Many thanks to Joseph D. Blosser for his review of my book, The Green Good News: Christ’s Path to Sustainable and Joyful Life in Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology 75.2 (2021): 183-184.
He writes:
“This compelling and accessible book offers a fresh interpretation of Jesus’s life and ministry. The “Green Good News” is that only by losing our lives—our lives of empire, the Gospel of Work, neoliberalism, efficiency, cleanliness, and consumerism—can we save them. Dickinson builds an ambitious vision for how an understanding of the environment challenges the way we read and understand the entirety of the Christian life. His work builds on the good work that has been done by scholars like Norman Wirzba, Ellen Davis, Fred Bahnson, and Walter Brueggemann.
Dickinson’s book employs a braided essay format as he brings together interpretation and analysis of the Bible, contemporary theological resources, and his own experience as a teacher and community organizer. His personal experiences give the book a gritty texture, connecting the biblical interpretation and theological analysis to the hard work, the trial and error, and the relationships that form covenantal communities. This format makes the book a good fit for educated lay readers, seminary students, pastors, and scholars alike.
The book situates the historical Jesus in his poor, agrarian context over against the ruling powers of empire, and connects this to a critique of the contemporary environmental movement. For example, Dickinson shows how the slow rhythms of gardens challenge the efficiency of empire. To do this he connects his experiences building community gardens with the scriptural framing of the cross between the Garden of Gethsemane and Mary’s mistaking of the risen Jesus as a gardener on Easter morning. The book offers a hearty critique of the global food system, using the stories of Jesus’s calling of the disciples to be “fishers of men,” the feeding of the 5,000, the manna in the desert, and the practices of Sabbath, Jubilee, and village life. Dickinson uses each story to build the case that we will be fed, not by the structures of empire (like monoculture, food banks, and charity-models), but by covenantal relationships of interdependence. The highlights of the book are its counter readings of often-told biblical passages, especially Jesus’s parables. Through these fresh readings, and practices, like dinner churches, faith-based organizing, and more, Dickinson offers hope for how we can be church together amidst a growing environmental and spiritual crisis.
The fast pace of the book may leave some readers wanting more, or deeper, interpretations of particular stories, and Dickinson will not satisfy anyone’s itch for quick-fix solutions. But the guiding vision of the book is compelling, evocative, and will challenge middle-to-upper income Christians (the stated audience). The primary challenge Dickinson delivers his audience is that in order to live the Green Good News we must reduce our privileges, comforts, and ease of life. While pruning may yield a bigger harvest, it still hurts. Losing your life to save it still requires dying. And dying is not easy.”