Spread the Word

...observations and ramblings from a learner and traveler...

14 January 2024

2023 Reading (13th annual edition)

  The year 2023 likely equaled 2022 in being basically unprecedented in my life for breadth and extent of reading. The combination of access to a great library system with fabulous inter-library loan opportunities and taking sabbatical time gave both time and space for constant reading, especially early in the year. I have highlighted a few particular recommendations, but the only ones that I would not suggest have been clearly labeled as such. I've weeded out the ones that I didn't care to bring up.

NON-FICTION

Walking on Water by Madeleine L'Engle - Recommended to me by Andrew Peterson's Adorning the Dark, this is another beautiful reflection on godly work. Like Peterson's book it masquerades as a book on art and faith. Really all work done well seems to be a combination of 'science' and 'art'; writing, or art, is no exception. L'Engle argues that all good art is good religion, bad art is bad religion. A profound book. 

First I checked it out of the library; but about a chapter in, I bought it so that I could mark it up. I read it in parallel with Wrinkle in Time series, including Many Waters and An Acceptable Time, each of which I enjoyed for the first time.

Manana by Justo Gonzalez - a commentary and critique not only of "Western" (actually, "Northern") theology but also of its culture from through a Hispanic lens. This is an older work now but maybe even more insightful because the issues he mentions have in many cases grown clearer over time. (earlier post on the book)

Return of the Prodigal by Henri Nouwen - It'd be hard to express the impact of this book on me. It was beautifully expressive of the Good News of Jesus; it was deeply thought-provoking. When good friends give you good books as gifts, it's always best to read the... but at the right time. This one had to wait for about 4 years, and then it was the right book this past spring. 

Empire of the Summer Moon by S. C. Gwynne a book I definitely intend to complete someday, but I found out I could loan it from Turkey, so I returned it to finish later. As far as I got was riveting! I also found

Mother of Royalty: An Exposition of the Book of Ruth in the Light of the Sources by Yehoshua Bachrach - a post with my thoughts

A Call to Istanbul by Constance Padwick - This is a lovely biography of a Canadian man born and raised in the Ottoman Empire who later returned and led the work of the Bible Society in Turkey and Lebanon. I'd never heard of him, but he lived and loved many of the same places that I do. His love for all people, but especially those of Turkey, was beautiful to read about.

Becoming Brave: Finding the Courage to Pursue Racial Justice Now by Brenda Salter McNeil - I previously posted some excerpts from this, and it was a beautiful read, simple in some ways and rich in others.

The Prophecy of Isaiah by Alec Motyer - This has been a great resource as I studied in Isaiah!

Fly by Wire by William Langewiesche a quite good, but not great, book about 'the Miracle on the Hudson' as well as a consideration of a lot of different aspects of the airline business and lifestyle

A Habitual Sight of Him: The Christ-Centered Piety of Thomas Goodwin (edited by Beeke) - This was a really nice little book that is easy to use as a daily devotional (35 readings).

I'm Still Here by Austin Channing Brown, Pollution and the Death of Man by Schaeffer (previous post); The Call of the Minaret by Kenneth Cragg (previous post); The Teacher by Augustine (previous post); Birlikte Yaşam / Life Together by Bonhoeffer; 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership; Troubled by Truth by Kenneth Cragg; The Master: A Life of Jesus by John Pollock; Sacred Companions by David Benner; Jesus' Sermon on the Mount by D. A. Carson

FICTION

Shane by Jack Shaeffer - I enjoy Westerns. This one became an instant favorite. It's well-told; it's got a unique perspective. It was both gripping and left an element of mystery. 

Daddy by Loup Durand - oops, lost a library book!

Harry Potter - One of the joys of fathering is sharing the joy of reading and being shared with. My oldest daughter and I are each making our way through Hogwarts for the very first time. We're doing it together.

A Cast of Stones and sequels by Patrick Carr - I enjoyed it and will eventually re-read it. Sadly my least favorite part was probably the last chapter.

Goodbye Mr. Chip by James Hilton - When I went looking for a short novel about teaching for my Reading Skills I class, this is what I came up with. It had some challenges, but overall we enjoyed it.

Zahrah the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu

The Golden Rendevous by Alistair MacLean - How was there a book by one of my favorite older authors that I had never read?!?! Anyways, it ws typical MacLean; if you've read enough of his works, there was nothing shocking even if there was a bit of variety.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro - I couldn't love it, but it was interesting and well-written. It's just not my preferred genre.

Serpent of Moses by Don Hoese - a sequel to an interesting Christian fiction book I read years ago. Another Indiana Jones-style book...

Recommendations from years past: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011

09 December 2023

Who gets to give the gift? & Is that the answer to my prayer?!?

  Romans 1 is quite common passage to hear sermons on; this probably explains why a rather unremarkable connection that I made today seemed remarkable to me. I've heard this passage discussed so many times, but I've never seen it connected to this one part of its larger context, the preceding chapter.

  The New Testament writings are arranged in sets with the narrative portions (the 4 Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles) at the beginning, followed by Paul's letters (largely arranged in descending order of length), and then the letters and writings of the other earliest leaders of the followers of Jesus's way. Due to this arrangement, the first chapter of Romans immediately follows the last chapter of Acts. However, chronologically Romans 1 actually precedes Acts 28 by about 2-3 years.

  In Romans 1, Paul expresses his long-term desire, prayer, and intent to come to Rome to share with the Roman believers and to be shared with by them. He longingly awaits God’s will in the timing of this visit.[1]

For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you— that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. (Romans 1:9-13, ESV)

   When this passage is combined with the events leading to Paul's actual arrival in Rome, we get a beautiful, difficult, and instructive example of the interweaving of human desire and intent and request with divine design and purpose. Paul's circumstances upon arrival were certainly not the ones he would have proposed for his visit to Rome (see Romans 15).[2]

 Anyways, in the 18 verses of Acts 28 which deal with Paul’s time in Rome, we find that it was the Roman family of Christ who first encouraged Paul! Having arrived after a long-term detention, a journey as prisoner to the Emperor’s tribunal, and a shipwreck, Paul needed encouragement, and it was the Roman ‘brothers’ who provided it by coming out to meet Paul's group (Acts 28:14-15). This seems to initially reverse Paul’s major hope to serve and strengthen the Roman believers. Instead of strengthening and encouraging others, the apostle finds himself being encouraged and strengthened! This is a fabulous reminder that even a 'great spiritual leader' will often need encouragement from 'ordinary believers', even when they don't expect to need it. Paul came primarily expecting to give a spiritual gift, but when he arrived, it was he who needed to receive one. 

   These passages together also give a beautiful view of the way in which divine and human will and desire can work together. They hint again at how our prayers often are answered not by giving us our imagined answers but by giving the divinely-prompted deeper desires which lie at the root of the prayer. Thus, the path to answered prayer and walking willingly in God's will is often much more complex, difficult, and unexpected than our conscious prayers. May our prayers be Spirit-prompted and our reception of them received gladly from the hands of our loving Father.



[1] Later, in Romans 15, Paul mentions more details about his desired journey and how he plans to use a visit to Rome as a springboard for a journey to the far West (to Spain).

 In Romans 1, Paul also speaks of proclaiming the Good News to both Jews and Gentiles, those who have already believed and those who have not yet. Both of which are also dealt with in Acts 28.

 

[2] Regardless, based on his attitude toward ministry in Jerusalem (cf Acts 21:1-15), Paul probably wouldn't have changed paths even if he had known these circumstances.


10 October 2023

The Drier of Tears


    And [the Lord of hosts] will swallow up on this mountain
        the covering that is cast over all peoples,
        the veil that is spread over all nations.
    He will swallow up death forever;
    and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces,
        and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,
        for the LORD has spoken. (
Isaiah 25:7–8, ESV)

The exalted title the Sovereign LORD calls attention to the fact that in all the dignity of his divine sovereignty, it is the Lord himself who will attend to our tears, moving from person to person until each eye has been dried. On the disgrace of his people cf. Joshua 5:9 where the rite of circumcision was renewed for the Lord’s people. It symbolized that the days of covenant abeyance were over and that the ‘disgrace of Egypt’ was gone – the disgrace to the Lord’s people of living in slavery, bondage and misery. So also, as long as life in this world endures, there are innumerable ways in which the people of God are under reproach and hindered, by circumstances and sin, from living according to their true dignity. All this will be taken away. The new nature will be given full and glorious expression in an environment where everything conduces to holiness (cf. Phil. 3:20–21). Covenant promise will have become covenant reality.(Motyer, 210, Kindle) 

 ‘The Drier of Tears’, of course, brings the Psalmist’s bottled tears to mind as well as the more well-known reflections of this passage in John’s Revelation. Imagine a loving parent as they comfort a child and wipe away the tears of their hurt child. They do not deny the pain, but they comfort and enter into it. They encourage the child with reasons that things will end okay and that the pain will not conquer. This Sovereign’s attentions are not the ‘be tough’ shushing of an impatient or distant parent to a child genuinely in pain, nor does the Sovereign unnecessarily comfort an emotional or manipulative outburst. 

 Instead the image given here is the Sovereign Lord squatting down before each child taking them in turn and re-opening all those bottled tears which have been stored up, not to re-live the pain but to engage its reality with empathy and bring resolution and full healing. Waiting with each tear till it has been dried, the Sovereign Lord stills and heals the heartbreak of all of His own: each loss, each grief, each pain, each betrayal, every agony of birthing, all the reproach which has been heaped on the child publicly or privately whether by themselves or others, each unfulfilled longing, every scarcely understandable cry of rage, each pang of guilt and insufficiency, every moment of teeth-gritting or of grinning-and-bearing-it, all the despair and disillusionment, in short, all the groaning and mourning and suffering which had been brought on by the curses in this cosmos. All of these heartcries will be engaged, even authenticated, and defanged by the One who values what may have, until that moment, been unseen and unacknowledged by any other in the universe. 

  Within this context, the sorrows of judgment must be mentioned; the tears which were mourned in the Lord’s comprehensive judgment of chapter 24 will also be dried. This One pauses for each tear till the heart that has held it is clear, the eye that it trickled from is dried. At that moment, nothing will be more important than these hurts and this healing. This is a key piece of the great salvation, and it will not be denied! Isaiah insists upon this point (Isa 30:19; 35:10; 51:11; 65:19). May hope in the Drier of Tears, who is also the Remove of Reproach, steady our hearts.

NOTE: There is no destruction of the human emotional capacity here; this is a making well of heartache. In the context (notice Isaiah 26), there is a full range of emotions during and following the ‘healing of sorrows.’ This is about healing and wellness, not simply or superficially about tears; tears are foregrounded as the powerful symbol summarizing the need for comprehensive healing. So, it is about tears; they are vitally important, but they are not ultimate, they will pass at the right time.

19 July 2023

my first visit to İznik (ancient Nicaea)

 A few short days after we returned to Istanbul, we slipped away to be with dear friends - the sort you gladly do holidays and vacations with - whom we hadn't seen for a year or two. A friend of a friend offered us all a place to stay in İznik, ancient Nicaea, a city our family'd never been to before. Actually we realized it's been years since our family has visited a new province in Türkiye, so I guess it was about time for that too. This was a great choice!

 One of the most interesting features of Iznik is the lake, which has a sunken basilica in it, which may be where one of the two Councils of Nicaea were held, although they seem a bit small, so it seems unlikely. Anyways, the underwater basilica is worth a look: article here, and I've linked a picture from it. Naturally when we went swimming, we swam over to it though you can't actually swim among it, of course.

 

 Below are some additional pictures that you may enjoy from Iznik; it was a lovely, friendly setting with traditional pottery still being produced, olive groves surrounding our house, and delicious food to supplement the history. There were lots of jokes about retiring their someday.

Storks nesting on a mosque


Seeing the old inner walls

A vine-covered portal in the city wall

the Iznik city wall (inner wall to the right, outer wall on the left hidden by greenery)


items in the museum - glass bowls, a diadem, a clay lamp, jewelry, etc

This inscription (translation in the next picture) looks like it has hearts bracketing the text. Despite the appearance, they seem more likely to be leaves. 


According to the notes, this mini-sarchophagus (ostotek) held the ashes of a cremated person, which is odd since it is clearly marked with a cross, and I have not heard of any Christian tradition that supports cremation, (although a solid biblical basis for this eludes me).

The Iznik Hagia Sofia (Ayasofia) from the outside. (Like that of Istanbul, this building housed a church, became a mosque, then a museum, and is now a mosque again.)

According to the imam who shared some of the building's history, this was the spot where kings were crowned during one period.

The main interior of the Hagia Sofia

remains of frescos in Iznik's Hagia Sofia


fresco in the Iznik Aya Sofia

29 June 2023

Real Unity and Humility

So unique and so God-like a thing is real unity on earth, absolute disinterested agreement in heart and motive, that its occurrence is not, and cannot be, anything short of the presence of God Himself. We know the agreement of the Triune God: earthly agreement is its manifestation.

This, then, cuts at the root of all envy, jealousy, petty irritation, personal dislike, contempt, conceit, self-assertiveness.

It is often more a sign of grace and love and humility to say "Amen" to another's prayers than to lead in prayer oneself.

~ Temple Gairdner (cited in Temple Gairdner of Cairo by Constance Padwick, pg 126-127)

 

 

24 June 2023

Change that Matters

 Addressing systemic injustice will look different in each specific context. But change that truly matters will always manifest as tangible acts of justice that help people and communities thrive and flourish. This will require working together with people in your local communities who are being adversely affected by unjust systems and structures. Those people are the experts on what issues need to be addressed and what would really solve the problem. 

~ Brenda Salter McNeil, Becoming Brave, pg 190.

The promise and the paradox of the resurrection is that if you lose your life for the sake of the reconciling work of the gospel, you will find it. I can't promise that it will always be easy. I can't promise that you will be victorious in your pursuits on this side of heaven. But I can promise that God will bring life out of what you lose and will ultimately restore all things. There is much to be hoped for, despite the inevitable setbacks. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope." (192)

  Having finished the above book now, I'd recommend it for those who believe in reconciliation and justice as a key part of the work of God on the earth today. And, I suppose that if you don't believe in that, I'd recommend the book anyways since it presents compelling reasons why Christ-followers should. 



21 June 2023

Yesterday's Trip: A saga

  Tonight, we are staying in a hotel in Kansas City that we were supposed to stay in last night, until our alternator quit - intermittently, apparently. The hotel kindly adjusted our reservation in spite of the 'nonrefundable', 'nonchangeable' nature of the reservation. But that was not the first little kindness that we had been shown yesterday. 

 We left Chattanooga (after a kind friend made us an early breakfast!) intent on making it 10+ hours to KC yesterday. A few miles outside the little-known town of Monteagle, TN - one hour from our starting point, 9 from our destination - the red battery light came on. We stopped and were helped with an urgent and quick battery change and alternator test by the professionals at Monteagle Tire and Auto Service. Auto shops appear to have an extra gear when helping stranded travelers. We were on our way again.

 Two-plus hours later, having escaped a strange cluster of traffic in Nashville, as we approached Pleasant View, TN, the crimson light reappeared. Once again, we made an urgent pitstop at an autoshop, Auto Service of Pleasant View. Here the mechanic again checked things out and recommended that we go on to the dealership where they could better identify our exact problem and should have the parts to fix it. He was not only quick and thorough, but he was also willing to get soaked in a cloudburst, and he would not accept payment for his time. More kindness.

 The dealership was about 20 miles away, and the mechanic believed we would make it but gave some instructions in case we couldn't. These gave me a sense of what to expect 'in case of emergency.' Unfortunately, that 'sense' was needed. About 5 miles farther along, the Pilot started choking to death. Thankfully an exit appeared right ahead, and so I headed for it slowly. The exit appeared to exist solely for the sake of an empty road, an abandoned gas station, and an extant gas station. We choked our way to the extant gas station, parked, and shut off the vehicle. Then it was time to ponder. As I normally do with any vehicle problems, I called my dad. He advised that getting a new battery might be cheaper than getting a tow. But the gas station lacked new batteries.

 However, as I came out of the door, I saw a tow truck idling by the road in the gas station parking lot. Lest it escape, I jogged over and started asking questions to the driver. (Typically, I refrain from random jogging in public and from talking to strangers, even when in distress; however, this seemed like a perfect time for exceptions.) 

  Since he was already there, the driver arranged with dispatch to get us to the dealership for about a quarter of what I expected to be charged for a tow ($60!), saving us not only money but also time. He loaded up the Pilot, and we all piled into the passenger side of his cab, and we were off. 

Pilot on tow truck

  At the Honda dealership, the outlook was bleak... "It'll be a while till they can do the 1-2 hour check of the battery, alternator, and starter." "We'll call you eventually." "We may not even have that part in stock; and if we don't, it could be a day or two." Oh, and it's still rainy.

 However, since they were also trying to sell new vehicles in this location, there were amenities. A playground for children... a coffee and cocoa dispenser... clean restrooms... comfy chairs... and a kids movie playing in a nearly-soundproof glass room. So, while the diagnosis took several hours to be given, our physical distress was quite minimal - basically involving trying not to get wet on the playground. 

 Anyways, the diagnosis was rather pricey; the alternator failed; the BRAND NEW battery failed (!?!?!); some gasket-y thing should be replaced since it probably leaked onto the alternator and caused the failure. On the up side, the next new battery would include a ten-year warranty... but I'm selling the vehicle to a friend in 2 weeks. So we compromised. The gasket-y thing would have to wait till Denver. They were authorized to change the other two, but that wouldn't start till today. However, they start work at 7AM, so before 8AM, I'd gotten a call that all was now well. 

 When I went to pick it up, I found out that they had also tried recharging the battery. It was okay after all. So, no ten-year warranty, and the price was better. Saga/adventure over.

 We let the kids swim a bit longer in the hotel pool, and we headed out, arriving in KC a day late but thankful to be here.

Points of thanks to the Lord:

- We didn't break down on the highway itself!

- A tow truck was waiting for us at the gas station we made it to. (The driver said we were lucky some lady needed to be pulled out of a ditch near there.)

- The parts were available. 

- The supposedly dead battery came back to life.

- The hotel rescheduling our reservation so easily.


BONUS: The Honda dealership shuttled us to and from the hotel we stayed at last night. When I got into the car this morning, it started acting up. The driver told me that it had worked perfectly until I got in and that I might consider myself a 'black cat'. We barely made it back to the dealership with the shuttle car's engine light on and it coughing and spluttering along at less than 15 mph.

Random observation: Upon learning of our situation, three different people mentioned 'hotel with a pool'. Apparently, there is a well-recognized truth that 'when traveling with children, a pool can rectify nearly any situation.'

Justice, Storytelling, and a tiny fraction of God's magnificent enterprise

I recently heard Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil speak and was deeply challenged by her message. So, I decided to read her book Becoming Brave: Finding the Courage to Pursue Racial Justice Now. (Check your library or bookstore!) In it, she chronicles parts of her own journey in pursuing not only reconciliation but also justice, and she interacts with the biblical narrative of Esther. It's not a simple book to summarize, so I'm not going to try. 

However, what I have probably appreciated most about it is that she discusses justice across great swaths of humanity, not just one or two selective groups or 'races'. She is concerned with those you might expect and with those you might not. Here are two small excerpts that I want to share from her book, one of which is actually from someone she quotes.

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long​ ​view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they​ ​hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further​ ​development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our​ ​capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of​ ​liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

(by Ken Untener)

THE STORY a person tells about other people really​ ​matters. I've learned to be much more careful and conscious of the stories being told to me about others. I pay attention to who is telling the story and their purpose in telling it. I also know that where someone begins the story shapes the overall narrative being told. (Pg105, emphasis added)

After the second quote, she tells the story of Haiti’s independence and how other nations ostracized it out of fear and greed. If you're not familiar with the story, you can get an introduction here: Investigating Haiti's 'Double Debt'.








18 May 2023

Cragg's 'Call of the Minaret'

  Early in his classic work, The Call of the Minaret, Kenneth Craig surveys Islam at the current time; I am reading in the third edition published in 2000. In the first section, as he recounts different aspects of the Islamic (and Muslim) encounter with modernity, his thoughts - in many ways - apply to more than just Islam. They speak to the larger encounter of religion with the technological age. (All emphasis added to the quotes below.)

"For these [who see the Shari'ah and tradition as unchanging] there is no option between chronic permissiveness and the strictest literalism. Nor is this simply a male verdit or an authoritarian tyranny. Secreted in the home and behind the veil, Muslim womanhood finds no immolation or feminist restlessness, but devoted fulfillment of authentic Islam in a role positively undertaken. Sociologists may explain the phenomenon as they will. Religion has as great a capacity to resist modernity as to survive it. Only the opinionated would identify which is the truer Islam." (pg 17)

"There are those who cannot find the ancient reality in the new thoughts, others who cannot identify the ancient reality without them. In the strange but indispensable interaction of the faith and the faithful, the structure of belief and the participant believer, Islam and the Muslim, change is absorbed and continuity attained. That it is so is the genius of the partnership." (pg 26)

"Certainly a monotheism so tremendous as that of Muhammed and Islam is through and through a divine-human encounter. As such we must strive to know it. Whenever we study or confess doctrines of God we proceed upon parallel affirmations about humanity. So inseparable are the two realms that every theology is inevitably also a view of the human." (pg 38) 

  This book came highly recommended to me through the classes on Islam and Christianity that I have taken in the last couple years, and indeed this has the same sort of caring insight that Cragg is known for, being himself Christian but an accepted scholar of Islam. (previous post)

'Pollution and the Death of Man' - an odd title for a helpful book

  Books that speak to the real issues of humanity have a way of enduring. About 2 years ago when I posted 'Wasteful Wardens of the Planet', one of you readers suggested 'Pollution and the Death of Man: The Christian View of Ecology' by Francis Schaeffer. Excepting the appendix, his words fill only about 80 pages and were published in 1970 with deep concern for both the destructive human habits towards our world and the lack of a biblical mindset on the topic by those who claim the Bible as their guide. The book can still be read with benefit as a valuable guide to where we're [still] at, where we should be at, and where others are [still] at around us. Schaeffer, as normal, is gracious, perceptive, and unafraid to say when he believes others are more biblical in their thoughts or actions than Bible-claimers are.

 Below I just want so share some of the quotations that I found thought-provoking although these quotations won't form a full comment on the book. (Bold emphasis added; italics original.)

Psychologically I ought to "feel" a relationship to the tree as my fellow creature ... we should realize, and train people in our churches to realize, that on the side of creation  and on the side of God's infinity and our finiteness-we really are one with the tree. (pg 54)

So the Christian treats "things" with integrity because we do not believe they are autonomous. (pg 54)

God makes a promise here [in Genesis 9] that embodies  all creation. God is interested in creation. He does not despise it. There is no reason whatsoever, and it is absolutely false biblically, for the Christian to have a platonic view of nature. What God has made, I, who am also a creature, must not despise. (pg 61)

[Citing Romans 8], The blood of the Lamb will redeem man and nature together, as it did in Egypt at the time of the Passover, when the blood applied to the door-posts saved not only the sons of the Hebrews, but also their animals. 

It is interesting that almost the whole "curse" in Genesis 3 is centered upon the outward manifestations. It is the earth that is going to be cursed for man's sake. It is the woman's body that is involved in the greatly multiplied conception and pain in childbirth. (pg 67)

On the basis of the fact that there is going to be total redemption in the future, not only of man but of all creation, the Christian who believes the Bible should be the man who -with God's help and in the power of the Holy Spirit- is treating nature now in the direction of the way nature will be then. (68-69)

Killing of animals for food is one thing, but on the other hand they do not exist simply as things to be slaughtered. ... Many men fish and leave their victims to rot and stink. But what about the fish? Has he no rights -not to be romanticized as though he were a man- but real rights? On the one hand it is wrong to treat the fish as though it were a human baby; on the other hand, neither is it merely a chip of wood

It is always true that if you treat the land properly, you have to make two choices. The first is in the area of economics. It costs more money, at least at first, to treat the land well. ... The second choice involved is that it usually takes longer to treat the land properly. And these are the two factors that lead to the destruction of our environment: money and time- or to say it another way, greed and haste.

[Regarding certain people's explicit call to pantheistic belief as an aid to ecological responsibility,] Pantheism gives you an answer for unity, but it gives no meaning to the diversity. (pg 30) [This philosophical question of unity and diversity is also important in his discussion of the Trinity elsewhere.]