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When Enough Is Enough: A Christian Framework for Environmental Sustainability

Reviewed by Alun Brookfield.

The editor of this set of essays on environmental sustainability is a renowned genetics scientist who happens to be a Christian believer and is therefore well qualified to contribute to and edit a book of essays on this subject. Other contributors were less well known to this reviewer, with the exception of Sir Ghillean T Prance, formerly Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and now Scientific Director of the Eden Project in Cornwall.

The quality of the essays is a little patchy, as is often the case in such a collection, but the overall message is very clear: that it is a biblical and Christian requirement to contribute actively and positively to the development of environmental sustainability. Pope Benedict XVI is quoted with approval: "The external deserts in the world are growing because the internal deserts have become so vast. Therefore the earth's treasures no longer serve to build God's garden for all to live in, but they have been made to serve the powers of exploitation and destruction" (p.87). The link is clear - spiritual poverty among many leads to physical poverty among others. Similarly, a thoughtlessness about spiritual things leads to an equal thoughtlessness about the environment.

Anyone looking for good quality, authoritative material from authors with real stature in this field of environmental sustainability should invest in this book. It's not the last word on the subject, but it's a very good place to start.