Charles Scribner: Riverkeeper

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This edition of our “Why I care about the environment” series is by Charles Scribner, an Anglican living in Birmingham (Alabama, not England).

Charles is a member of the Cathedral Church of the Advent, which he represents on the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama’s Task Force for the Stewardship of Creation. Charles is also executive director of Black Warrior Riverkeeper, a nonprofit organisation dedicated to improving water quality, habitat, recreation, and public health throughout the Black Warrior River watershed.

In this piece, he reflects on his Christian faith and how it informs his care for creation: Charles Scribner Why I Care

This piece is one of a series entitled ‘Why I care about….’ in which Christian experts write about what motivates them to care about their particular area of concern, and how their Christian faith informs that passion. We hope that these deliberately short essays will be used for personal reflection, small group discussion, reproduced in church magazines and used in church services. Please feel free to share them with your friends, colleagues and congregations; we simply ask that you quote and attribute them fully. If you want to reprint this reflection and would find a Word version helpful, please email us. 

Dennis Milanzi: Reversing the ‘groaning of creation’

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The environment is the first thing that God created in the creation story. And caring for the environment is the core responsibility given to humanity. According to Genesis (1:28, 2:15), Adam and Eve were given two responsibilities: to develop well and be productive themselves, and to manage the world so that it also would develop well and be productive.

The Reverend Dennis Milanzi is Director of the Kachere Development Programme, the official Social Development arm of the Anglican Diocese of Eastern Zambia. This piece shares the biblical grounds for his concern for the environment,  the particular natural resource challenges that his region faces, the way that the Kachere Development Programme is helping communities to respond, his reasons for hope, and what he’d like to see Christians around the world doing to “reverse ‘the groaning of creation’ caused by lack of good stewardship of God’s good creation.”

Download the pdf here: Dennis Milanzi Why I care about the environment.

Photograph: The Reverend Dennis Milanzi with children in Chipungo, Eastern Zambia, ©Elizabeth Perry

 

This piece is one of a series entitled ‘Why I care about….’ in which Christian experts write about what motivates them to care about their particular area of concern, and how their Christian faith informs that passion. We hope that these deliberately short essays will be used for personal reflection, small group discussion, reproduced in church magazines and used in church services. Please feel free to share them with your friends, colleagues and congregations; we simply ask that you quote and attribute them fully. If you want to reprint this reflection and would find a Word version helpful, please email us. 

Margot Hodson: Why I Care about the Environment

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“Today, we are in the midst of major biodiversity loss and extinction. There is an accelerating pace of deforestation worldwide. Exposed hillsides are vulnerable to subsidence and in tropical areas, the soils are quickly degraded. In many places, denuded scrub and landslips have replaced fertile forests. In addition, the impact of climate change is catapulting every creature on Earth into an unknown and unpredictable future. Is there any hope?”

This is the question posed by theologian Margot Hodson in her reflection “Why I care about the environment” (download here). In response to the question, Margot introduces the concept of “robust hope,” a hope that grows from suffering and perseverance, that can endure, and that “brings the ultimate hope of restored harmony of creation into the present.” Read the reflection to find out more …


This piece is one of a series entitled ‘Why I care about….’ in which Christian experts write about what motivates them to care about their particular area of concern, and how their Christian faith informs that passion. We hope that these deliberately short essays will be used for personal reflection, small group discussion, reproduced in church magazines and used in church services. Please feel free to share them with your friends, colleagues and congregations; we simply ask that you quote and attribute them fully. If you want to reprint this reflection and would find a Word version helpful, please email us.