Is It No Longer "Christian" to Buy a Fake Christmas Tree?

Oh brother. Here's an article which seems to suggest that Christians should be real Christmas trees because they are more environmentally friendly:

With Christmas right around the corner, more Christians this year are finding themselves faced with the difficult decision of choosing between a real and an artificial Christmas tree.

As the Christian community becomes increasingly environmentally conscious, megachurch pastors Rick Warren and Bill Hybels as well as more than 100 influential evangelical leaders, are speaking out about global warming and calling on governments and Christians to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions – the main cause of global warming. Signers of the Evangelical Climate Initiative (ECI) agree that global warming is real and mainly caused by humans.

“Christians, noting the fact that most of the climate change problem is human induced, are reminded that when God made humanity he commissioned us to exercise stewardship over the earth and its creatures,” the ECI statement reads. “Climate change is the latest evidence of our failure to exercise proper stewardship, and constitutes a critical opportunity for us to do better.”

During this holiday season, some Christians are making the decision to take what they believe to be a small but important step toward slowing global warming by buying a natural Christmas tree.

Now I don't know what Pastor Rick Warren has in his home. He could afford his own Christmas tree forest if he wanted. But I do know what he has in his church because this past weekend I performed in all six main services (plus one Singles service) and I stood on stage next to two very large fake trees. There was enough plastic in those things to build a Yugo.

I have real problems with the Evangelical Climate Initiative. As I explained here I think it was a silly exercise. However, trying to make Christmas trees a "Christian" issue is really taking things to silly extremes.