Sandra Richter - Stewards of Eden

Episode: Environmental lawyer Gus Speth said, "I used to think that the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and climate change. I thought that thirty years of good science could address these problems. I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy, and to deal with these we need a cultural and spiritual transformation. And we scientists don't know how to do that" (qtd Richter, 106). In this episode Matt L speaks with Prof Sandra Richter about the ways that Scripture lays the foundations for the kind of cultural and spiritual transformation that Speth identifies. She shows how the Bible, and especially the Old Testament, commends environmental stewardship, and challenges many contemporary practices, from food production and acquisition to Mountain Top Removal for coal mining, and military practices. This episode will provoke and challenge listeners to heed and take action to address the long environmental emergency that we currently face, and to see in Scripture a word of Edenic hope.  Our discussion is rooted in her recent book Stewards of Eden: What Scripture Says about the Environment and Why it Matters (IVP, 2020). 

Guest: Professor Richter is The Robert H. Gundry Chair of Biblical Studies at Westmont College in California. She has a Ph.D. from Harvard University, and is the author of several books, including The Epic of Eden: A Christian Entry into the Old Testament (IVP, 2010), The Deuteronomistic History and the Name Theology (de Gruyter, 2002). Her most recent book is Stewards of Eden: What Scripture Says about the Environment and Why it Matters (IVP, 2020).  She is writing commentaries on Deuteronomy and Isaiah, and has also written a series of Bible studies, with accompanying DVD's) for church groups with Seedbed.  

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