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Autumn 2001: Book Notes

Calvin Redekop's Creation and the Environment: An Anabaptist Perspective on a Sustainable World.
Book Review By Eric Kurtz

Mennonites, Amish, and Hutterites, collectively called Anabaptists, have a reputation for living simply and unobtrusively in tight agricultural communities. But today many Mennonites like myself live in cities or suburbs; others have embraced mechanized, chemically-intensive agriculture. Increasing numbers of Amish are working in factories to make ends meet. Creation and the Environment, a collection of scholarly essays by Anabaptist authors, is not so much a call to return to an idealized past as an exploration of how the Biblically-based Anabaptist tradition has treated the environment in the past and how it should do so in the future. As such, this book can inform the environmental ethic of all Christians who find themselves struggling to live in ways that care for God's creation, even as society pushes us to become more disconnected from it.

Anabaptist teaching and living has focused on the New Testament more than the Old, especially the life and words of Jesus. So it's appropriate that the essays of Biblical and theological scholarship focus on the redemptive work of Jesus in relation to creation. New Testament scholar Dorothy Jean Weaver views Christ as "Agent of Creation" and emphasizes his incarnation into the material world, as presented by New Testament writers. Perhaps most interesting is her portrayal of Revelation as a vision of "environmental cataclysm as a result of "human sinfulness and failure to repent." Indeed, the descriptions of plagues, floods, famines, and droughts in Revelation mirror the impacts scientists predict will result from global warming, thanks to the West's dependence on fossil fuels that pollute God's atmosphere. In Weaver's view, the New Testament writers present Jesus as our option for avoiding this fate, but our human redemption is tied to the redemption of the entire created order. Similarly, theologian Thomas Finger asserts that an Anabaptist theology of creation should begin with redemption through Jesus and move from there to God's act of creation, not the other way around.

Several authors discuss the agricultural roots of Anabaptism, and their differing treatments create an interesting tension. Amish farmer David Kline's moving essay exploring a "theology for living" presents the agricultural life as the earth's last hope, saying many Anabaptists became exploiters instead of nurturers when they "jumped the fence" from an agrarian to an industrial life. In contrast, historian Walter Klaasen sees the agrarian history as merely practical, not flowing out of a love of the land nor inspiring modern Anabaptists to eschew consumer society any more than our neighbors. While, sadly, I can think of many examples of Anabaptist exploiters of the earth, I would like to believe with Kline that many years of living close to the land laid the foundation for a strong emphasis on values like simple living. Kline seems to be saying that whether or not our ancestors proclaimed environmental stewardship explicitly, they did the more important work of living it.

The main strength of Creation and the Environment is the breadth of authors: from biologists, theologians, and historians to a pastor and a Cheyenne peace chief. The topics range from economics, technology, and population to political activism and the Anabaptist peace position. While the authors do not always agree on Anabaptist history, they share a vision of the future that involves caring for God's creation in our daily lives. This vision is best summarized in an evening prayer from the Amish prayer book "The Serious Christian Duty," which David Kline translates, "And help us to walk gently on the earth and to love and nurture your creation and handiwork." This book should inspire all Christians to pray this every night, and to wake up the next day and live it.

Eric Kurtz is a Ph.D. student in Land Resources and an Au Sable Graduate Fellow at the University of Wisconsin--Madison. This review is a modified version of one scheduled to appear in the October 2001 issue of The Mennonite Quarterly Review. It is reprinted here by permission of the editor.

Calvin Redekop (ed.). Creation and the Environment: An Anabaptist Perspective on a Sustainable World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2000. Pp. 283. $19.95

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