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Shilpita Mathews is a Research Assistant at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and completing a MSc in Environmental Economics and Climate Change at the London School of Economics. She is also a Climate Correspondent at Youth Ki Awaaz, an Indian youth media platform and a member of the new Young Christian Climate Network, a community of young Christians in the UK taking climate action. She also serves in the student ministry of her home church, All Souls Langham Place in central London.

4th August 2020 | Shilpita Mathews | 6 comments

Can a Christian be a climate activist?

Shouldn’t poverty alleviation be the biggest global priority? Isn’t the world going to end anyway? Are climate activists trying to play God? These are all questions raised by well-intending individuals, who may not view climate change as a high risk. By addressing these questions, we can argue that Christians, and members of all faith systems, can play a key role in leading climate action.

Categories: Facing the Future
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
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 May 2015 | Chris Naylor | 0 comments

Postcards from the Middle East by Chris Naylor: 4. Visitors drop a bombshell

“You are breaking the mould. Abu Charbel, like many others, thinks the church should keep to traditional areas of work.” “But what about priorities?” I pressed. “What is the most important thing? Preaching, poverty relief, or conservation of rare species?”

Categories: Postcards
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