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?
