Creation In Crisis

Creation is in crisis. Why then do we continue in activities that are manifestly harmful to ourselves and to others? Part of the answer is undoubtedly ignorance about what we are actually doing. But part is also that we do not want to face up to the fact that the material comforts we enjoy are bought at a cost to other people and to the natural world. This volume highlights the seriousness of environmental degradation and climate change, the root causes and possible solutions, and the contribution of Christian thinking to these issues. Both scientific and theological points of view are presented by the distinguished writers: Richard Bauckham, Richard Carter, Flavio Comim, Ellen F. Davis, Calvin B. DeWitt, John Guillebaud, Donald A. Hay, Sir Brian Heap, Sir John Houghton, James J. McCarthy, Hilary Marlow, Douglas J. Moo, Jonathan Moo, Pete Moore, Michael Northcott, C. René Padilla, Robert S. White, and George Wilkes. 'In these pages Robert White has assembled a remarkable cast. Indeed, if you were to lay on an international conference of specialists with expertise from different disciplines to reflect on the present state and the future hope of the earth, from a Christian perspective, you could hardly get a finer line-up! Their gift to the reader is that they are able to write so that those of us who are not experts might understand.' James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool

The Bible is full of images of God caring for his creation in all its complexity. Yet experts warn us that a so-called perfect storm of factors threatens the future of life on earth. The authors assess the evidence for climate change and other threats that our planet faces in the coming decades while pointing to the hope God offers the world and the people he made.

When we speak of the “environmental crisis” facing the planet, we reduce the coming catastrophe to a physical problem. In Rediscovering Our Home, Joshtrom Kureethadam seeks to extend the current understanding of what is truly an ecological crisis to include ethical and spiritual perspectives, arguing that the crisis is not merely an environmental problem, but is truly 'eco-logical' (a discourse about our common home - oikos) in nature. In its careful incorporation of the latest science around issues such as environmental degradation, pollution, climate change, and food production, this book also enters into dialogue with various disciplines in understanding the contemporary ecological crisis, adding to this theological meditation a depth of vision that yields up profound insights about our present milieu and future home.

We have the choice to remain stuck in crisis, or say YES to living fully in the present. Macartney fills the pages of Crisis to Creation with inspiration and guidance from scores of people who transformed crisis. Take a peek at the realizations from two people whose stories appear inside: Book jacket.

Conceived in Crisis argues that the American Revolution was not just the product of the Imperial Crisis, brought on by Parliament’s attempt to impose a new idea of empire on the American colonies. To an equal or greater degree, it was a response to the inability of individual colonial governments to deliver basic services, which undermined their legitimacy. Factional bickering over policy, violent extralegal regulations, and the dreadful experiences of conducting an imperial war while governing a demographically growing and geographically expanding population all led colonists and imperial officials to consider reforming the colonial governments into more powerful and coercive entities. Using Pennsylvania as a case study, Christopher Pearl demonstrates how this history of ineffective colonial governance precipitated a process of state formation that was accelerated by the demands of the Revolutionary War. The powerful state governments that resulted dominated the lives of ordinary people well into the nineteenth century. Conceived in Crisis makes sense of the trajectory from weak colonial to strong revolutionary states, and in so doing explains the limited success of efforts to consolidate state power at the national level during the early Republican period.

The creative use of fear by news media and social control organizations has produced a "discurse of fear" - the awareness and expection that danger and risk are lurking everywhere. Case studies illustrates how certain organizations and social institutions benefit from the explotation of such fear construction. One social impact is a manipulated public empathy: We now have more "victims" than at any time in our prior history. Another, more troubling resutl is the role we have ceded to law enforcement and punishment: we turn ever more readily to the state and formal control to protect us from what we fear. This book attempts through the marshalling of significant data to interrupt that vicious cycle of fear discourse.

How can we proclaim justice for God's Creation in the face of global warming? How does fracking fit with "the earth and its fullness are the Lord's?" Creation-Crisis Preaching works with the premise that all of Creation, including humankind, needs to hear the Good News of Jesus' resurrection in this age in which humanity is "crucifying" Creation. Informed by years of experience as an environmental activist and minister, Leah Schade equips preachers to interpret the Bible through a "green" lens, become rooted in environmental theology, and learn how to understand their preaching context in terms of the particular political, cultural, and biotic setting of their congregation. Creation-Crisis Preaching provides both theoretical grounding and practical tips for preachers to create environmental sermons that are relevant, courageous, creative, pastoral, and inspiring.

In this thoughtful study, respected Old Testament scholar Patricia K. Tull explores the Scriptures for guidance on today's ecological crisis. Tull looks to the Bible for what it can tell us about our relationships, not just to the earth itself, but also to plant and animal life, to each other, to descendants who will inherit the planet from us, and to our Creator. She offers candid discussions on many current ecological problems that humans contribute to, such as the overuse of energy resources like gas and electricity, consumerism, food production systems--including land use and factory farming--and toxic waste. Each chapter concludes with discussion questions and a practical exercise, making it ideal for both group and individual study. This important book provides a biblical basis for thinking about our world differently and prompts us to consider changing our own actions. Visit inhabitingeden.org for links to additional resources and information.

Argues that religion - blamed for contributing to the ecological crisis - provides an ethical context that will help solve the problem. The approach suggests that the environmentally positive aspects in various Western creation stories demonstrate religion

Leading theologians and ethicists reflect on the most serious crisis of our time, offering insights from theology, history, and ethics to aid in the transformation required to meet it. The magnitude of the problem of environmental degradation and climate change requires a complete rethinking and reorientation of our way of being in the world. Responding to this crisis requires not only a conversion of the will but even more fundamentally a transformation of the imagination-that is, the capacity to think of other ways of being, thinking, and acting in the world. These original essays, by a distinguished group of Catholic scholars, assess the gravity of the situation and offer resources from biblical and theological traditions for the necessary mobilization of will and the conversion of our imaginations. Book jacket.