The A Rocha Blog

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.

30th November 2012 | Dave Bookless | 1 comments

By their fruit you shall know them

One month ago, sixty people from six continents gathered in Jamaica to pray, listen, reflect and call for action. The Lausanne Consultation on Creation Care and the Gospel, co-sponsored by the World Evangelical Alliance, was based on the belief that creation care is a gospel issue within the Lordship of Christ, and also that today there is a vital urgency about our task.

Categories: Reflections
Tags: action fruit Lausanne Movement
15th November 2012 | Miranda Harris | 6 comments

Be imitators of me

In late July 2011, the church lost a great statesman, and A Rocha lost a great friend. News of John Stott’s death reached us just as we were setting off for Strumble Head in Pembrokeshire to watch seabirds, walk the cliffs and scan the skies for Peregrines. John’s beloved cottage, The Hookses, lay just a few miles to the south. Fitting, somehow.

Categories: Stories
Tags: example John Stott
31st October 2012 | Dave Bookless | 4 comments

Where is my home?

Where do you feel most at home? Is it a place filled with childhood memories, or is it where you live now? Is it in a beautiful landscape, or amongst people you love and trust? Is it safely locked behind the door of your house? Or are you longing for eternity – to be ‘at home’ with Christ?

Categories: Questions
Tags: community future place
16th October 2012 | Tom Rowley | 5 comments

Hopeful action

At a recent conference in the USA, author and Professor Kathleen Dean Moore invited the audience to “give up hope” for the environment. At one end of the hope extreme, she said, is “hopelessness”: nothing we do will matter; at the other end is “uninformed hope”: everything will turn out all right. I agree that neither hopelessness nor uninformed hope is of any value. I stop short, however, of discarding hope.

Categories: Reflections
Tags: action hope
30th September 2012 | Dave Bookless | 15 comments

What’s the future for planet Earth?

I’ve grown up with the future according to Hollywood: visions of a scary, dystopian future with a world devastated and destroyed. It’s not surprising that popular Christian literature has followed suit. For years I assumed the central assumption was true: that this world would be destroyed completely when Christ returned in judgment. But as I started reading the Bible myself, my questions grew.

Categories: Questions
Tags: catastrophe future movies
18th September 2012 | Peter Harris | 11 comments

Smelling a Stradivarius (or how to value 100 endangered species)

“The ‘what can nature do for us’ approach has made it increasingly difficult for conservationists to protect the most threatened species on the planet. We have an important moral and ethical decision to make: Do these species have a right to survive or do we have a right to drive them to extinction?”

Categories: Reflections
Tags: conservation extinction IUCN priorities valuing nature
31st August 2012 | Dave Bookless | 20 comments

Songs and hymns I hate to sing

When I preach for A Rocha, the hymn ‘How great Thou art’ is often chosen. It’s often voted amongst all-time favourites, and verse two makes it an obvious choice for the Christian conservationist. Yet, whilst I love the tune and many of the lyrics, my heart sinks every time I hear the last verse…

Categories: Reflections
Tags: music theology
15th August 2012 | Leah Kostamo | 2 comments

Sabbath simplicity

My family keeps the Sabbath. Not religiously—as in, we don’t always do religious things. But we are pretty religious about “keeping” it. Our only hard and fast rule is no shopping. The point is, we say “no” to certain things. We step out of our normal rhythms of work and commerce and step into a new way of being.

Categories: Reflections
Tags: busyness rest Sabbath time