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Dave has worked with A Rocha since 1997, first as an International Trustee, then from 2001 with A Rocha UK as co-founder (with his wife Anne), National Director, and then Director for Theology, Churches & Sustainable Communities. He joined the A Rocha International team in September 2011. His role as Advisor for Theology and Churches includes providing advice and resources for ARI’s Trustees, Team and national A Rocha organisations, and coordinating liaison with international theological and mission networks and organisations. He is also studying for a part-time PhD at Cambridge University on biblical theology and biodiversity conservation.

30th November 2016 | Dave Bookless | 4 comments

Hope in a post-truth world

The Oxford English Dictionary has announced its ‘Word of the Year for 2016’ in both the UK and USA is ‘post-truth’. In a year that has seen bitterly divisive campaigns in the Brexit referendum and the US election, and a rise in political extremism in various parts of the world, it is clear that we have entered a toxic era of fear and uncertainty about what to believe and who to trust.

Categories: Reflections
Tags: community cross-culturalism hope priorities
16th November 2016 | Chris Naylor | 0 comments

Conservation medicine

I needn’t have worried about persuading my audience [of medical personnel]. The group showered me with symptoms of environmental malaise from their own experience: unreliable rains, floods, failed harvests, changing disease patterns and communal strain as natural resources start to fail.

Categories: Reflections
Tags: Dominican Republic medicine poverty
31st October 2016 | Dave Bookless | 2 comments

Time for remembrance … and restoration

Despite the ordered, lovingly-tended beauty of the cemetery on a sunny autumnal day, and the perfect brick-by-brick recreation of pre-war Ypres, a heart-breaking heaviness hung in the atmosphere. It seemed more than collective memory… it goes deeper. Nature herself seems to react to the horrors of bloodshed and war. Biblical Christians should not be surprised by this.

Categories: Reflections
Tags: Belgium Iraq Syria war
30th September 2016 | Dave Bookless | 3 comments

Obsessed with beginnings and endings

Recently, I was in Kathmandu, speaking on creation care to a group of about 90 Christian leaders from across Nepal, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. They were really receptive… until I got to God’s future plans for creation. Surely we’re all going to heaven? What about the Rapture? Won’t there be a new creation? Won’t the earth be destroyed by fire?

Categories: Reflections
Tags: catastrophe creation future meetings Nepal
31st August 2016 | Ben Lowe | 0 comments

Conservation and Hope at the Lausanne Younger Leaders Gathering

This August, over 1,000 young Christian delegates from more than 140 countries convened outside Jakarta for the Lausanne Younger Leaders Gathering. A once-in-a-generation event, the theme of this YLG was ‘United in the Great Story’, and the program built on the rich heritage of the Lausanne Movement with its stated vision of ‘the whole church, bringing the whole gospel, to the whole world.’

Categories: News
Tags: Indonesia Lausanne Movement Marina Silva meetings
15th June 2016 | Peter Harris | 2 comments

Love Actually for nature

It will not be technology, but a fundamental change in our deepest desires that will be how we can help the earth’s species and habitats survive the devastating assault to which we are subjecting them. But we need to think carefully if we hope that we can simply learn to ‘love nature’. What might that actually mean – what is love, actually?

Categories: Reflections
Tags: conservation culture love