. "Eaarth" is not a typo - it's the name McKibben suggests for a planet we know and love but perhaps don't respect enough, a planet that has changed radically and will never be the same. A well-known environmental writer, McKibben says it's too late to expect that some of the changes civilization is talking about will actually help, but he's not ready to throw in the towel. Instead, his solutions are perhaps in line with the "think global, act local" school of thought.I could react to what the reviewer says are the solutions McKibben proposes, but that would be cheating. I need to read the book first. So I'm putting it on my "I should read this" list. I learned from this review that McKibben - who has written on environmental themes in the past for Christianity Today - is a church-going Methodist who believes the Church at large should be leading the environmental movement because of what Christianity teaches regarding stewardship. Along these lines, I'm reminded of several things:
- An article by Wendell Berry, titled "The Gift of Good Land," that appeared in Backpacker magazine in the early 1970s. Berry was the first author I'd read who connected care for the Earth with Christian values.
- A book I inherited from a reader (yes, yes, my father again!), titled Our Father's World: Mobilizing the Church to Care for Creation
, by Edward R. Brown.
- The Green Bible
, my newest version of the Bible. While many versions of the Bible use red type for the words of Jesus, this version uses green type to highlight all the places in the Bible that have anything to say about creation and caring for it.
- Another book on my shelf, The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth
, by E. O. Wilson (rating: 7/10). "Written in the form of an impassioned letter to a Southern Baptist pastor, The Creation demonstrates that science and religion need not be warring antagonists." As a scientist and a Christian, that theme really resonates with me.
No comments:
Post a Comment