Creation Care in our Library: Faith, Theology and Reflection
The Creation Care Task Force encourages you to take advantage of the books available in our Library. Additional titles are being added. The titles below are about Faith, Theology and Reflection related to our Lutheran perspectives and substantiate the Christian call to Creation Care.
Crucified Creation: A Green Faith Rising, Gregory E. Sterling, Dean & Publisher [Reflections, Yale Divinity School, Spring 2019]
If you only have time to read one volume, this is it… especially if you enjoy a magazine format, multidisciplinary articles, analytical yet personable writing and multiple authors. The 35 writers and poets are scientists, theologians, artists and environmental stewards who are moved existentially and theologically.
They challenge Western Christian historic attitudes of conquesting of nature, each from their own perspectives and disciplines. In doing so, they bear news, push us further and test our faith-based resolve to act and meet the crises of climate change.
Eco-Reformation: Grace and Hope for a Planet in Peril, Lisa E. Dahil & Rev. James B. Martin-Schramm, editors [Cascade Books, 2016] In the midst of many appeals for reformation today, a growing number of theologians, scholars, and activists believe Reformation celebrations in the immediate future need to focus now on the urgent need for an Eco-Reformation because of the rise of industrial, fossil-fuel-driven capitalism and the explosive growth in human population that endangers the planetary life-support systems on which life-as-we-know-it has evolved. If human beings don’t reform our relationship with God’s Creation, enormous suffering will befall many - especially the weakest and most vulnerable among all species. The conviction at the heart of this collection of essays is that a Gospel call for ecological justice belongs at the heart of Reformation observances and - if not the - central dimension of Christian conversion, faith, and practice into the foreseeable future. Like Luther’s 95 Theses, this volume brings together critical Biblical, pastoral, theological, historical, and ethical perspectives that constructively advance the vision of a socially and ecologically flourishing Earth. “In the footsteps of … Martin Luther, … the authors in this timely volume express a critical and expansive Lutheran voice for the urgent case of creation and the common good. The essays make a compelling point that honoring and choosing life in its different forms belongs at the center of the re-orientation and paradigm shifts with the Reformation legacy.” [Kirsi Stjerna, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, California Lutheran University]
Behold the Lilies: Jesus and the Contemplation of Nature - A Primer, Rev. Dr. H. Paul Santmire [Cascade Books, 2017] Paul Santmire is a pioneer in the field of ecological theology and spirituality who is a retired Lutheran theologian and pastor living in New England. This book draws from the riches of his long-standing works in the theology of nature and Christian ecological spirituality, especially from his classic historical study, The Travail of Nature (1985), and his exploration of Franciscan spirituality, Before Nature (2014). In this volume, Santmire maintains that those who would follow Jesus are mandated not just to care for the earth and all its creatures but also to contemplate the beauties of the whole creation. Through his first-person reflections are triggered by varied natural settings, the reader shares Santmire’s non-systematic, contemplative spirituality attuned to global ecological and justice issues. “... H. Paul Santimre has blessed us with a delightful new book. As the subtitle indicates, it is full of wise reflections on following Jesus and contemplating the natural world. How do we take seriously the summons to behold the world around us? (He) shows us how. Insightful, honest, hope-filled, and engagingly written” [Steven Bouma- Prediger, author of For the Beauty of the Earth: A Christian Vision for Creation Care].
Before Nature: A Christian Spirituality, Rev. Dr. H. Paul Santmire [Augsburg Fortress, 2014]
This book caps a set of themes first brought to the fore in Santmire’s previous work, most notably the classic The Travail of Nature. Here Santmire continues the pursuit of a theology bound up with nature and its condition, especially the fragility and fervent expectation of nature’s redemption. Santmire invites readers on a theological and spiritual journey to a prayerful and contemplative knowledge of the Triune God, in which practitioners are inducted into a bountiful relationship with the cosmic and universal ministry of Christ and the Spirit uniting all of nature in a single vision of hope and anticipation.
"With a pastoral heart and prophetic passion, Santmire continues his lifelong conversation about creation centered spirituality. Unapologetically Christian, Santmire weaves a Trinitarian vision into a universal fabric—calling the reader toward an inner/outer journey that integrates prayer and action. With his most personal testimony to date, the author has created a theological legacy rooted in a lifetime of faithful ministry" [Rev. Dr. Susan R. Andrews, Presbytery of Hudson River - PCUSA].
Christianity, Climate Change and Sustainable Living, Nick Spenser & Robert White [Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge / The Jubilee Centre / The Faraday Institute, 2007]
The authors have two primary foci: 1} our current habits of consumption and production in the West cannot be maintained; and 2} we urgently need to reconsider our lifestyles and the policies that shape them.
This book represents a serious Christian engagement with the issues of sustainable consumptions and production. Spencer & White analyze the scientific, cultural, economic, and theological thinking that makes a Christian response to these trends both imperative and distinctive. Their practical conclusions explore what can be done at the personal, community, national, and international levels. Firmly rooted in the Good News of the Christian faith, this, above all, is a constructive and hopeful book with a realistic vision of a better future.
“Don’t read this book if you are not prepared for its challenge” [Sir John Houghton, FRS].
A New Climate for Theology: God, the World, and Global Warming, Sallie McFague [Fortress Press / Augsburg Fortress, 2008]
At its heart, Sallie Macfague maintains, global warming occurs because we lack an appropriate understanding of ourselves as inextricably bound to the planet and its systems. This book not only traces the distorted notion of unlimited desire that fuels our market system. It also paints an alternative idea for what being human means and what a just and sustainable economy might mean in an unfolding universe of divine love and human freedom.
“Global warming is as much a theological challenge as an engineering one. How do we understand God in a world where we’re now dominating nature? How do we understand ourselves in such a way that we might shrink or impacts” Sallie McFague officers a lucid and powerful guide to these questions, and helps advance the field of environmental theology a giant step” [Bill McKibben, renowned environmentalist, Middlebury College].
“(Sallie McFague) calls Christians to a new feeling, new acting, and new thinking. Perhaps as the threat to our world that she describes so well presses more obviously upon us, the church will begin to listen” [John B. Cobb, Jr., Claremont School of Theology].