Peter and Miranda moved to Portugal in 1983 to establish and run A Rocha’s first field study centre. Together with their four children they lived at the centre for twelve years until 1995 when the work was given over to national leadership. They then moved to establish A Rocha France’s first centre near Arles, and lived there until 2010, providing coordination and giving leadership to the rapidly growing global movement. They are now back in the UK from where they work to support the A Rocha family around the world while being closer to their own, and not least their grandchildren. Their story is told in Under the Bright Wings (1993) and Kingfisher’s Fire (2008).
Each set of convictions addresses the same reality. So it shouldn’t be surprising that a recent insight within ecology aligns beautifully with the foundational biblical perspective that human beings have the God-given responsibility to care for all creation.
David was a man of contrasts and often contradictions: shepherd boy and powerful King; mighty warrior and sensitive poet; saint, sinner and song-writer. One striking thing about the Psalms attributed to David is the nature writing they contain. Here are just a few.
‘If you’re asking me to choose between conservation and development, I’m going to choose development every time.’ We received this comment repeatedly when we first arrived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The biblical story of Ruth and Naomi has always been a favourite of mine. There are many themes that emerge. There’s also the importance of a book centred on women, when women we marginalized… and of course it’s a classic love story. However, my focus for this blog is that Ruth is also about agriculture and economics.
I wrote the lines below after listening to myself, on a Friday night, wearily moan that I was just an office drudge. By Sunday, after a two-day break from the computer, a good sermon and a bit of birding, I had a different perspective.
Noah’s been in the news recently. Darren Aronofsky’s eponymous film has caused controversy and discussion by deliberately playing fast and loose with the biblical account. Critics have mostly loved it whilst the viewing public have been more ambivalent. Knowing that Noah was next in my blog series on biblical eco-characters, I reckoned I had to see the movie!
In these days drawing near to Easter I am mindful of Christ’s work of redemption – of His design to reconcile ‘all things’ to Himself, as Paul says in Colossians. His work of redemption not only transforms human lives, but all of creation as we participate with him in his reconciling work. Allow me to illustrate.
This calls for a bit of imagination… Picture a meeting, beyond the limits of time and space, between the first human and the most famous critic of Christianity’s environmental credentials. Let’s eavesdrop on what they might say to each other…
The news that Indonesia’s senior Muslim clerical body has issued a fatwa against illegal hunting and the poaching of endangered species has caused considerable media interest. The story serves to illustrate that it is now mainstream for conservation organizations to understand that religious groups can play a central role in achieving conservation goals.
Job may seem a strange character to launch a new series of biblical eco-heroes. After all, his story is famously depressing: a tale of undeserved suffering, humiliation and the apparent absence of God. Yet the book of Job also contains the longest passage about non-human creation in the Bible.
