Care for Creation

Presbytery of Baltimore
CREATION CARE GROUP

Books Worth Reading:  Suggestions and Reviews from the Creation Care Group

 

HOW TO DO IT BOOKS

 EcoFaith: Creating and Sustaining Green Congregations, Charlene Hosenfeld,  Pilgrim Press, 2009.     A user-friendly guide for pastors, church leaders, congregations, packed with facts, actions, and resources.  review 

 

 

  Greening Congregations HANDBOOK Tanya Marcovna Barnett (ed.),  Earth Ministries, 2002,   Provides a wealth of knowledge and resources, a "toolkit," for the process of Greening your congregation.   review

The Complete Guide to ENERGYCONSERVATION for Smarties, Susan Hartsfield, Green Being Publishing Co., 2008.   A Compilation of knowledge and wisdom discovered by many conservation organizations, scientists and government agencies, beginning with the easy actions to conserve energy and progressing to those that are more complex, with explicit illustrations and references to abundant information resources.     review

 

THE SPIRITUAL ROOTS OF CREATION CARE

 Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible,  Ellen F. Davis, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2009.   This book explores the Bible’s concern for the health of the land and all of God’s creatures. Land tenure is the central issue in the Hebrew Bible, and is understood to be conditional on the community’s proper use and care of land.  review

Holy Ground, A Gathering of Voices on Caring for Creation,  Lyndsay Moseley (ed.) and the staff of Sierra Club Books. 2008, Sierra Club Books.    This book offers perspectives on creation’s gifts of beauty, abundance, and sustenance and responses of the world’s faith traditions.  Thirty-two authors share personal stories of coming to understand humankind’s unique power and stewardship duty to care for creation.  review

 The Land: Place as Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith. 2nd ed., Walter Brueggemann, 2003, Fortress Press.  This book examines the entire sweep of the Biblical canon, uncovering rich connections between land and covenant that are fundamental to all of the Abrahamic traditions. Much of the book focuses on the history and meaning of the developing relationship between God, humans, and land.  review 

Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit, Daniel Quinn, 1995, Bantam.  Explores how our culture and civilization began when man first started farming food, which led to the division of labor, a sedentary lifestyle, and ultimately to human population growth.  The book has the capacity to change people's perspective about how we are currently living in an unsustainable way on the planet.   review

 

THE CURRENT ECOLOGICAL CRISIS

 Hot, Flat, and Crowded (Why We Need A Green Revolution - And How It Can Renew America), Thomas L. Friedman, 2008, Farrar, Straus and Giroux.   An illuminating account of both the dangers and opportunities presented by the climate crisis, arguing in particular that American leadership in the Green revolution is essential, not only for the planet, but for the United States and its economic future.    review  

The End of Nature,  Bill McKibben,  2007,  Random House Trade Paperbacks. How our collective impact on the environment has fundamentally changed nature and our relationship with nature.    review  

 The Creation, E. O. Wilson,  2006, W. W. Norton.   Eminent evolutionary biologist Wilson points out how humanity’s image of itself was lifted high first by religion, then by art and, lately, by science. Planet-wise thinking, this is a lethal combination, for Nature – or Creation, to use the term that clergy and other Jews, Christians and Muslims prefer.   review

 

 

 

 Peak Everything, Richard Heinberg, 2007, New Society.   There are two principal problems demanding immediate attention: our current wasteful and unsustainable energy practices and the global warming that is melting ice, raising seas, and destroying habitats for animals and humans.  review

Power Down, Richard Heinberg, 2007, New Society.  This book is good to read after being prepared by reading Heinberg’s Peak Everything. Power Down is more political than Peak Everything and it convincingly shows how the previous Administration brought to power people of dubious backgrounds, questionable records, and inadequate preparation to head up the most militant and most resource exploitative country in the history of the planet.  review

The Long Emergency, James Howard Kunstler,  2005, Grove Press.   The global oil predicament, climate change, and other shocks to the system, with implications for how we will live in the decades ahead. A "powerful integration of science, technology, economics, finance, international politics and social change—along with a fascinating attempt to peer into a chaotic future." review

 

 

 

"In the Beginning ...

..God created the heavens and the earth... and God saw that it was very good."

With these words, at the very beginning of our scriptures, the Hebrew story-tellers affirmed the beauty and holiness of the natural world.   We start from there.  [more]

Welcome to our Web

The purpose of this web site is to help individuals and congregations in their ministry of Caring for Creation.  We aim to provide encouragment, information, ideas and resources for use in the wide variety of circumstances that congregations and people encounter in their daily lives.

Resources to Help You

There are many web sites that can help you.  We also have a series of papers on Biblical and other topics related to earth ministry, suggestions of books that will help you develop deeper understanding of creation and creation care, and listings of speakers who are willing to make a presentation at your church and video resources for classes and forums.

Creation Care Ideas for Churches

There are many relatively simple things a church can do to care for creation and help build a more sustainable future.  Many congregations in the Baltimore Presbytery have developed model programs and actions.