Rooted in Hope – Book Review
Rooted in Hope: A Christians Aware Resource towards building biodiversity, by John Bennett, Barbara Butler and others, 2025. Christians Aware, ISBN 9781838335793, 143 pages. £15.00 + £2.00 p&p from https://christiansaware.org.uk/books
Rooted in Hope is a delightful book to dip into, with short articles from over twenty different authors, including Green Christian members Dr Judith Allinson and Euan McPhee. It is a response to the UN Biodiversity Goals “Life Below Water” and “Life on Land”, part of the Sustainable Development Goals intended to be fulfilled by 2030.
It is introduced by Ian Bradley who evokes an overriding sense of creation as “a world teeming with diversity, richness and variety … Biodiversity is not just something to respect but to rejoice in, not just a matter of prudent self-interest but a God-given grace and gift.” Ellen Teague describes “the intricacies of ecosystems as geographical areas where plants, animals, and other organisms, as well as weather and landscape, work together to form a bubble of life.” Ecosystems face dire threats from human activity, from which they can recover, but only if we change the way we use and manage nature.
The heart of the book is the section “Stories of Hope” which tells of losses and difficulties, but also gives encouragement to join the challenge to live rooted in hope and to nurture biodiversity. The stories come from a variety of countries, as Christians Aware works in both the UK and overseas. Here are a few tasters.
Judith Allinson, Green Christian’s website editor, has a doctorate in lichens – those “splats, or coloured patches on rocks, buildings, tree trunks and branches”. Follow her advice and look at those splats under a hand lens. Suddenly you see a “whole magic world there” of shapes like “tiny soft tangled barbed wire” and bright colours.
When longstanding Green Christian member Euan McPhee retired to Falmouth, he formed The Friends of Tregoniggie Wood for the benefit of people and wildlife. The group clears brambles, plants new trees, improves access, maintain the pond it created and pressures the local water company to prevent pollution of the Bickland Stream.
Susan Sayers lives in a terrace house surrounded by public car park, main road and train station. She transformed her garden from a patch of grass with a large old lime tree into a wildlife haven with fruit trees, a mini hedge of honeysuckle, hawthorn, blackthorn, and dog rose, a wildlife meadow and small pond. It is now “a place of quiet joy” for human and non-human residents and visitors.
Barbara Butler tells the story of Wangaari Maathai, inspirational founder of the Greenbelt Movement in Kenya. Facing strong opposition from the government, she led a programme to save the forests while always recognising that people’s immediate needs must be met before they can be expected to work for the environment.
The book concludes with artwork and worship resources including a prayer of thankfulness for small creatures, “The scuttling ones under the rocks, wriggling ones in the earth, buzzing ones in the air, sliding ones on the ground and scampering ones on tree branches…May we remember that they are a part of your creation just as we are too. Amen”.
Barbara Echlin
Vice Chair, Green Christian
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