BOOKS FOR LIFE
47
Care for Creation ESSENTIAL READING FOR PREACHERS
by Krish Kandiah
Last Christmas , my eldest son announced he had ‘ gone vegan ’. I was shocked for three reasons . Firstly , because for the first 20 years of his life , he had really , really loved eating meat . Secondly because , for him , I had just stocked my fridge up with the biggest turkey ever . And thirdly because he hadn ’ t changed to impress a girl , or follow a trend , but for considered environmental and theological reasons . I tried to persuade him out of it , but his arguments from maths , science and the Bible all outweighed mine . The net result was that our whole family has spent most of 2020 without meat in our diet . ( Occasional McDonalds trips excepted !)
I am not the only one who has significantly reduced my carbon footprint this year . Many of us have used our cars less and worked and travelled abroad using Zoom rather than air traffic . But we all still have a long way to go in fulfilling our responsibilities when it comes to our planet . The Bible has much to say about ecology , stewardship of creation and honouring God with our choices . This year I have enjoyed digging into the following books that unpack this a little and offer a robust theological and practical toolkit for ecological discipleship . None of them will tell you to go vegan , but each of them will challenge the choices we make on a daily basis .
SAYING YES TO LIFE
Ruth Valerio ( SPCK , 2019 )
Too often caring for the environment is portrayed as a negative : no meat , no diesel cars , no plastic bags , for example . That mindset can make us resistant to change because we see only loss . Ruth Valerio helpfully reframes our thinking about the environment by taking the six days of creation as a positive framework , showing how God ’ s intention for life is for our flourishing .
This was the Archbishop of Canterbury ’ s Lent book for 2019 and is written by someone with a long-term passion for climate justice , living it out in her local community and seeing , through her work at Tearfund , the impact climate change has had on the world ’ s poorest people .
LET CREATION REJOICE :
Biblical hope and the ecological crisis
Jonathan A . Moos and Robert S White ( IVP 2014 )
Some environmentalists exude an attitude of despair . They use words such as ‘ crisis ’, ‘ extinction ’ and ‘ catastrophe ’. Like the magnificent Greta Thunberg , they seem to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders with little sense of hope . There is good reason for us to be sober-minded and serious when we look at the negative impact that human interaction with the natural world is making , but this book helped me to see that a rich understanding of our eschatological hope can empower and embolden our climate activism . The authors here hold together a clear grasp of the ecological problems facing our world and a certain hope of God ’ s faithfulness . It ’ s a rare balance and a beautiful book to read .
WORDS FOR A DYING WORLD
Stories of grief and courage from the global church
Edited by Hannah Malcolm ( SCM 2020 )
This book is a treasure trove of global thinking , lamenting and mourning on Christianity ’ s relationship with the environment . Through a series of short chapters , we are given perspectives from often-marginalised voices in the environmental conversation . I found it particularly shocking that in India over the past two decades , more than 45,000 farmers have committed suicide , primarily due to crop failures . Underreported consequences like this offer us important perspective and challenge when it comes to the climate debate , and this book will help us all to bust out of our blinkered lens of the industrialised western world .
BUT WHERE ARE YOU REALLY FROM ?
Amanda Khozi Mukwashi ( SPCK 2020 )
You won ’ t find this book listed under ecology or theology in any bookshop , but this short memoir is rich in both . Amanda is the brilliant CEO of Christian Aid and in this moving narrative shares her experiences as a British-born black woman , navigating life in a culture where she has to keep on explaining who she is and where she is from . One of the most moving chapters tells how , as a young girl , Amanda ’ s grandmother was taken for a walk by her own grandfather in a Northern Rhodesian forest in a storm . The old man reassured the terrified girl by explaining to her the important relationship between land , trees and humans . Amanda Khozi Mukwashi explains how , with increased commercialisation and poverty , that relationship has become broken . I recommend this book , as it offers glimpses of another way of seeing our world that can help us recover a more holistic vision .
Krish Kandiah
Dr Krish Kandiah is an author , academic , consultant and founder of the charity ‘ Home for Good .’ He recently launched an initiative encouraging Christians to read more good books : booksforlife . uk