Why I Am a Conservative

 I am a conservative because I believe in conserving sacred spaces. One of those places is Yellowstone National Park, a sacred place I visited this past week. While many of you were worshipping inside man-made sanctuaries, I was worshipping in the sacred temple created by God in the lower Montana and upper Wyoming region. There I watched a geyser spew near-boiling water 130 feet into the air at almost the exact minute the park geologists predicted. I drove my car close enough to a black bear eating wild yellow flowers along the side of the road so that Claire and her son could have reached out their windows to touch him (or her? I’m not sure and was warned not to try to find out!). 

I nervously watched the spectacle up close of four bison trotting past me, their large black heads oblivious to my presence. On a hill 50 yards ahead, a herd of pronghorn sheep practiced their mating dances and dominance rituals, locking horns like two young teenage boys playing a game of tug-of-war. An elk with antlers as big as a small tree munched on the ubiquitous sage brush covering a field. To top it off, we saw a glimpse of an actual battle taking place as a wolf attempted to seize a baby bison from a herd to satisfy its natural pangs of hunger. Being 300 yards from the attack obscured our vision. Nevertheless, the cloud of dust created by the circular movement of the wolf and the consequent circle of protection of the bison around its young ultimately thwarted the invasion. 

As a conservative, I desperately want to conserve these kinds of wild and protected spaces from private development and profit-seeking business interests. Before Yellowstone was established as the world’s first national park in 1872 by an act of the U.S. Congress, opportunists were already on the march to commercialize this place that many people say is the most beautiful, awesome land in the country. I can’t imagine how gaudy and desecrated this place would be if Ferdinand Hayden, a geologist whose detailed scientific report to Congress led to the decision to protect this land from commercial exploitation, had not initiated that effort. The 2.2 million acres of this national treasure would likely be a hodgepodge of luxury hotels, timber farms, overpriced gift shops, and superficial entertainment options. 

I am a conservative because the animals, the plants and trees, and the common people seeking an escape from artificial light and noise need an advocate. The power of wealthy profiteers will always have their lobbyists advocating for short-term gain. Conserving nature, protecting the animals, and keeping 200-year-old trees from being cut down is always an act of resistance of the weak against the strong. The power of a corporation’s lure of profits for a few stakeholders versus thousands of conservative voices for ordinary citizens and vulnerable species always favors the corporations. Those of us who want to conserve the natural beauty of the earth and all its creatures are perennial minorities. Even today, the conservatives (yes, some people call them conservationists) are fighting an uphill battle to protect our national treasures and preserve our souls. 

The prophet Amos was a shepherd from a small town who dared to challenge the wealthy and powerful people of his day. He warned against a society that valued profit more than righteousness and called God’s people to a higher standard of stewardship and justice. In one of the Bible’s most memorable rebukes of the pride of the powerful, Amos declared, 

“I abhor the pride of Jacob 

and detest his fortresses; 

I will deliver up the city 

and everything in it.” (Amos 5:8) 

The voices calling for conservation today are often no different—outnumbered, underfunded, and easily dismissed. Yet the earth belongs not to billionaires, corporations, or politicians, but to God. So yes, I am a conservative. I want to conserve places like Yellowstone for those who come after us. For every geyser, every river, every wolf, every bison, and every lodgepole pine is part of a sacred trust. And if we fail to conserve what God has entrusted to us, we may discover too late that in losing these treasures, we have lost a temple to God’s divine presence.