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Chris has a BSc and PhD in geology and has worked as a consultant geologist for oil companies and as a university and college lecturer. He has however always been very much involved in environmental issues. He spent a total of eight years in Lebanon (1980–84, 1994–96) and during the second period was in part responsible for founding A Rocha Lebanon. He and his wife Alison now live in southern France midway between the two A Rocha France centres. Chris is on the Board of Trustees of A Rocha France and takes part in teaching weeks at Courmettes and in leading a popular natural history tour of the estate. In such spare time as he has, he likes to write both fiction and popular theology and has written a number of books with J. John, most recently Jesus Christ: The Truth.

5th November 2019 | Chris Walley | 1 comments

A bad week and good memories

It was going to be a good week. But it wasn’t. We were beginning to enjoy our new house and also had our younger son and his family visiting. Then midday Tuesday, the warm Provençal sun spilling over us, we received the appalling news that a terrible car accident in South Africa had taken the lives of our old A Rocha friends Chris and Susanna Naylor and with them Miranda Harris, leaving her husband Peter recovering in hospital.

Categories: Stories
30th April 2019 | Dave Bookless | 1 comments

If the Word became flesh, should we all become vegan? (Part 1)

Recently I led a discussion on vegetarianism for a group of Christians committed to caring for creation. I knew none of the group were vegetarian, although most give careful thought to how the meat they eat is produced. I began by asking people to call out words they felt were associated with ‘veganism’ or ‘vegetarianism’…

Categories: Questions
18th April 2019 | Panu Pihkala | 1 comments

Extinction Rebellion, eco-anxiety and Christian faith

Extinction Rebellion’ (XR) has been getting plenty of media coverage recently. It’s a new nonviolent, direct-action movement aiming to provoke discussion and transform the climate change agenda. In over 80 cities across 33 countries, XR has closed bridges and roads, protested outside fossil fuel companies, and seen hundreds of people arrested. When interviewed, most XR activists have spoken of their fear or eco-anxiety for the future, and their anger at the lack of action.

Categories: News Reflections
31st March 2019 | Panu Pihkala | 3 comments

Eco-anxiety: The psychological and spiritual toll of the environmental crisis

How do you feel about environmental problems? In the environmental movement and in natural sciences, people usually ask ‘What do you think?’, but we have reached a time when more attention should be given to emotional resilience, the ways in which we might survive psychologically in the midst of rapidly changing environmental conditions.

Categories: Reflections
28th February 2019 | Dave Bookless | 3 comments

Mangrove theology: Get stuck in and put down deep roots

When I was a young lad, Church Mission Society (CMS) had a young adults’ newsletter which I read avidly. The title of one article has stuck with me ever since: ‘Has God called you to stay where you are?’

At the time my family lived in a quiet Midlands village with a somewhat sleepy church, so the idea that mission meant travelling the world and seeing exciting, exotic places appealed greatly. By the time I reached my 30s I’d lived in over 20 different places, visited lots of countries, and God was saying something rather different to me.

Categories: Reflections