewardship is the right thing to do...

And as long as people of conscious keep doing whatever is within each one's power to practice that stewardship, I have hope.

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