By Tom Rowley, A Rocha USA Executive Director On the heels of an Earth Day observed with growing gloom and corporate cooptation, reasons for hope abound. In recent weeks, I’ve had a slew of conversations with people caring for God’s creation right where they live. The efforts may be small, but …
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Hope for God’s Groaning World
By Ben Lowe, Evangelical Environmental Network and Young Evangelicals for Climate Action One of my favorite places in all of America is the St. Lucie River in South Florida. The St. Lucie is a wide tidal river connected to the Indian River Lagoon — the most biodiverse estuary system in the United …
Plastic Christianity
by Tom Rowley, A Rocha USA Executive Director From drink bottles to styrofoam cups to those clamshells that ironically protect organic fruits at Costco, plastic—the material so famously and presciently proclaimed as the “future” to Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate—is taking over. Consider the …
An Ethical Framework
By Tom Rowley, A Rocha USA Executive Director If you don’t know where you’re going, you’re sure to get there. When it comes to environmental conservation, that’s exactly where the world is: huge seemingly intractable problems and little consensus on how (and even whether) to address them. More …
Postcard from St Helena
By Peter Harris, co-founder of A Rocha Miranda and I recently visited our son and his family on the island of St Helena. It lies in the middle of the South Atlantic and so the only way to get there is to sail for six days from Cape Town. It was a massive privilege to undertake such an …
Raising the Blinds (with thanks to Eugene Peterson)!
By Tom Rowley, A Rocha USA Executive Director If we are to motivate people to care for the creation, it will take something more than, something different from the standard pleas of the past. “Because God said so” and “because people and planet both need it”—true as those statements are—haven’t …
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Stewardship Includes Cultivation
Last week’s look at the problems of a strict utilitarian approach to protecting creation (seeing nature merely as a resource base for humans) prompted this insightful response from my friend, Pastor Pete Santucci, which clarifies and furthers what I wrote. “I think it’s interesting that you can’t …
The Value of Nature
By Tom Rowley, A Rocha USA Executive Director The big idea behind PBS’ wonderful new series EARTH: A New Wild is that nature is lovely AND valuable. And that the key to protecting nature lies in its value. In the words of series host Dr. M. Sanjayan, the conservation movement must embrace “the …
Be Fruitful and Multiply–Everybody
By Tom Rowley, A Rocha USA Executive Director Last Wednesday, PBS launched a terrific new television series: EARTH A New Wild. Done in collaboration with Conservation International and Nature Conservancy (both of whom have partnered with A Rocha in the USA and abroad), the show focuses on the …
Small Beginnings
By Tom Rowley, A Rocha USA Executive Director Two weeks ago, I spent the day with a dozen other men—nine black, three white—discussing racism, black men and the Church. Appreciative as I was for the invitation by Leroy Barber and Kilns College, I was a bit hesitant. Privileged by society because …