An Introduction to The Good Steward
Come here to learn more about what The Good Steward is all about.
Hello! I’m glad that you’ve found my blog. This is the post you’ll need to get up to speed about who I am, and what I write about.
The Good Steward seeks to provide a Christian unpacking of how to be good stewards of our environment through the help of such prophetic Christian voices as J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and others. This blog will be a healthy mix of literary analysis, cultural commentary, theological discussion with a touch of politics. I hope you’ll stick around and read more as it gets posted!
Before we begin, a few notes about myself:
The primary principle in my life is that I want to follow the will of Jesus Christ in my life. I am motivated by a love of Jesus Christ and a sincere desire to conform every aspect of my life to His will, as revealed in the teachings of His Church, and to help others come to know Jesus as well. I am not a cradle Catholic, but becoming Catholic was something God called me to as I discovered (to my surprise!) that the Catholic Church contained the fullness of the Christian Faith that my wonderful parents had handed on to me. I don’t intend to make this conversion story central to what I discuss, since us converts are no better than the natives - so to speak, and I believe that any faithful brother or sister in Christ will be able to relate to much of what I discuss. I only share this to give testimony to the work of God in my life in leading me to the Church. I discovered this by interacting with Catholic friends while studying theology during college, reading Church history and saints (particularly St. John Henry Newman, St. Ignatius of Antioch and St. Irenaeus), and ultimately getting called to receive the grace of all the sacraments that Christ intended for His faithful.
I am a conservative and a Hoosier. I am a lifelong Hoosier (that’s what people from Indiana call ourselves) and live in Indianapolis with my beautiful wife and two daughters (with a third on the way!). Professionally, I’ve primarily worked in politics, government, and advocacy. I started working on political campaigns in college, and then worked for a political consulting firm for a few years afterwards. I’m sure that politics will come up in some of these posts, but they certainly will not be the focus. In my current work, I devote my efforts to trying to help fellow conservatives understand that being a conservative and caring about climate change are not opposed to each other and there are reasonable, practical and effective climate solutions that are in line with Conservative principles (and most importantly the principles of Catholic Social Teaching). You can learn about that on my organizations’ website. I remain involved in Republican politics in Indiana and continue to help on campaigns when time allows!
I believe that exercising good stewardship over creation is key to living out our calling as bearers of the Image of God. I felt motivated to start this blog because I noticed that many Conservative Catholics seemed to downplay environmental concerns. This was sad because I was primarily motivated to protect the environment from my faith, after being inspired by the subtle (but impactful) environmental visions contained within the writing of The Inklings, particularly by the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Dorothy L. Sayers.
In brief, after reflection upon these writers, scripture, and the stewardship modeled to me by my father, I’ve come to the conclusion that a key part of exercising the Imago Dei is to exercise respectful stewardship over creation. All creation was put under our dominion (Gen. 1:26-28), but it was also given to us as a gift by The One who deemed all of creation to be good. When we recognize creation as a gift, we help it to flourish and begin to experience the redemption that all of creation has been groaning for (Rom. 8:19-23), a redemption it will experience in full when Heaven and Earth are joined together in the New Heavens and the New Earth (Rev. 22:1).
Recognizing a lack of voices speaking about this online, I felt like somebody needed to articulate a connection between our culture’s problems and the environment and communicate a Christian vision of caring for the environment. Given that there are few people doing this, I felt called to give an inadequate attempt at articulating such a vision.
Well, there you go. Those are three things you need to know about me and who I am, and why I started The Good Steward. I hope that you will subscribe and keep reading as I create more content on the topic of the intersection of faith and the environment.