Au Sable Graduate Fellows Book List

Below is curated list of books that are great resources for those interested in learning more about creation care, stewardship, and our call to serve, protect and restore God’s earth. These books are recommended for our graduate fellows and anyone interested in these topics.

Creation Care

For the Beauty of the Earth by Stephen Bouma-Prediger: Seminal work describing environmental degradation, the biblical basis for action, and a study of virtues for earthkeeping.

Let Creation Rejoice by Jonathan Moo and Robert S. White: Newer work similar to For the Beauty of the Earth, focused on hope and revealing the gospel as a story about God, not (just) a story about us. The back has recommendations from John Polkinghorne, Russell Moore, Peter Harris, and Richard Baukham!

Redeeming Creation by Fred Van Dyke, David Mahan, Joseph Sheldon, and Raymond Brand: Written by (among others) two former directors of the Au Sable Institute, this book argues for caring for creation on biblical, scientific, and theological bases.

Theology 

Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright: When asked “Where will you spend eternal life?” many Christians would reply “Heaven”. But this is not a biblical answer. Our hope for life after death is not for an ethereal existence up away in heaven while the earth burns to a crisp. Just as Christ Jesus rose from death to new life, we will rise to new bodies and live in the new heavens and new earth. Wright makes a rousing argument for rejecting the pagan, Platonic view of a disembodied existence in favor of an embodied existence in a restored creation: “life after life after death”. 

Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places by Eugene H. Peterson: This work on “spiritual theology” by the author of The Message is sprawling and immediate, insisting that the God of the universe is not only beyond our full understanding, but also intimately involved in our life and world. Our God does not distantly rule, but “Christ Plays” not generally but specifically: in Creation, in History, and in Community.

Eden’s Themes

Even Better than Eden by Nancy Guthrie: Each of the nine chapters traces a motif from Eden through the rest of the Bible: wilderness, tree, image, Sabbath, etc.  

The Epic of Eden by Sandra Richter: The creation narrative is first in the sprawling collection of literature that is the Bible, but as we make our way through the Old Testament, skipping from story to story so that we can get to the gospels and epistles, perhaps we are missing something? How is all of this supposed to fit together? This book works to introduce the Old Testament to us more than a disjointed set of scrolls but as the cohesive story of redemption.

Imago Dei

Being God’s Image by Carmen Imes: Accessible but detailed overview of the Imago Dei, the doctrine that humans are made in the image of God, or as Imes argues, are made to be the image of God.

The Liberating Image by J. Richard Middleton: Similar to Being God’s Image but more a scholarly dive into the historical ancient near eastern context.

Memoirs

Under the Bright Wings by Peter Harris: Just as medical missions has been a respected marriage of caring for people's bodies while also telling them of Christ’s love, Peter and Miranda Harris did environmental missions: caring for places and people and creatures. They founded a Study and Environmental Interpretation Center in Portugal, studying the surrounding marsh and birds and welcoming many people into the Center and sharing meals and work and life. Today, A Rocha has a presence in over 20 countries where they do conservation, education, and outreach. This book tells the story of the founding of the original Center in A Rocha.

Roots and Sky: a Journey Home in Four Seasons by Christie Purifoy: A lovely reflection on place and home and being present in the places God puts us.

Essay Collections

Beyond Stewardship: New Approaches to Creation Care edited by David Paul Warners & Matthew Kuperus Heun: A wonderful collection of essays from a variety of perspectives, all urging us onward towards a deeper and broader conception of what it looks like to care for creation.

Art of Commonplace by Wendell Berry, edited by Norman Wirzba: Wendell Berry’s prolific writings (essays, novels, and poetry) have had a profound effect on environmental ethics generally and Christian Creation Care specifically. This Collection of Essays (particularly the essay “Sex, Economy, Freedom, Community”) is a good introduction.

Creation Care and the Gospel edited by Colin Bell and Robert S White: Missiological, globally sourced essays integrating creation care, Christian faith, and evangelism.

Faith Integration with…

Finance and Buying Things: Being Consumed by William Cavanaugh

Physical Suffering: Embodied Hope by Kelly Kapic

Creativity and Culture: Culture Making by Andy Crouch

Food and Material Existence: The Supper of the Lamb by Robert Farrar Capon

Liturgical Resources 

Every Moment Holy by Douglad Kaine McKelvey and Ned Bustard: Wonderful collection of prayers and liturgies for the ordinary events of daily life, like preparing coffee, changing a diaper, playing a board game, or feeling compelled by consumerism. 

All Creation Waits and Wild Hope by Gayle Boss: Non-traditional devotionals for Advent and Lent, respectively. Both books feature an animal for each day’s reading, along with lovely woodcut illustrations. For Advent, the focus is on how animals go through the dark, cold winter and emerge in spring, since “the dark is not an end but the way a new beginning comes”. For Lent, each animal is chosen due to its struggle for survival due to human impacts. But Boss doesn’t stop with the bad news. She is hunting for “seeds of resurrection” in each story

Children’s Books

Brother Sun, Sister Moon by Katherine Paterson and illustrated by Pamela Dalton: A rewrite of St Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Creatures, set against beautiful papercut illustrations of people in agrarian work. Can you find all the chipmunks?

All Creatures Great And Small by Cecil Frances Alexander and illustrated by Naoko Stoop: A cute board book with the text of the lovely hymn.

Who Sang The First Song by Ellie Holcomb and illustrated by Kayla Harren: The text of a song by the same name, written and sung by Ellie Holcomb. Children and animals explore God’s world, asking who sang the first song? “When God made the earth He decided to sing, and He wrote His song into everything.”

The Story of God With Us by Kenneth Padgett and Shay Gregorie, illustrate by Aedan Peterson: This beautiful picture book opens a series tracing themes of how God works through the story of scripture. The Story of God With Us shows God’s desire to be with his people, and every waypoint in the story, we are reminded that each twist and turn is “So He could dwell with us, and we with him, always and forever, world without end.”