Stewardship and war's collateral damage.

Petek Philippe Genene watches have a magazine ad that pictures a father embracing his young son. Below the picture are these words: "You never actually own a Patek Philippe, you merely look after it for the next generation." That is what is meant by stewardship. It is managing something not our own. It is taking responsibility to care for people, things, and the nonhuman world as if they belonged to us.

In Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night, Malvolio is the steward of Olivia. That means he managed her affairs and properties on her behalf. They did not belong to him, but he was to care for them as if they did. Makers of Petek Philippe watches understand that stewardship concept and use it well to sell their watches.

We who occupy this universe right now are its stewards. We must, on God's behalf, care for the people, natural resources, mental and physical health, social programs, and conservation, not only because of the resource inheritance of future generations but also because all of this does not belong to us in the first place. Like past generations, we use it for a while and then depart, handing it over to the next generation.

Christian, Muslim, and Hebrew Scriptures speak of our role as stewards of God's, Allah's, and Yahweh's creation. In the Koran it is mentioned in Khalifah 33:72. In the Bible there are twenty-six direct references to stewards. In the Old Testament, the steward is the servant of a royal personage, a foreman who must make decisions, manage, give directions, and assume responsibility for others. The steward is not irreplaceable, nor the final authority. He is responsible for his position to the owner of the people, properties, and resources he has been charged to manage.

For Christians, in the New Testament, the steward is also pictured as a servant-manager of things and persons not belonging to him. In Luke 12:48b we learn that this super authority is also a greater responsibility. Douglas John Hall calls stewardship the summing up of the Christian life. (1) And even though it is a Christian idea in North America, those outside the Christian tradition, like secular humanists and many scientists, champion the concept.

John Muir, the great conservationist and father of America's national parks, claims that there is an even "deeper stewardship." He wrote in his personal journal that we are faithful stewards of creation simply because it belongs to God. (2)

When we go to war, there are tremendous stewardship implications for people of any faith. We rarely hear this mentioned today as the "war on terrorism" proceeds. Consider the stewardship of our natural resources, human lives, and social programs and the cost to future generations.

Perhaps the most obvious stewardship collateral damage is in the waste and consumption of our natural resources in order to fight a war. Ponder what it takes just to transport the hardware, munitions, and people. Then there are the resources used up to shoot, torpedo, mine, and bomb. Consider all the natural resources and plants and animals polluted and destroyed--like those we saw pictured in the Gulf war. Then there are the materials needed to rebuild. In the United States we may be tempted to sacrifice all our stewardship of the environment and conservation efforts in the name of patriotism and the war effort--something some have wanted all along and are now using this (so far) popular war to accomplish.

The financial cost needs to be looked at as well. In a hungry, starving world, is it the best stewardship to put our money on getting revenge on a whole country for what a few did on September 11? Then there will be the cost of rebuilding what we are now destroying. It is expensive to fight a war. We mortgage our grandchildren in doing so. The stewardship issue here is whether this is the best use of our tax dollars. Or is it shifting to a new set of priorities that abandons paying down the national debt and making the retirement of future citizens secure? There are billions paid to corrupt governments to be on "our" Side. "Enduring freedom" soon becomes enduring debt and wasteful spending.

The financial cost of additional security in the U.S. because of the hate we are generating overseas will be enormous and enduring as well.

The Greek word in the New Testament for stewardship is oikonomos, from which we get our English word economics. It is a word for the one who plans and administers a household. I submit that household economics are terribly wasteful in any war, but especially this one.

Consider the human cost. There is the most obvious, which are those who are killed whatever their nationality, race, or religion. There are the millions displaced, with family life, vocation, and education disrupted. There are the many children without a parent for a period of time or for the rest of their lives. And there are those who learn a life of crime and corruption in refugee camps, and millions whose mental and physical health is damaged for the next fifty years! There are those who will develop addictions and behavioral habits of using violence to settle frustration or get revenge. The stewardship of collateral damage in human lives is enormous. The deployment of human woman- and manpower is wasteful in the light of all the other things that could be accomplished.

Whenever a nation or nations go to war, they mortgage the lives of future generations. They will have to deal with the reservoir of hate, racism, and religious bigotry fostered by the always-present propaganda. The widening gap between East and West, Muslim and Christian, will linger with us for years. Of course, there is the financial cost and debt, which will have to be paid by those who come after us. The collateral damage continues on and on for many years. Can we as stewards justify this disregard for the future of the global family?

Our progress as a free nation with a social responsibility (stewardship) for all citizens and noncitizens is also jeopardized. As stewards of all God's/Allah's/Yahweh's family, we have already seen the concept of human rights eroded in the name of security. And we have downplayed the human rights of other countries such as China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the Northern Alliance in order to coax them to join us in this global coalition against terrorism. Social programs are often sacrificed in order to expend that energy on war instead. Research, education, talents, and even our precious time can be wasted in the poor stewardship of collateral damage.

It is a grand concept the religious and nonreligious can embrace. We are stewards of this world. It is our responsibility to care for creation and all the created. It isn't ours in the first place. It is like Shakespeare's Malvolio, who is responsible for Olivia, or the owner of a Petek Philippe Genene watch, who cares for it for the next generation. The stewardship implications are huge when we calculate in war's collateral damage for years to come.

(1.) 'Douglas John Hall's The Steward: A Bibical Symbol Come of Age (Grand Rapids: Win. B. Eerdmans, 1990) is a foundational work on the theology of stewardship.

(2.) Muir's handwritten journals may be seen at his home, now a historic site, in Martinaes, California, and at the Muir archives located in the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California.