The Christian Century

Ten years ago I wrote a book called The End of Nature, which was the first book for a general audience about the question of global warming. At the time, climate change was a hypothesis. By burning fossil fuels and thereby emitting great quantities of carbon dioxide, human beings would trap heat near the planet's surface, changing its weather.

We labor under the illusion that if the clock stopped between creation and Fall or between Fall and redemption, they would make sense on their own. But nothing could be more misleading.

There is virtue yet in the hoe and the spade for learned as well as unlearned hands,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson, echoing a theme that goes back at least as far as the Rule of St. Benedict.

Many of us feel a little silly if we react strongly to the death of a pet or the plight of an animal. “Well, it was just a cat,” we say, embarrassed by our grief. Where does this attitude come from? It’s certainly not biblical.

Heated debate. Loss of faith. Religious discord. Questions about death, the universe and our place in it.

According to a new film, Charles Darwin wrestled with those issues as the implications of his theory of evolution became clear for society as a whole, but even more so, within his own family.