Serve God, Save the Planet, by Matthew Sleeth

Matthew Sleeth used to be a doctor, until the levels of asthma and cancer he was seeing convinced him that the environment was making us sick. He decided to quit his ER department and tackle the causes rather than the symptoms, starting by turning his own household into “a poster family for the downwardly mobile.” This experience, both as personal journey and family experiment, provides a practical base to work from, and a refreshing willingness to practice what is being preached.

Sleeth’s focus has been on persuading the church to take the environment more seriously, a tough task indeed in the US, so ‘Serve God, Save the Planet’ mixes green philosophy and basic theology with the personal stories and somewhat harrowing emergency room analogies. It’s honest, wise, and actually very funny.

It’s also surprisingly broad in scope. Rather than get bogged down in the science and in educating people into lower carbon lifestyles, Sleeth explores the many ways that our consumer lifestyles are bad for us. He addresses disatisfaction, envy and the manufacture of wants. Some of his points are ones I haven’t heard elsewhere: that divorce is bad for the environment, because it doubles the number of houses; that our fear of dying is bad for the planet, as we expend vast resources keeping people alive those last months; that unnecessarily competitive sports mean we drive children back and forth across the region to play games that they could just as easily play in the park. He addresses the role of television and the role of Santa Claus in our shopping habits, and suggests more human recreation, simpler Christmases.

There are many little thought-provoking asides. “Ours is not the first generation to be morally blinded by building a lifestyle based on energy from foreign shores” he writes at one point. “Slavery was the importation of cheap energy without regard to its moral cost.” Or the little observation that if two farm horses that can tow forty people on a hayride, then your average American SUV (at 210 horsepower) uses enough energy to transport over 8,000 people.

The tone remains optimistic, a vision of better, healthier lifestyles in simplicity rather than in the pursuit of wealth. Climate change is addressed, but in balance alongside air pollution, toxins, deforestation and so on. My only criticisms would be that the book veers into pastoralism occasionally, and that the author misses what I think is one of the crucial points of Christian environmentalism – that we don’t ‘go’ to heaven, but that heaven comes to us as a renewed earth. But these are quibbles in what is a very readable and user-friendly guide to Christian environmental responsibility. This may be a little light-weight for some (think Bill Hybels, if you’ve read any of his stuff.) If you want more simple Biblical principles, try ‘Planetwise‘ by Dave Bookless. If you want more policy, pick up Christianity, Climate Change and Sustainable Living. If you’re looking for serious theology, I’ll have to get back to you. But for a basic and inspiring introduction for a mainstream audience, you won’t do much better than ‘Serve God, Save the Planet.’