Can reading the Green Bible be a bad thing? The bible has been packaged for every imaginable demographic: from toddlers to teenagers to old folks with bad eyes to recovering addicts. So why does highlighting the environmental messages found in its pages border on blasphemy? Some in the religious community would have you think just that.
I, on the other hand, think that if you can find creative ways to get the good book into more hands, then half the battle is won.
The Green Bible is a new revised standard version of the original, and it’s clever publishing simply takes advantage of verses and passages that relate to being good stewards of the Earth. Its green features include:
- Green-Letter Edition: Verses and passages that speak to God’s care for creation highlighted in green
- A green Bible index and personal study guide
- Printed on recycled paper, using soy-based ink with a cotton/linen cover
- Green subject Index that organizes verses by topic, including air, dust and pollution
- Contributions by Brian McLaren, Matthew Sleeth, N.T. Wright, Desmond Tutu and others.
From their website they state:
The Green Bible will equip and encourage people to see God’s vision for creation and help them engage in the work of healing and sustaining it. With over 1,000 references to the earth in the Bible, compared to 490 references to heaven and 530 references to love, the Bible carries a powerful message for the earth.
I found the “1,000 references to Earth” surprising and intriguing.
What might be giving the religious right some sweaty palms are the secular groups that are squarely behind The Green Bible, including the Sierra Club and the Humane Society. The evangelical community fears that Christians who focus on the environment as their stewardship distracts them from following the Bible literally. However, in the past two years there has been a growing movement among evangelicals called Creation Care that supports the environment.
What are your thoughts? Publishers have long reworked and published Bibles to attract followers from most all demographics. Is publishing a green, environmentally friendly, and dare I say “energy efficient,” Bible a bad thing? Or does it simply invoke the most powerful voice of all asking us to get our act together now about global warming, pollution, population and our omnipresent carbon footprint?
Tags: creation care, energy efficiency, environmentalism, green bible
Posted in: Book Reviews, Consuming Green Stuff, Corporate Enviro Causes, Sustainable Marketing
Send it to the Pope ASAP. I have always wondered why the church is not taking a bigger stance on climate change because under their ideas the Earth was given to us by God, so we should respect it!
Thanks for your comment, Guillaume. This may be the beginning of a greater movement for the Earth among all denominations. Let’s hope so.
Thanks for this article. I was talking to my wife about this issue this weekend. I can’t believe that any christian would have a problem with this. After all, they are looking at picking up a whole new demographic. Their main concern (according to them) is that the message of the “Environment” will outweigh the message of “salvation.”
This is a mute point as far as I’m concerned, because caring about your environment, and bonding with nature, placing stewardship in front of “Dominion” over the earth, can only lead to a greater awareness and spirituality.
Keep up the good fight and Alter the Eco!
Adam
Dear Adam:
Amen, brother.
The problem is that many in the “green” movement are really red (communist or socialist), wanting the gov’t to control everything. They use hoaxes like “climate change” to push their authoritarian agenda.