The programme
is organised by a series of modules grouped into four sets:
SET 1:
GROUNDING IN FAITH
Module 1:
Ecological audit - this helps churches to identify what they are
already doing to help the environment and what more they could
do. It begins by asking the church to assess what activities are
taking place in each of the five Marks of Mission categories and
whether sufficient weight is given to the fifth Mark (To strive
to safeguard the integrity of creation; to sustain and renew the
life of the earth). It reminds us that a church with a holistic
mission has activities relating to each of the Five Marks
Module 2:
Celebrating Creation - ideas for worship
Module 3:
Creation and Christianity – theological perspectives
SET 2:
GROWING IN FAITH
Module 4:
Acorns to oaks – ideas for children’s work
Module 5:
Tread gently, go green – ideas for youth groups
Module 6:
Exploring God’s green word – Bible study
SET 3:
MANAGING IN FAITH
Module 7:
Greening the Cornerstone – caring for church premises
Module 8:
Greening the purse strings - finance
Module 9:
Planting and Conserving Eden – caring for church grounds
SET 4: LIVING
IN FAITH
Module 10:
Green Choices – personal lifestyles
Module 11:
Community matters – projects with the local community
Module 12:
Global neighbours – worldwide focus
The modules
are resources for guidance only. Each church is free to use
them, adapt them or create their own. To gain the award there
needs to have been progress in three areas:
Worship
and teaching
Practical
action with church buildings land and church management
Outreach
to the local and global community
Contact: Jo
Rathbone, Eco-congregation, The Arthur Rank Centre, Stoneleigh
Park, Warwickshire, CV8 2LZ
Tel: 024 7685 3061
Environmental awareness
is taught throughout the school - for example:
at age 5
“pupils should be taught what improves and harms their
environments and about some of the ways people look after them”
(KS1 Citizenship). Between 5 and 11 children should learn
“knowledge and understanding of environmental change and
sustainable development” as a key theme of geography at KS2.
And renewable energy is a specific requirement for KS3 Science.
And so on! Sustainable development is also included in the
values, aims and purposes of the National Curriculum. For
fuller information on the curriculum and sustainable development
please see
www.teachernet.gov.uk/sustainableschools
Somerset
Waste Action Partnership (SWAP),
based at Carymoor Environmental Centre, has visited 95% Somerset
schools with innovative workshops, including this year new
projects on energy. See their new website
www.recyclesomerset.info – look under education.
For
information on 'sustainable scrap science' contact: Ben
Hartshorn, Coordinator for the
Somerset GLEN (Global Learning
Education Network, funded by DfID). , or , project coordinator in India
Meare Village Primary School
has an exemplar sustainable education project with DfES,
WWF and Global Learning Communities, and has invited all
Somerset schools to work with them as partners
Other
resources
for schools are available from:
The
Environment Agency, Friends of the Earth, The Centre for
Sustainable Energy, DTI. British Gas, Global Footprints, and
others.
See Paper 17
for contact details.
STUDY
CENTRES
Carymoor
Environmental Centre is an
educational, information and research centre on a landfill site
near Castle Cary. Visitors are welcome and courses are run for
adults and for children to tie in with the National Curriculum.
One of the books that kick-started
the green movement.
Horace Dammers, Life Style:
A Parable of Sharing, 1982, Turnstone
An essential concept.
Julia Hailes, The New Green
Consumer Guide, 2007, Simon & Schuster
Information, ideas, the problems
and what you can do.
Rob Hopkins, The Transition
Handbook 2008 (reprint) Green Books Ltd, Foxhole,
Dartington, Totnes, Devon TQ9 6EB
One result of taking climate
change and peak oil seriously is transition communities. This
book has come from the transition movement and is a guide to how
to move it forward in your area.
George Monbiot, Heat,
2006,Penguin
Witty, incisive, loaded with facts
and sharp argument.
Anita Roddick, Take it
Personally, 2001,HarperCollins
E.F.Schumacher, Small is
Beautiful: Politics as if People Matter 1974,
Sphere
Seminal book, presents an
alternative paradigm.
Andrew Sims and Joe Smith (Eds),
Do Good Lives Have to Cost the Earth? 2008,
Constable.
The answer, of course, is No. A
galaxy of writers, including Rosie Boycott, Oliver James, Philip
Pullman, Ann Pettifor and Colin Tudge, explain why not.
Mark Watson, Crap at the
Environment, 2008,Hodder & Stoughton
Hugely entertaining.
David Suzuki, The Sacred
Balance: Rediscovering our Place in Nature, Greystone
books: Douglas & McIntyre
ISBN 780898868975
John V. Taylor, Enough is
Enough, 1975, SCM
From the one time General
Secretary of CMS, Bishop of Winchester and Chair of the C of E
Doctrine Commission, a succinct and passionate argument.
Gabrielle Walker & David King, The Hot Topic , 2008,Bloomsbury
David King was formerly scientific
adviser to the government. Some of this is what he couldn't say
while he was a civil servant.
Environmental Ethics
Robin Attfield,
Environmental Ethics. 2003. Polity Press. ISBN
0-7456-2738-2, 232 pp. An update of Attfields earlier (1983)
classic text, and now the standard text. Written by a
philosopher for philosophers, but at least British (and hence
written in UK English). Its an excellent coverage of the
ground, written with half an eye to the author’s own Christian
background.
J. Baird Callicott, In
defence of the land ethic. 1989. State University of
New York Press. ISBN 0-88706-899-5. 325 pp.
A representative of the American
academic environmental ethics literature. There are other books
of essays by the same author, and these can act as a starting
point to explore a whole literature.
Celia Deane-Drummond, The
Ethics of Nature, 2004, Blackwell
A concise introduction to the
field, that argues for the development of wisdom.
John S. Dryzek, The politics
of the earth. 1997 Oxford University Press. ISBN
0-19-878160-1, 220 pp.
A superb text, written from the
standpoint of the academic study of poltics. Other books by
Dryzek are also very stimulating.
Michael Northcott, A Moral
Climate: the Ethics of Climate Change 2007 D.L.T.
Michael S. Northcott, The
environment and Christian Ethics. 1996. ISBN
0-521-57631-8. 379 pp.
A good solid theological survey of
the material.
Philip W. Sutton, Nature,
environment and society. 2004. Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN
0-333-99568-6. 216 pp.
Sociology learns about the
environment. Contains much that is challenging and interesting,
but you have to cope with the sociological language.
John Walker, Environmental
Ethics. 2000 Hodder and Stoughton. Access to Philosophy
series. ISBN 0-340-75770-1, 124pp.
Written for A level Philosophy
students, it’s a good coverage of the issues from a
non-religious viewpoint.
Green Christianity
Sharing God's Planet:
a Christian Vision for a
Sustainable Future, 2005, Church House
Publishing.
With a foreword by Rowan Williams,
endorsed by General Synod, this report of the Mission and Public
Affairs Council is a basic resource for church study.
(Ed) R.J. Berry,
Environmental Stewardship, 2006, T & T Clark
Dave Bookless, Planetwise,
2008, Inter-Varsity
From the British Director of A
Rocha.
Ian Bradley, God is Green:
Christianity and the Environment, 1990, DLT
Elizabeth Breuilly and Martin
Palmer (Eds), Christianity and Ecology, Cassell
ISBN 780304323746
Tim Cooper,Green
Christianity: Caring for the Whole Creation,
1990, Hodder
For many years Tim Cooper was
Chair of Christian Ecology Link.
Celia Deane-Drummond, Gaia
and Green Ethics: Implications of Ecological Theology,
1993, Grove Books, Cambridge
Edward Echlin,The Christian
Green Heritage: World as Creation,1989,
Grove Books, Cambridge
Roger S Gottlieb, A Greener
Faith, 2006, OUP
Bob Goudzwaard, Mark Vennen &
DavidVan Heemst , Hope in Troubled Times,2007, Baker Academic
Martin and Margot Hodson,
Cherishing the Earth: How to Care for God's Creation,
2008, Monarch, ISBN 978 1 83424 841 1
James Jones, Jesus and the
Earth, SPCK, ISBN 0 281 405623 4
From the Bishop of Liverpool.
Sean McDonagh, To Care for
the Earth: a call to a new theology, 1986,
Geoffrey Chapman
Bill McKibben, The
Comforting Whirlwind, Wm.B. Eerdmans ISBN 9780802804990
Alison Morgan, The Wild
Gospel: Bringing Truth to Life, 2004,
Monarch
Chris Park: Caring for
Creation, Marshall/Pickering
ISBN 0 551 02275 2
Ghillean Prance, The Earth
Under Threat: A Christian Perspective, 1996, Wild
Goose Publications
From a former Director of Kew
Gardens
Colin A. Russell, Saving
Planet Earth: A Christian Perspective, 2008,
Authentic
J. Matthew Sleeth, Serve
God, Save the Planet, 2007, Zondervan
Nick Spencer & Robert White, Christianity, Climate Change & Sustainable Living2007, SPCK ISBN 978 0 281 05833 4
Sarah Tillett (Ed), Caring
for Creation: Biblical and Theological Perspectives2005,Bible Reading Fellowship
Published BRF for A Rocha, this
collection of short reflective pieces includes contributions by
John Houghton, Eugene Petersen, Christopher Wright and R.J.
Berry, among many others.
Jim Wallis,
Seven Ways to Change the World,
2008, Lion Hudson
Wallis is the Founder of
Sojourners and an American political activist with Evangelical
roots.
Weaver and Hodson (Eds), The
Place of Environmental Theology, from John Ray
Initiative Office
admin@jri.org.uk
Theology
For a further exploration of the
theological issues involved the following might be
helpful:
Ian Barbour, Nature, Human
Nature and God, 2002, SPCK
A clear overview of the arguments
and the issues.
Richard Bauckham & Trevor Hart, Hope Against Hope: Christian Eschatology in
Contemporary Context , 1999, DLT
An accessible and broad look at
the nature of hope.
Celia Deane-Drummond,
Creation Through Wisdom: Theology and the New Biology,
2000, T&T Clark
Argues particularly for the value
of drawing on Eastern Orthodox theology.
Celia Deane-Drummond, Wonder
and Wisdom: Conversations in Science, Spirituality
and Theology, 2006, D.L.T.
Celia Deane-Drummond, A
handbook in theology and ecology. 1996. SCM Press.
ISNB 0-334-02634-2. 178 pp.
A good basic text.
T. Fretheim, God and World
in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of
Creation 2005, Abingdon Press, US
Ivone Gebara, Longing
for Running Water (Biblical Reflections on Ministry),
1999,Augsburg
Fortress
T.J.Gorringe,The Education
of Desire: Towards a Theology of the Senses,
2001, SCM
Theological lectures on an issue
which is crucial to facing the challenge of consumerism.
Dieter T. Hessel and Rosemary
Radford Ruether, editors, Christianity and Ecology.
2000. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-945452-20-1, 720 pp.
A real theological heavyweight,
but full of lost of interesting things to explore.
Willis Jenkins, Ecologies of
Grace: Environmental Ethics and Christian Theology,
2008, OUP
An analysis of various approaches
to environmental ethics and how theology, drawing particularly
on Thomas Aquinas, Barth and Bulgakov, can make a crucial
contribution.
Sallie McFague, Super,
Natural Christians. 1997. SCM Press, ISBN
0-334-02700-4. 207 pp.
A book that proposes a very
persuasive Christian theology of the environment.
Jurgen Moltmann, Science and
Wisdom, 2003, SCM
Collected essays.
Jurgen Moltmann, God in
Creation: An Ecological Doctrine of Creation,
1985, SCM
The Gifford Lectures 1984-5
George L. Murphy, The Cosmos
in the Light of the Cross, 2004, Continuum
Ruth Page, God and the Web
of Creation. 1996. SCM Press ISBN 0-334-02653-9, 188
pp. Superbly done.
Rosemary Radford Ruether,
Gaia and God. 1992. SCM Press ISBN 0-334-00529-9.
310- pp. A starting point for the whole of the ecofeminist
literature, that is at once challenging, and infuriating. This
is a superb book. Look out for other books by the same author.
Weaver and Hodson (Eds), The
Place of Environmental Theology, from John Ray
Initiative Office
admin@jri.org.uk
Spirituality
Mary Low, Cherish the Earth,
2003, Wild Goose Publications
A collection from various sources
of stimulating, encouraging and thought provoking readings.
Philip Newell, The Book of
Creation, 1999, Canterbury Press
Philip J Newell, Listening
for the Heartbeat of God, 1997, SPCK
Sara Maitland, Awesome God:
Creation, Commitment and Joy, 2002, SPCK
Alison Morgan, Praying with
Creation, 2006, Resource
