What Is The Argument Of Steven Bouuma-Prediger

The author of this book Steven Bouma-Prediger main argument is Christians need to live more earth-careful lives and being called to be caretakers is not optional. The responsibility to care for the earth is a part of our faith. Early in the book the authors takes you back to your first encounter with nature he does to make his topic relevant and personal to the reader. He then opposes his first question, how much do we actually know about where we live? He states that this question shows us how little we know about our trees, plants, flowers, and the patterns of the moon. This is also his first argument in which he said if we do not know our earth we are destine to use and abuse it. Understanding and caring about nature is necessary to live properly on this earth. Chapter 1 (page 21) “we are for what we love, we love only what we know, we truly know only what we experience.

Chapter 2 was his observation on what is wrong with the world. His thoughts were “the state of earth is not good, and our home planet is being degraded. For example population is increase which means more pollution which is

hurting our atmosphere. We are also lacking in quality and quantity, grain production is not equal with the growth of our population. His strongest example in this chapter is when he talked about our forest and how the pace of forests destruction has increased in the past 5 decades, forest are invaluable and we certainly cannot live without them. There is a lot wrong with our water, land, energy, air, climate and waste. Steven believes we have and continue to damage our earth.
In Chapter 3 he opposes the question on Christianity being the blame on the ecological crisis? The ecological complaint is that the christian faith is at fault for the current ecological crisis. Toybee Arnold a social reformer argued that in Gensis 1:28 command to have dominion and subdue the earth has not only permitted but directed humankind to dominate and exploit creation. He believed that in the bible it teaches christianity to rule and control creation. He explained the only way to free ourselves from ecological crisis would be to adopt to a worldview which God and the world was viewed as one. At the end of this chapter it talked about the ecological crisis being the consequence of this modern worldview of materialism, economic and scientific things, in which it argued that it would make no sense to blame any of the traditional religions of the world for the ecological crisis.
Chapter four the question ask is there any connection between scripture and ecology? Steven starts this topic off with a verse Revelation 22:1-2 it made the connection between scripture and ecology. By explaining how “The angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and the lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit every month” Chapter 4 first paragraph. This answering the question by painting a beautiful picture of nature. In the middle of this chapter it explains how people interpret the bible with high view of scripture and a low view. The high view scripture would read the bible carelessly or with his own agenda but someone with a low view would read every text with insight. This stands out to me because it makes sense how it could cause controversy. At the end of this Chapter it answer the question by talking about a verse in the bible which states God makes an everlasting and unconditional covenant with the earth and all its creatures.
The authors most persuasive argument in the book is in the last few paragraphs of the third chapter, where it explains how the ecological crisis was a consequence of how this modern worldview on materialism, economic, and scientific things he argued that it makes no sense to blame any of the traditional religions of the world for ecological crisis. This makes me think of how we use natural things and turn it into materialistic things. For example killing animals for food, using whales for oil, burning all of our waste or dumping it into our oceans. How we use animals for carnivals initially to earn money and have zoos were wild animals are not even put into living areas where they can become accustomed as if they were still in the wild. Lastly, scientist testing harmful drugs on animals, taking and mixing chemicals into our national parks for tests. These are all examples of how our society take care of the world it has little to do with religion.
Steven leasts persuasive argument is in chapter 5 when he argues that christians need to live more earth-careful lives.

Being called to be caretaker’s is not optional. The responsibility to care for earth is a part of our faith. Being that I'm stilling understanding the bible myself I just think of Roman 12:2 s “don't copy the behavior and customs of this world but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know Gods will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. My argument on why this chapter is the least persuasive is because I believe as a christian it would be hard not to conform to the patterns of this world as a caretaker. Many things come into play when trying to raise a family and you are most likely always doing things that are not necessarily taking care of the world like driving and every day

life.
This book has affected the way I viewed the earth and the issues at hand because I never took into consideration of how much I actually know about soil, trees, flowers and the different patterns of the moon it has never crossed my mind. I also became more knowledgeable on how the world works and how much of in negative impact our population has on our earth. It opened my eyes on how our population is growing and our climate is changing, and how we are running our grain product for the population. this book makes me want to make difference in world not just for me but for generation after me.
I agree with authors position because he is answering a lot of great questions that before reading the book I had not thought of before, I agree that scripture and ecology connects and now I have a multiple example on how they connect. This was a great book and the author put a lot of things in perspective about our earth. The author argument could impact the christian faith in both a positive and a negative way, reading this book it could change the perspective on how someone reads the bible and take care of their every day lives, also could help christian understand others viewpoint which would allow them through understanding to have more faith opposed to not knowing much about the earth and how it is ran. It could also have an impact in a negative way Arnold the social reformer explained how the only way to free ourselves from a ecological crisis would be to adopt to a worldview in which God and the world be viewed as one. Someone out of the christian would think that God is greater then the world and can retreat from faith when hearing this also the way you read the bible in Arnold’s case changes the way you view the world and thats why he believes what he believes and how he can have an impact on someone who isn't as knowledge as him. The authors main argument in this book is Christians need to live a more earth-careful life and being called to be caretakers is not optional. The responsibility to care for the earth is a part of our faith. This is exampled throughout the whole book by answering many different questions. It make sense to me know that there many different things that go into interpreting the bible that did not know before which has shaped my faith in a positive way. The author also does a great job on exampling how there is a connect through scripture and ecology and had great verses to back it up and make his arguments a lot stronger. By having social reformers perspective it made the arguments more interesting I got a insight on both sides. I am persuaded now for the beauty of the earth we must be more knowledge of the things around us and take greater care our earth and things inside of it.