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The Anglican Church in Tasmania Search |
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a healthy church...transformingLIFE |
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August 2005 |
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Review -Memo for a Saner WorldThis book offers some challenges to Christians. Peter Grant reviewed Bob Brown's latest book. In the early 1980s I visited Bob Brown's tiny cottage in bushland near Liffey. The sign on his gate read, in bold letters, 'Trespassers welcome'. In smaller print it added, 'as long as you don't have a gun.' We weren't expecting the good doctor to be home. We'd simply come this way to access Drys Bluff, our bushwalking destination for that day. But we found the house open, and after filling our water bottles from his tap, left a message of thanks in the visitors' book. This anecdote is not in itself of great significance, except for what it reveals of the man. Regardless of the consequences, Bob Brown is someone who is not afraid to challenge conventional thought. Since the 1980s he has gone on to become a household name in Australia, and renowned all over the world, thanks mainly to his pioneering environmental thought and action. Even his opponents concede that he is a man of both integrity and intellect. So what of this towering figure's latest book? I'll confess to a certain ambivalence towards it. Some sections riveted me, notably the recounting of the Franklin Dam conflict, and his detailed, deep time perspective on the Tarkine. The way Brown helps us not only to see the forest for the trees, but also to see their ecosystems - the complex interconnectedness of all the life forms that depend on forests - is admirable. Woodchipping is not only bad economics; it is an appalling simplification of the diversity found in God's creation. For Christians, whether individually or corporately, there is much to be challenged or stung into action by here. Brown is right, for instance, to be puzzled by the paucity of Christians at the forefront of environmental thinking. He might also have asked why so few Christian politicians take a strong stance on issues such as our immigration detention policies. However, the book wavers in quality the more it betrays its hasty composition - presumably in time for the last Federal election. Sections that read like Greens' election speeches confirm this provenance. I was also disappointed that Dr Brown only reveals a few snippets of the person behind the politician. But perhaps, as with Old Testament prophets, it's meant to be more about the message than the man.
Peter Grant is a member of the Soul Café congregation within the Parish of BayWest. He has degrees in Earth Science and Theology. |
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