Peter and his late wife Miranda founded A Rocha, a family of conservation organizations in over 20 countries working together to live out God's calling to care for creation, in 1983. The A Rocha story is told in Peter’s books, Under the Bright Wings and Kingfisher’s Fire. A Cambridge graduate and Anglican minister, Peter has served as Adjunct Faculty at Regent College, Vancouver and Au Sable Institute, Michigan. Since losing Miranda in a car accident during a work trip in South Africa in 2019 he has continued to support the growth of A Rocha around the world and to explore possibilities for innovative financing of conservation projects through investment and philanthropy.
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…’
The book of Jonah is short and contains just one story. It’s usually interpreted as reminding us we can’t run away from God, and as showing the Gospel as good news of God’s desire to forgive the sin of people who genuinely turn to him. All this is clearly there, but there’s more to Jonah and to the Gospel than this suggests.
A friend emailed me this week: “The Great Commission is clearly about making disciples, and not about ecology or creation care. It’s alright that churches get involved in taking care of the planet, but evangelism and discipleship come first. So, it’s not that we don’t save seals, but we do so after we’ve saved souls.” This email touched a nerve.
