SHOULD A CHRISTIAN OWN A BMW? I bring this up because yesterday I drove to Louisville and bought a 2003 Mazda Protege Mazdaspeed to replace my 1990 Protege. My old Protege was a fine car, but it is wearing out. The Mazdaspeed is about $4000 more expensive than a normal Protege, for which you get a turbocharger, big tires, better brakes, fancy stereo, sporty tuning, and an unattractive sporty appearance, as you can read in reviews by Edmonds, Sport and Touring, Canadian Racing, a Hawaiian man, and a Volkwagen driver.

Two points are easy to deal with. First, a Christian ought to exercise good judgment and allocate money carefully. He cannot say, "It's my money; if I want to waste it, that's my business alone." This took care of the literal BMW question for me; I test- drove one, and while it is undeniably a good car, the BMW 325 was not enough better than the Subaru Impreza WRX to justify the higher price and having to go 50 miles to find a dealership. The Impreza has glowing reviews, but is more expensive than the Mazdaspeed and I didn't like the "feel" as well, perhaps because of the four-wheel drive.

Second, gasoline mileage does not have theological significance. The What Would Jesus Drive? campaign criticizes SUV's for being environmentally unfriendly and therefore unchristian. A common response, as Christianity Today's July 14 web-log reports in discussing the pro-SUV response, is

"Most people think it's a ridiculous question, and that's the approach that we've taken toward our own ads," SUVOA communications director told The Washington Times.

But it's not a ridiculous question at all. It's just a special case of the useful and good question, "What would Jesus do?" What is ridiculous, or at least unfounded, is the belief that gasoline mileage is relevant to protecting the environment. Perhaps I should save explanation for another day, but the essential points are that(a) costs are costs, and spending a dollar on gasoline is no more anti- environment than spending a dollar on solar panels, (b) air pollution is already over-regulated, especially outside of New York and Los Angeles, and (c) the world's oil supplies are not running out, and even if they did, gasoline could be made from coal (at a cost), just as the Germans did in World War II. So if there is a question of whether Jesus would drive an SUV, it is a question of whether Jesus would drive such a fancy car, not whether he would drive a gas guzzler.

No, the issue is whether a Christian should buy luxuries. I decided it is OK, if done without extravagance, but I've now gone on too long and must get back to revising my paper with Tom Lyon on incomplete contracts. Maybe another day...

[ http://php.indiana.edu/~erasmuse/w/03.07.25b.htm ]

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