Book Notice: Let Creation Rejoice by J. Moo and R. White

Jonathan A. Moo & Robert S. White

Let Creation Rejoice: Biblica Hope and Ecological Crisis
Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2014.
Available at Amazon.com.

I know that any talk about the environment can elicit a sway of responses ranging from a new age-esque earth worship to the other extreme of advocates for environmental vandalism. In this book, Moo and White bring sane mix of environmental science and exegetical discussion to help form a Christian view of creation and the future, or in other words, how eschatology shapes ecology. This book has some juicy parts on things like global climate change and the availability of fresh water. But t hen, there are also some great discussions on biblical eschatology, esp. Romans 3, 2 Peter 3, and Revelation.

Several lines are quotable:

Whatever else we might conclude about the details of our Christian hope, we must affirm in the light of Romans 8 that this creation, this very earth, will not be left behind.

Our casual selfishness in how we use the earth’s resources, in how we treat our global neighbors and in how we treat creation itself is revealed for what it is: an affront to God, an abrogation of the responsibility he has given us and a rejection of our identity as his children in Christ.

For 2 Peter, the final judgment of the world by fire represents an analogous – if more thorough and definitive – process of purification, renovation, and renewal.

In the gospel of Jesus Christ, we are promised a future – a future life on earth. Although we must not confuse the ultimate hope we have in Christ for what God will bring bout in the new creation with our own always insufficient attempts to reflect God’s glory in our work, let us nonetheless celebrate the foretastes of new creation that God grants us by his grace.

A great read for those interested in the interface between theology and environmental issues.