"We are raising a generation of young people whose primary experience with nature is virtual. Real nature is a full sensory experience, with frequent open-ended problem-solving opportunities and no off switch. We should all make outdoor play a priority for our children and ourselves."
Christianity
Green My Hood
Does caring for the environment always come at the expense of jobs? Is creation care something that must be traded off against people care? My church is tackling that challenge because we care about the beautiful but broken South Atlanta neighborhood we call home.
Stuck in the Middle on Climate
Those on the left sometimes seem to claim unanimity among climate scientists as to the culpability of people for global warming. Those on the right seem to imply there is major controversy about whether people are to blame. Neither view is correct.
Location, location, location: Residential choices and Creation Care
Last week NPR’s Morning Edition aired a pair of stories by Elizabeth Shogren, one about a family that moved out to the Atlanta suburbs, and one about a family that moved intown to a “new urban” development....Neither of them created the environment they inhabit; they’re just trying to do their best to live in it.
An Environmentalism for Us All
What Rebecca Solnit is arguing in her excellent Orion Magazine article this month is that environmentalists have become the caricature the right paints of them. They often really are a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-Reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show. And, Solnit adds: they hate country music, without actually knowing country music. [To … Continue reading An Environmentalism for Us All
Fear Not!
A Different Shade of Green(originally published in PRISM magazine, Jan/Feb 08) Fear is a powerful motivator. If you can inspire fear, you can get people to do almost anything. (If you can also inspire loathing, you can get them to do anything.) Evangelicals and environmentalists have a good deal in common. Fear, accompanied by an … Continue reading Fear Not!
“Dominion” means dominion
Journalist G.K. Chesterton once quipped (in Orthodoxy), that original sin was "the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved." Approaching theology, as Karl Barth famously suggested, with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other, certainly finds the hypothesis of total depravity unfalsified. Yet by the end of the … Continue reading “Dominion” means dominion
Keeping it real in the market for Christmas trees
Does the prospect of choosing a Christmas tree fill you with the same environmental angst that you get when confronted with “paper or plastic”? or “cloth or disposable diapers”? Those are actually two very hard questions, mainly because there’s not a whole lot of difference in the environmental impact of the alternatives. You can think … Continue reading Keeping it real in the market for Christmas trees
Tilling and Keeping 