Words for a Dying World

Words for a Dying World, edited by Hannah Malcolm, is a delightful, but also pretty stark series of pieces about the devastating challenge of climate change from around the world. As the sub-title says, it is indeed a series of Stories of Grief and Courage from the Global Church. Various perspectives are offered, and it is particularly important to take this opportunity to hear from those most effected by this crisis in different parts of the world.

For example, speaking from the Pacific, Jione Havea comments: "The label ‘global warming’ reminds the global community that the ecological crisis is a shared burden. The signs are everywhere – from droughts and famines to extra heavy monsoons and more frequent and more powerful storms pounding shores everywhere."

Pilar Vicentelo Euribe offers a perspective from Peru, concluding: "We need to learn to live in another way, reassuming our relationship with nature from a more respectful and appreciative perspective, living with it, with everything and its creatures. We have to search for abundant life here and now."

Anderson Jeremiah, though UK based, provides us with an Indian glimpse of the theology that might move us 'from climate grief to shared hope'. He says: "If we all live and move and have our being in this God, then all of humanity and the universe share in the very being of this generous God. Human dignity and environmental integrity are rooted in recognizing that we have our being in God. To deny this is to deny God’s being."

There is certainly much food for thought in this carefully compiled and fascinating collection of essays.