8th Commandment and Environmentalists

Paul Harvey was working against the Supreme Court's "Eminent Domain" decision today, and how we should find alternative legal ways to protect private property from the government. Amazing what things have come to. Then I came across this critique of Brian McLaren's Generous Orthodoxy over at Doug Wilson's blog:




"What does the seventh commandment prohibit? It prohibits adultery. What does a prohibition of adultery presuppose? It presupposes marriage. What does the eighth commandment prohibit? It prohibits stealing. What does a prohibition of stealing presuppose? It presupposes private property....

"Caesar is capable of breaking any of the Ten Commandments. As God's laws, they are over him. If a king takes his brother's wife, a prophet can come to him and say that it is not lawful for him to have her. And if another king determines to seize Naboth's vineyard, yet another prophet can come and rebuke him. The king can't slip off the point by re-zoning Naboth's vineyard for light industrial only, or calling the whole thing "land reform," or discovering that Naboth's vineyard is home to the last three darter snails in the county.

"But that which is presupposed by God in the Ten Words given to Moses is far too restrictive for McLaren's plans, plans he is cooking up with Caesar. McLaren again: "So I ask, 'Can we imagine other understandings of ownership that acknowledge, whatever land records say, that the earth is the Lord's, and all it contains? Can we imagine an economy based on stewardship rather than exclusive ownership?"(p. 239). Huh. Look what he opposes and sets at odds. Stewardship over here is opposed to exclusive ownership over there. Exclusive ownership must not be stewardship, quoth McLaren. But what is to prevent us from taking the standard biblical and Christian position that the earth is the Lord's and all that it contains, and that He has delegated the stewardship of this land to private owners? What McLaren is doing is trying to accomplish a transfer of authority from one set of stewards (private owners) to another set of stewards (some kind of regulatory eco-fascism), and he is doing this in the name of "stewardship." This is like one man stealing another man's wife because he wants to promote "marriage."