Saving God’s Green Earth book review
by Don Bosch, The Evangelical Ecologist (www.evaneco.com)

Finished reading Saving God’s Green Earth last night. I have to admit I’m a little jealous, in a Christiany-sort-of-way (if there is such a thing). This is the book I would write if I were to write a book about Christian ecology. He flat beat me to it and did a much better job of it than I ever could. I’m glad it’s going to be out there soon. And when it hits the streets in April, you need a track down a copy.

You won’t find a lot of obtuse thinking in its 160-some pages. Francis Schaeffer already approached Christian ecology from a christo-philosophical perspective. EEN and others have tried to reach it from a purely theological perspective, a task that I think causes some to stretch biblical pants over an agenda-driven waistline.

Pastor Tri Robinson’s bias, on the other hand, is for the pragmatic.

Plenty of churches have talked about the importance of the environment, but few have rolled up their sleeves and gone to work in the way that’s necessary for conservation and renewal to occur. My prayer is that you will see this as a new way for Christians to live—and you will see how a new attitude in this area can save God’s green earth in which we live … in more ways than one.

Each chapter is a parable of sorts; simply told with deep impact. Pastor Robinson’s own testimony of faith down the Roman Road is a recurring theme in chapters called “Rediscovering Environmental Stewardship,” “Finding the Creator in His Creation,” “How Faith and Environment Merge,” and a chapter that summarizes the Church’s ecological generation gap, “The Great Omission.”

There are many people who talk about caring for the environment but are actually doing very little about it—so-called “environmentalists” included. I don’t think you can proclaim something without doing something about it. The church has garnered a reputation for such inconsistent behavior, and we must begin to reverse that trend.

At the end of most chapters, he profiles a present-day Who’s Who of leaders in the Creation Care movement. Dennis Mansfield, Cal DeWitt, Ed Bron, Peter Illyn, Paul Rothrock and Jeff Greenberg each get a seat in his interview chair. Until now I tended to view all these guys and their organizations independently of one other, perhaps even duplicating each another. Having them all in one place and set in the context of a particular aspect of Christian environmental stewardship was extremely helpful, and it’s definitely one of the highlights of the book.

The tone is great. Saving God’s Green Earth will appeal to pastors and ministry leaders across ideological lines. The book manages to be ecumenical, applicable to all Christian faiths, but doesn’t fall into the trap of being pluralistic.