Earthkeeping and Character: Exploring a Christian Ecological Virtue Ethic - Paperback

by Steven Bouma-Prediger (Author)

Addressing a topic of growing and vital concern, this book asks us to reconsider how we think about the natural world and our place in it. Steven Bouma-Prediger brings ecotheology into conversation with the emerging field of environmental virtue ethics, exploring the character traits and virtues required for Christians to be responsible keepers of the earth and to flourish in the challenging decades to come. He shows how virtue ethics can enrich Christian environmentalism, helping readers think and act in ways that rightly value creation.

Back Jacket

"Philosophically astute, ecologically attuned, and biblically profound"

"'What we do depends on who we are' is the thoughtful theme of this wonderfully refreshing book with an illuminating biblical focus on earthkeeping. Inviting us to the pulsing heart of caring for, serving, and keeping the entire biosphere, Bouma-Prediger helps us reframe our ecological ethics by centering on the virtues of wonder and humility, self-control and wisdom, justice and love, and courage and hope. He thus invites us to develop and nurture personal character to make earthkeeping integral to Christian faith."
--Calvin B. DeWitt, University of Wisconsin-Madison; author of Earthwise and "Earth Stewardship and Laudato Si'"

"In the face of catastrophic environmental calamities threatening the earth's capacity to sustain life for all, Bouma-Prediger turns our attention within, to fundamental questions of character and virtue. We need this. So does God's creation."
--Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, author of Future Faith; general secretary emeritus, Reformed Church in America

"This book cements Bouma-Prediger's reputation as one of our best thinkers and writers on the most important issue facing Christians today: how we relate to God's creation and care for it well in a time of profound crisis. This important book will now be required reading in my environmental ethics courses."
--Jonathan A. Moo, Whitworth University

"Bouma-Prediger's groundbreaking For the Beauty of the Earth woke me up to Christ's call to care for the earth. One might struggle to imagine how he could top that prophetic book. He has done it. This book will change the way we think about discipleship. And it will change the way we think about how a discipled people can transform the world."
--A. J. Swoboda, author of Subversive Sabbath

"Bouma-Prediger continues to establish himself as a significant, creative voice in Christian earthkeeping. As my students wrestle with the complexities and bleakness of the ecological crisis, they often ask, 'What can we do?' This book highlights the centrality of being for Christian discipleship."
--Daniel L. Brunner, Portland Seminary

"Bouma-Prediger can only write about the shaping of ecological virtues because his own life is such a brilliant testimony to the character of an earthkeeper. He has gifted us with a philosophically astute, ecologically attuned, and biblically profound meditation on ecological virtue."
--Brian Walsh, coauthor (with Sylvia Keesmaat) of Romans Disarmed

Author Biography

Steven Bouma-Prediger (PhD, University of Chicago) is Leonard and Marjorie Maas Professor of Reformed Theology at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. He regularly writes and speaks on environmental issues and is the author of For the Beauty of the Earth.