The Cross and the Rain Forest: A Critique of Radical Green Spirituality

Robert Whelan, Joseph Kirwan, and Paul Haffner

As more and more Christians become concerned about the state of the environment, many are beginning to see the mission to save the earth as the most important ministry of the Church. This book, while recognizing that care for the environment is neither a trivial nor worthless pursuit, also seeks to warn Christians about the pitfalls that can ensue from an unqualified embrace of environmental ideology.

To this end, the authors present a thorough critique of the origins and implications of the more radical strains of environmentalism. In analyzing this ideology's attitude towards the nature of God, human beings, and animals, the authors show that it calls for a fundamental reordering of priorities that is essentially hostile to the Judeo-Christian tradition. In its place they offer an alternative Christian ecology that views man created in the image of God, that takes sin seriously, and looks to Christ and the redemption that is available through faith in Him as the Key who reveals the true meaning of creation.

The book's authors are Robert Whelan, Assistant Director of the Health and Welfare Unit of the Institute of Economic Affairs; Joseph Kirwan, a translator and commentator of the papal encyclicals Rerum Novarum, Mater et Magistra and Laborem Exercens; and Paul Haffner, lecturer at the Pontifical Lateran University and the Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum of the Legionaries of Christ in Rome, Italy.

This book is available from the Acton Book Shoppe.

Foreword by Robert A. Sirico Introduction The Healing Power of Cardboard Robert Whelan Chapter One Greens and God Robert Whelan Chapter Two Greens and People Robert Whelan Chapter Three Greens and Animals Joseph Kirwan Chapter Four A Christian Ecology Paul Haffner Appendix Science Facts Bibliography Authors Index