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.
Valentine’s Day can simply seem like a product of our shallow, materialistic culture. The thing is, love needs actions to make it real. This Valentine’s Day, whether or not you’ll be romancing a loved one, why not take a risk and do something practical to sow love for God’s creation?
For over a decade the two of us have had conversations about our joys and struggles in the work of fundraising and eventually decided to capture them in a book. Had we known that writing it would mean five years of work − we might have called a halt right there!
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.
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.
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.
Sometimes people tell me they think A Rocha is only about the environment. It’s not. It’s about all of us. It’s about transforming people and places by being a community where people and places thrive together.
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?
A report from the World Conservation Congress, 1–10 September 2016: ‘Until recently, the conservation movement has been overwhelmingly secular. But the sense here is that this is a moral and even a spiritual crisis…’
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?
The Jungle Book: What a fabulous world it would be if we could feel safe with a pack of Wolves, sing with Sloth Bears, ride on a Leopard and talk to Asian Elephants. But the sad reality is that most of us face a dilemma which is the opposite of Mowgli’s. In the UK, where I live, most of us feel safest in our villages, towns or cities and react with fear or even aggression when nature threatens our security, our income, or our convenience in some way.
