The ongoing search for life on other worlds and the prospects of eventual human exploration of the Moon and Mars indicate the need for new ethical guidelines to direct our actions as we search and how we respond if we discover microbial life on other worlds. Here we review how life on other worlds presents a novel question in environmental ethics. We propose a principle of protecting and expanding the richness and diversity of life as the basis of an ethic for astrobiology research and space exploration. There are immediate implications for the operational policies governing how we conduct the search for life on Mars and how we plan for human exploration throughout the Solar System. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.
This essay argues that God calls twenty-first-century Christians to provide prophetic leadership on the environment. Christians should see this prophetic leadership as part of faithful discipleship, helping to fulfill our human role as stewards of God's good creation. This is, fundamentally, a spiritual crisis. The first step which the Church must take for prophetic leadership is to confess and lament our past and present failures to be good stewards of creation. Accepting God's forgiveness, the Church must “re-calibrate” its understanding of the Trinity, re-focusing on the creative work of the first person of the Trinity and our corresponding work as stewards of creation. American Christians must also be good stewards of our American citizenship by working for laws and regulations that promote a sustainable society. Finally, the Church must cast a vision of the good and happy life that is an alternative to the prevailing, secular vision that promises happiness through the consumption of more and more goods and services. Christianity has an alternative vision of the good life, informed by spiritual growth and renewal, discipleship, community, and love.
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