The purpose of business is to provide people with a product or service and we all understand that businesses have those to whom it is responsible, whether it is the stock/shareholder or the consumer. Providing a service or making something is very black or white in the area of product or service responsibilities, where it becomes grey is in the area of social responsibility. Who would have ever dreamed that the same Ford Motor Company that destroyed thousands upon thousands of acres of rain forest in the in the jungles of South America in the early Nineteenth Century in search of an abundance of rubber would today be a champion of eco-fuels and rain forest preservation? Businesses are perceptive and have the fundamental understanding that in order to survive in today’s hypersensitive, politically correct society, they must be perceived as guardians of “what’s in” rather than concentrating on their bottom line because in many instances, that perception ends up affecting their bottom line.
God created the universe and all that’s in it for us to enjoy and utilize. In Genesis, we learn that after the fall and the realization of our nakedness that Adam and Eve utilized animal skins in order to cover their bodies due to shame. They actually had to do some “dirty work” in order to make the skins into clothing. This alone tells us that having dominion over the animals and the things of the earth means we are to utilize them as needed but at the same time to be good stewards. It is only when man puts definition or meaning to the interpretation of “stewardship” that things get complicated.
Likewise we can concede that it is not the responsibility of corporations or government to take care of the populace. We read in Romans that everything we do should be done as to the Lord that if we perceive something unclean or unfit, then between ourselves and God it is indeed