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Dave is Director of Theology for A Rocha International, where he works to embed creation care into international Christian organizations, theological institutions, and mission movements. His past roles with A Rocha include being an International Trustee and the co-founder of A Rocha UK (with his wife Anne). He has a PhD from Cambridge University on biblical theology and biodiversity conservation, and has contributed to many books and articles, including Planetwise, available in six languages. Born and raised in India, Dave has a love for Indian food, Indian culture and Indian Christianity. Dave is also a qualified bird-ringer and loves birding, islands, running and mountains.

31st August 2017 | Dave Bookless | 0 comments

A harvest for the world

With most of the population now living in cities, Harvest festivals can seem archaic and quaint. At its worst Harvest can simply be a longing for a mythical rural idyll that never really existed, yet I believe we need to celebrate Harvest today more than ever. Here’s why.

Categories: Reflections
Tags: agriculture
30th June 2017 | Dave Bookless | 0 comments

The power of China

I recently returned from a lecturing visit to Hong Kong, Beijing and Yanji. Speaking about environmental sustainability to students and professors in three such very different contexts got me thinking afresh about China’s place in the world and its significance. My thoughts here are inevitably personal and subjective.

Categories: Reflections
2nd May 2017 | Dave Bookless | 0 comments

#ConservationOptimism

Recently a couple of us attended the Conservation Optimism summit in London. I went with an open mind, but concerned that this was simply an exercise in papering over the cracks: what room is there for optimism when 58% of the world’s wildlife has disappeared within my lifetime? I’ve been asking myself about hope, optimism and what gives us the ability to keep going even when things are bleak.

Categories: Reflections
31st March 2017 | Dave Bookless | 1 comments

Sabbath for all creation

Sabbath has an image problem. Victorian strictness, long church services, overwhelmingly negative ideas: ‘Don’t do that … especially if it’s enjoyable!’ How far this is from God’s plans for Sabbath!

Categories: Reflections
Tags: rest Sabbath
28th February 2017 | Dave Bookless | 3 comments

Feeding the world and Farming God’s Way

When I read modern history at University in the 1980s, India’s ‘Green Revolution’ was held up as an example of progress: how technology can save and feed us all. Today things look rather different. There were heavy costs: social, economic, environmental. Can we feed the world without destroying communities, cultures and creation? What, if anything, does the Bible have to say about soil, farming and land-use? Rather a lot, it turns out!

Categories: Reflections
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
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