Next, the 'Soylent Green' Bible

The Green Bible has sprouted on the religious publishing scene, and has even received a stamp of approval from the Sierra Club. The new version, which costs $29.95, "will equip and encourage you to see God's vision for creation and help you engage in the work of healing and sustaining it."

This New Revised Standard Version published by HarperCollins highlights environmentally significant passages in green, is printed with soy ink on water-coated recyclable paper and bound in a cloth-and-linen cover.

The only drawback is that the book is not totally edible.

If Tony Campolo, Jim Wallis and the Sojourners crowd are "Red Letter" Christians, then who are "Green Letter" Christians? Well, Brian McLaren explains "Why I Am Green." And Matthew Sleeth, N. T. Wright and Desmond Tutu contribute, along with Earth-conscious essays and poems from Wendell Beery, St. Francis of Assisi and Pope John Paul II.

Why do we need a Green Bible? Because "with over 1,000 references to the earth in the Bible, compared to 490 references to heaven and 530 references to love, the Bible carries a powerful message for the earth."

On the other hand, out of the 773,692 total words in the Bible, "and" is used almost 70,000 times. Forgive my quibbling, but the scriptures carry a powerful message for conjunctions, too.

In one essay by J. Matthew Sleeth, a good point is made that the Bible starts with a tree in Genesis and ends with one in Revelation. That's cool. I like that. I also understand most of the green-highlighted passages I read in the online sample-- they call it the "Green Bible Trail." Sort of like W. A. Criswell's "Scarlet Thread through the Bible" except about landscaping instead of salvation.

But I'm confused about why some passages were left out.

For instance, in the sample given from the book of Ruth, nothing was highlighted in green at all. In the story about Ruth gleaning in Boaz's field, it says he "heaped up for her some parched grain. She ate until she was satisfied, and she had some left over. " Why isn't that in green? Is it because people are messing with nature here, taking dominion over it, using it to feed themselves?

Just askin'.

Don't get me wrong, I certainly don't want us to all have to scramble for survival on a planet blighted with toxic waste, choking on pollution and divorced from nature by our technology. (Oh yeah, never mind, that's already happening). But don't cheat me by rationing my green-highlighted Bible passages!

Environmental checklists can get ridiculous. At the bottom of the screen on the publisher's web site, I noticed it proudly proclaims: "This site was made without using paper."

A website without paper!

I wish that would catch on, because I'm tired of getting ink all over my hands when I click through the New York Times headlines links. Thanks, HarperCollins.


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