Old-Fashioned Creation Care | Christianity Today

Old-Fashioned Creation Care | Christianity Today:

"I am becoming my grandfather, and that is a good thing. Let me explain.

The more I have gotten involved in the evangelical creation-care movement, the more I have found myself drawn toward practices that my grandparents did—or would have done if they were available. Each time I 'reduce-reuse-recycle,' I become more like Grandpa Gushee from Milton, Massachusetts.

I am becoming convinced that creation care and what we evangelicals usually call 'stewardship' are basically the same thing. This discovery is slowly changing my family's lifestyle. The more that lifestyle changes, the more I skip back about 60 years to the values of an earlier generation.

These are values such as hard work, modesty in consumption, consistent giving, frugality in spending, saving for the future, and squeezing every last drop of value out of our possessions. You work hard and earn an honest living, spend your money judiciously after setting aside a generous portion for giving and saving, buy only what you need, and make it last as long as you can."

David P. Gushee makes some good points here. As parents who are constantly trying to explain the difference between "need" and "want", we can relate to Gushee's experiences. And we can relate to our parents, who tried to instill in us the same values, which may have taken years beyond age 21 to sink in, but they are sinking in. Slowly.