In a Sunday School class of some 30 adults, Hope College theologian, Steven Bouma-Prediger asked, “How many of you in the last year have heard a sermon about stewardship?” Several had, but only in the context of financial stewardship, not how we care for creation.
This experiences was one of several that motivated Bouma-Prediger to write a book laying out a Christian vision for creation care. Many churches won’t talk about our responsibility to steward creation because they don’t have the Biblical, theological, and ethical resources to understand why we should should even be having the conversation. That is where the real value of For the Beauty of the Earth is found. The science in it may have changed since the second edition was published in 2010, but Bouma-Prediger’s classic text remains one of the best resources to help the church understand Biblically, theologically, and ethically why creation care matters.
You can get a taste for the book in the three-part blog series Drew wrote (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) featuring ten arguments Bouma-Prediger outlines for why we should take our stewardship of creation seriously.
