Faced with the huge, daunting ecological challenges our technological society has created, what is an appropriate Christian response?  More specifically, do the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg justify developing an intimate relationship with the land that supports us a la “The Land Ethic” so eloquently envisioned by Aldo Leopold?      Starting at the most external level is the economic set of arguments used to promote a land ethic.  They are called instrumental arguments because they value nature’s use to mankind as a source of products such as coal, wood, food – a source of all basic necessities.  Nature (land) is seen as having instrumental value to man as a means of meeting his needs, both material and aesthetic.  The instrumental arguments used suppose that human life is good and that future human life is desirable.  Therefore it is wrong to imperil human life by irreparably damaging the natural world that supports it. The philosopher Holmes Rolston points out that this is “an ethic that is secondarily ecological”. (Rolston, 13, Wild)  He goes on to show that the laws of health are non-moral but we break them to our own detriment.  Therefore most people impose an “antecedent moral ought,” which in the case of health is “you ought not harm yourself”.  By extension then you, “ought to preserve human life” is the antecedent moral ought to the “moral imperative” of conservation and preservation of land. (Rolston, 13-16, Wild)