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God doesn’t do waste

Author:	Dave Bookless
Published By:	IVP (Nottingham)
Pages:	158
Price:	£7.99
ISBN:	978 1 84474 473 2

Reviewed by Philip Joy.

God Doesn’t do Waste (title borrowed from Rowan Williams’ phrase) is another of the crop of Eco-friendly books to have come somewhat late for the churches’ perusal: better late than never, however. An account of the Bookless family and their personal journey towards a greener lifestyle, this book shows what individuals can do to begin putting environmental values into practice in a materialistic western culture. Yet, as the unique story of a family, it is a narrative of life lived in relationship, of suffering and trials. As the author puts it, it is about “how, in God’s economy, nothing need be wasted,” how, despite the slough of waste and grief in which we struggle, we have a God “who can take all that seems most wasteful and useless, and to recycle it into something of infinite worth.”

This is then not a book of biblical theology or scientific apologetics: it is autobiography, and as such, it is probably a more approachable ‘green’ book for our congregations than the more weighty volumes such as Keeping God’s Earth (also reviewed in this edition of Ministry Today). Bookless begins from the time when he was in his first year training to be a vicar when God challenged him to pursue a green lifestyle. From this he relates the story of his youth in India as the child of missionaries. He tells of his marriage to Anne, who in 1988 was struck down with severe M.E., and later clinical depression. We hear about his amazement that his Bible College curriculum included nothing on the environment, despite the Bible being full of references in both Testaments. We hear of his first pastorate in Southall, the miscarriages his wife suffered, and his sudden identification with all those suffering all around him. We read of how he first encountered the Christian nature conservation group A Rocha. We hear tell of Anne’s dramatic total healing from M.E. and their subsequent launching of a new vision of Anne’s: an urban branch to A Rocha - A Rocha UK, based not in the lovely conservation areas in Portugal, but in the deprived and urban wasteland of Southall.

From there Dave left the ministry to head up A Rocha UK and to live a communal, green orientated, life with the team in Southall. He began to speak at Christian and non-Christian events alike. God’s amazing timing brought the right people and projects at the right time, and eventually he was able to hand over A Rocha UK to another leader so as to pursue his ever widening environmental teaching ministry, finally coming full circle back to Southall to be ‘Director for Theologies and Sustainable ministries’. Anne, on the other hand, went from depression to hospitalization due to a fall, and one of his daughters went into what he describes as “personal meltdown.” Yet in their brokenness they found the Lord present, and discovered that no situation, no matter how bad, cannot be used by God, for “God Doesn’t Do Waste.”

I must admit I personally don’t like books like this because one person’s miracle story is no guide to another’s person’s life. On the other hand it is highly readable. I especially liked the bit where they bought an electric car and for everything else made do with cycling, public transport and taxis, and it all worked out a fraction of the cost of running a car! I would definitely recommend this book, edifying for its openness and its way of telling the story of God at work in weak human beings, as well as for its potent green message.