Creation: God and endangered species

Abstract

When United States Congress lamented loss of species, they declared species have esthetic, ecological, educational, historical, recreational, and scientific value to Nation and its people (Endangered Species Act of1973, sec. 2a). Religious value is missing from this list. Perhaps Congress would have overstepped its authority to declare species carry religious value. But for many Americans this is most important value. Christians or Jews will add these species are also of religious value, and not only to Americans but to God. Defending freedom of religion, guaranteed in Constitution, Con­ gress might well have insisted species of plants and animals on our landscape ought to be conserved because such life is of religious value to Nation and its people. Though God's name does not appear in Endangered Species Act itself, it does occur in connection with Act. protection Congress authorized for species is quite strong in principle. Interpreting Act, U.S. Supreme Court insisted that Congress intended endangered species to be afforded highest of priorities (1VA vs. Hil~ 174). Since economic values are not among listed criteria either but must sometimes be considered, Congress, in 1978 amendments, authorized a high-level, interagency committee to eval­ uate difficult cases. This committee may permit human development at tbe cost of extinction of species. In le~lation, this committee is given rather nondescript name The Endangered Species Committee, but almost at once it was nicknamed the God Committee. name mixes jest with theological insight and reveals religious value is implicitly lurking in Act. Any who decide to destroy species take, fearfully, prerogative of God. In practical conservation of biodiversity in landscapes, concerned with habitat, breeding populations, DDT in food chains, or water flows to maintain fish species, it might first seem God is ultimate irrelevancy. In fact, when