Having been involved in the conversation movement for most of his life, Phillip weaves together the hundreds of poems, studies, essays, articles and reflections from his 25 years of experience in this book, with the hope that these will increase awareness of the huge environmental challenges that face us and incite active participation in addressing them.

Questions include classics such as ‘What does ‘have dominion really mean?’ and ‘Is creation care a moral issue?’ to intriguing ones such as ‘Would Jesus go hunting?’.

Each chapter contains an introductory comment, a summary, and questions for reflection and discussion. This book is essential reading for any individual or faith community wanting to actively pursue the commission to “tend and keep” what God has made.

“a tender, insightful masterpiece”
Donald Carter, Parish Pastor, Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Tauranga

To order your copy, please contact newcreationnewzealand@gmail.com, indicating your name, address, and number of copies. Payment details will then be notified. Once payment is made, your books will be sent to you. To find out more about NCNZ, see https://newcreationnewzealand.org.nz.

Andrew Shepherd, Lecturer at the University of Otago, New Zealand has produced one of the best papers on this topic that we have seen. In Covid-19: An Invitation to Ecological Repentance? Andrew suggests that

A more nuanced approach would be to interpret COVID-19 as an apocalyptic event—one which “unveils” the truth of the world as it really is. Thus, the present pandemic is merely one of the multitude of “canaries in the mine” giving warning to humanity of the ecological perils of our current ecologically-devastating way of life. In this interpretation, COVID-19 is an experience of God’s “wrath” as conceived of in Romans 1. Humanity, “filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity … full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice” (Rom 1:28–32 NIV), have been given over by God to our sinful desires and done what ought not to be done.

Ecologically violent actions pollute and destroy humanity’s relationship with the earth and its non-human inhabitants. Like the species that we objectify and evict from their homes, we too now find ourselves cursed. Torn from our normal lives, we are driven into isolation, yet in an ironic twist, rather than being forced to wander as a fugitive, we are imprisoned within our homes (Gen 4:10–14). Accordingly, COVID-19 and other climate-induced catastrophes, I suggest, should be understood not as stemming from God’s actions, but rather, are the result of human actions/inaction. Humanity is suffering the inevitable consequences of ecological realities that stem from our selfish and desires. COVID-19 could be interpreted as a judgement of the earth and its non-human inhabitants for our mistreatment of them. Or, to put it more crudely, the creatures that we share our earth-ark with, that we ignore or abuse, have bitten back.

The whole article is worth reading and filing for future reference.