BOOK REVIEW : Saying Yes to Life by Ruth Valerio

Saying Yes To Life - The Archbishop of Canterbury's Lent Book 2020 by Ruth Valerio

Ruth Valerio uses the Days of Creation (Genesis 1) to form the seven chapters of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s 2020 Lent Book, which ends with a large bibliography and is accompanied by a website that contains five fifteen minute video clips and links to further resources associated with each chapter - which will be helpful for those using the book in the context of a weekly study group during Lent.

And God saw that it was good

The book begins by comparing the text of Genesis with Enuma Elish - the Babylonian creation story, in which the world is formed by warring Gods, with humans (made from the blood of a defeated God) put to work as slaves, cleaning the temple. The comparison provides the chance to explain the exilic context in which Genesis is thought to have been written and serves to highlight the message of hope, peace and confidence in the text:

“a good God who reigns supreme has created a very good world, with people created to work with him in taking care of it and one another, not as his slaves but as his friends.”

This goodness - the value to God of all creation - and the interrelationship between humankind and the rest of the natural world (described in parallel with the Trinity) - is a recurring theme throughout the book. Around one third of each chapter is devoted to a description of the abundant diversity of the world’s habitats and species (including the Bassian Thrush in Australia which farts on leaves to disturb worms which it then eats(!) and how trees are connected to an underground social network of fungal mycelium through which they communicate between species). These descriptions are set alongside stories of indigenous peoples around the world highlighting the impact of dramatic extinction rates and the loss of habitats, together with case studies from the work of Tearfund (where Ruth Valerio works) as well as Christian Aid, Cafod and other charities supporting sustainable development. 

Whilst structured around the Days of Creation in Genesis 1, each chapter offers links to a variety of scriptural sources as well as hymns and the creeds - highlighting references to, for instance, light and darkness, the seas, birds and fish, as is appropriate to each chapter. This is all interesting and useful, but combined with the large number of statistics in other sections, these observations can at times feel like reading the transcript of a PowerPoint presentation - perhaps this is inevitable when covering such a complex subject succinctly?

Creation and salvation

Unsurprisingly for a Lent Book, another key theme running through the text is salvation. Drawing on the wisdom of theologians from around the world and from a diverse range of traditions, Ruth Valerio also uses scripture, including the hymn which Paul quotes in Colossians 1.15-20, to emphasise that through the death and resurrection of Jesus, humankind and the rest of creation are saved : “God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.” 

In Chapter Four, three passages (Isaiah 65.17-25, 2 Peter 3 and Revelation 21 and 22) are used to argue that the new creation that will emerge after the Last Judgement will not mean the destruction of the earth but a transformed creation. 

Whilst careful to point out that the Bible is full of reasons why we should care for the environment - an imperative which does not depend on any eschatological point of view, Ruth Valerio explains that accepting a ‘transformed’ new-creation eschatology means that every action we take to look after this world shows our wish to live in anticipation of the future that Jesus’ death on the cross guarantees, countering the apparently widely held view (in certain parts of the globe) that if the world is going to be destroyed anyway why bother to look after it at all.

This ‘transformed creation’ eschatology is later used to suggest that while meat eating is possible (and can be evidenced in the Bible) in the ‘between times’ in which we live, vegetarianism was the desired state at the beginning of creation as it will be at the end when all of Gods creation will once again live in a state of shalom (so eating each other will not be possible). Reading the book in South Africa, a country full of lions, cheetahs, leopards, wild dogs and other large carnivores, I found this difficult but perhaps not impossible to accept. 

Holy Week

Chapter Six describes the creation of land dwelling creatures, including humankind. If being used as part of a weekly study group in Lent, this chapter would be read in Holy Week; and it very much feels like the climax of the book. In the sections that follow, Ruth Valerio addresses the issue of what man’s ‘dominion’ over the rest of the natural world means (she suggests a sort of job description, like a gardener or caretaker) as well as the issue of gender equality, with shocking statistics about the rights of women around the world. Reading the book during a week of scheduled power outages due to the maintenance of power stations, in a house which, like most others here, has its own water tank because the municipality is not able to provide enough fresh water to meet demand; the observation that in the UK we have become too distant from our natural resources to appreciate them, seemed to ring true!

Ruth Valerio also calls out consumerism (greed is not mentioned but implied) and the damaging environmental impact of our global economy. Describing her participation in the 2019 Extinction Rebellion protests, she advocates a bottom-up revolution, with consumer demand generating more environmentally sustainable practices in terms of agriculture and industry. Something I want to believe in but find hard to do myself and am pessimistic that such an approach can ever be successful - but what alternative is there? None that I can think of.

Describing how upset she would be if a treasured tapestry in her home was used as a doormat, Ruth Valerio challenges us to look around the natural world wherever we are and see what we love - to encourage us to make lifestyle changes that will ensure the creation that God loves is preserved. 

We are called to say “Yes to Life.”