Creation Corner Column, September 2020
Christian Ecological Action History; Webinars; Pandemic Lit., etc.
Christian Ecological Action History:
"The Earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof; Thou shalt not destroy the earth nor despoil the life thereon." The Eleventh Commandment Fellowship, 1970s era, noted in "A Brief History of Christian Ecological Action" by Frederick W. Kruger, in the summer 2020 issue of The Mountain Vision published by Christians for the Mountains in West Virginia.
For this summer story on the history of Christian Ecological Action site, go to pgs. 14-15.
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New from the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN)
Creation Defenders at EEN (creationcare.org) have produced a six-part webinar series on these topics:
1. Energy Solutions For A Healthy Tomorrow: How Your Church Can Lead The Way.
2. Defend Life: How Is Climate Change Hurting Your Children?
3. What Is God's Creation Telling Us? Climate Science 101.
4. Young Evangelicals Leading The Way: Meet 3 Young Christians Taking Climate Action.
5. How To Protect Your Family, Community, And God's Creation: Harnessing Natural Resources For A Healthy Tomorrow.
6. Our Greatest Moral Challenge: Biblical Perspectives On The Climate Crisis.
for the Evangelical Environmental Network Creation Care webinar site, go to
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Covid Pandemic Literature (fiction and non-fiction)
1666: Plague, War and Hellfire. Rebecca Rideal.
And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again. Ilan Stavans, editor.
Cholera: The Victorian Plague. Amanda J. Thomas.
The Covid-19 Catastrophe: What's Gone Wrong and How to Stop It Happening Again. Richard Horton.
The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire. Kyle Harper.
Intimations: Six Essays. Zadie Smith.
Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate. William F. Ruddiman.
Wuhan Diary. Dispatches From a Quarantined City. Fang Fang.
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Climate Change Reading (see prior columns for other entries)
Desert Notebooks: A Roadmap for the End of Time. Ben Ehrenreich.
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Inspiring Quotations
"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise." Aldo Leopold.
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The following from the work of Scott Russell Sanders:
"Justice to future generations requires us to pass along the beauty of Earth undiminished."
"There is no such thing as 'sustainable growth.' There is only sustainable use."
"Only by caring for particular places, in every watershed, can we take care of the planet. Every place needs people who will dig in, keep watch, explore the terrain, learn the animals and plants, and take responsibility for the welfare of their home ground."
"Loyalty to place arises from our need to be at home on the Earth. We marry ourselves to the creation by knowing and cherishing a particular place..."
"Global corporations, wielding resources that dwarf those of all but a few nations, pursue growth as feverishly as bacteria multiplying in a Petri dish. Nearly all politicians, regardless of party or nationality, call for perpetual economic expansion---a vote-winning refrain, for it promises us to deliver more and more of everything we crave, or have been coaxed and bamboozled into craving."
Among the books of Scott Russell Sanders are: The Way of Imagination; Essays (2020); Earth Works (2012); and A Conservationist Manifesto (2009).
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From James Gustave Speth (b. 1942):
"I used to think the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that with thirty years of good science, we could address those problems.
But I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy....And to deal with those we need a spiritual and cultural transformation. And we scientists don't know how to do that."
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Headline "Rich Americans spew more carbon pollution at home than poor" story by Associated Press Science Writer Seth Borenstein, Williamsport (PA) Sun-Gazette, July 22, 2020, p. A-10.
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Quotations raised up by the Arbor Day Foundation:
"In every walk with nature, one receives far more than one seeks." John Muir
"In nature, nothing exists alone." Rachel Carson.
"The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn." Ralph Waldo Emerson.
"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. Albert Einstein.
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Mike Ochs finds common ground between religion and politics in his concern for the environment.
Politically he self-published the first "Greens Bibliography" of the English-language literature on the international Green Party movement (1989), the project for his Master of Liberal Arts in International Studies degree at Lock Haven (PA) University. He also helped plant the seeds for the Green Party of PA at that time, and remains a cyber-activist with it.
For a monthly newsletter of the ecumenical United Churches of Lycoming County (PA), he has written the "Creation Corner Column" since 1997. It became a blog in 2011 at
He received a B.A. degree from Gettysburg College in 1965.
