For the Beauty of the Earth by Steven Bouma-Prediger (2001, Paperback, Illustrated)

ST501 – Systematic A
Jim Guida
November 9, 2006

Analysis of
for the beauty of the earth – a christian vision for creation care
by steven boumaj-prediger

for the beauty of the earth – and yes, the lower case is accurate – asks the question “why do people see no connections between theology and ecology?” (14). And then proceeds for a hundred pages to beat the reader over the head that, environmentally, the world is going to hell in a hand basket and it’s mostly America’s fault.
Eventually, the author brings some excellent theology to the argument that Christians should take care of the earth, but the path is long and loaded with obstacles.
The greatest difficulty the reader faces is the toxic fumes that waft from the words of the author. He is so in love with his prose that, instead of writing, “There is, in other words, an inner theological rationale for taking care of our earth,” we are subjected to “…rational for attending to the blue-green planet we inhabit with its plethora of other earth-creatures” (14).
This is just one example of page after page of poetic ponderings. The most egregious example begins on page 24, where we are awash in descriptions of various country settings. Did I say “awash?” I meant “water-boarded” as we suffer through intense descriptions of a Forest, Mountain, and Lake, for twelve pages. Mark Twain said more in one paragraph than we found in any of these descriptions.

Another difficulty with reading this book is that it seems that each chapter is written at different times for different purposes, with the final intent of becoming a book. This is evident in the many styles the book uses from chapter to chapter. We dive into a world doomed to an ecolyptic end (okay, now who is in love with his writing?) before a case is made that anything need be done. Yes, we’ve been told since Rachel Carson that the environment is a mess and something must be done. But now we are learning that perhaps the ban of DDT has caused significant harm to humans in third world countries, who have suffered the pestilence of an uncontrolled insect population. We needed facts then and we need them now. This scientific treatise must prove its points before addressing them, and we don’t get around to that until Chapter Two, which seems much further in the book than it is.
Or, perhaps more likely, the book is merely a padded doctoral thesis, with its luxuriant adjectives and dropping of names unknown to this – and I would imagine any other – reader. These road blocks should have been addressed by the firm hand of a heartless editor.
All of this is not to say that his writing is completely without merit. There is value in recognizing that the ground beneath us has a history – that there weren’t always streets and parks and Starbucks. We are urged to “know the nonhuman history of the land, its flora and fauna.” As wide-spread development continues to gobble up farm land in the Sacramento area, we must remember that even the oldest neighborhoods were forests and fields just a few generations ago.
Author Bouma-Prediger (I shall leave the vanity of the lower case to archy and mehitabel) offers many gems amongst his clunkers. The long presentation on “Where Are We?” (Chapter 1) offers this nugget in closing – “We care only for what we love.” (37) He then explains that we need to know our earth – or at least our part of it – “intimately and personally” – for it is only then that we can passionately car