The Milk of Human Kindness?

As I was walking into work today I saw a dairy lorry stop outside an office building in the city centre and the delivery man got out to deliver just six small pint cartons of milk into one of the offices. Less than a minutes' walk away from that office building there is a supermarket that sells milk.

It struck me what an enormous waste of fuel, time and money this is. Imagine that delivery driver coming into the busy city centre each day with a large refrigerated lorry, adding to the congestion and pollution, to leave six pints of milk. It probably isn't the only delivery he makes in the city centre each day, but that's hardly the point. It is an unnecessary journey, so an office can make their tea and coffee without having to go all the way (50 metres max) to the supermarket to buy milk.

Surely this is precisely the kind of waste that we as a society and as a planet can no longer afford. One lorry delivering the milk to the supermarket should really be enough for all the offices around there, shouldn't it?

These are small, apparently insignificant choices we make every day that cumulatively are wrecking the environment.

For more ideas on how we can change things to "live lightly" and ethically, check out the A Rocha Living Lightly website. They are a Christian charity working "to inspire churches and individuals to get involved in caring for God's creation through a whole variety of ways and runs a number of practical conservation projects."

Planetwise

Planetwise
David Bookless
IVP, Nottingham 2008

I think David Bookless's Planetwise is an important book because it makes the case that green issues are something that Christians - and evangelical Christians in particular maybe, people who put the full-orbed biblical gospel at the centre of their lives - should be concerned about.

In the first five chapters of the book, Bookless makes the biblical and theological case that that an interest in environmental causes is not something on the periphery of the Christian faith, but actually is a central implication of the Christian gospel.

The argument runs as follows. As people who understand that the world has been created by God and is still owned by God (Psalm 24:1-2), as people who believe that God has given humanity the world to look after and steward on his behalf (Genesis 1:27-28), as people who believe that the saving purposes of God are not about rescuing us from the cosmos, but of redeeming and renewing the cosmos itself and as part of it (Genesis 9:10, John 3:16, Colossians 1:20, Revelation 21:1-3) - we need to see looking after the planet God gave us as an integral part of living as kingdom people who trust in and serve Jesus Christ as our Saviour and Lord. Too often, evangelicals have given the impression that we are about saving souls for heaven, and treating the world in any way we want since it's all going to be destroyed anyway. Such views, whether stated or merely lazily assumed are dishonouring to Christ, by whom and for whom the world was made (John 1:3, Colossians 1:16), and contrary to the truth of the gospel.

In the final four chapters of the book, Bookless draws out a number of practical implications for how we should then live out our lives as Christian disciples, stewarding the creation as God wants us to. These chapters really made me think about how I live and I have to say that since reading them, some of my behaviour has changed, even if only in little ways to begin with - like not leaving the TV on standby and only filling the kettle with what I need. Much more information and many more suggestions are available through the website of the Christian ecological charity A Rocha and its Living Lightly initiative, both of which David Bookless is heavily involved with.

Any Christian interested in green politics would benefit from the biblical and theological case put forward in Planetwise; any Christian who thinks concern for the environment is part of a liberal or even "new age" agenda needs to read this book now.