about the lead author

I am hoping that we will eventually have several authors on this site, but for now it is just me and my guess is that people may want to know who is doing this.

My name is Chris Sunderland and I have done various things. I was a research biochemist for about ten years. Then I became an Anglican vicar and worked in a tower block estate known as Barton Hill in Bristol for most of the 90s. That was a particularly formative time as I sensed great things bearing down on people that no one was addressing. From there I set out to explore new ways of helping people engage with the issues that affect their lives and this has a become a charity known as Agora (see www.agoraspace.org ). The last few years have been a challenging and exhilarating ride, working with cafe style conversations, and doing some high profile city events on various themes. Agora has explored a huge variety of topics including the war in Iraq, trust in the workplace and immigration issues,  but a year or so ago the trustees decided that one issue above all demanded our attention and that was climate change. After several months research as to how and what we could contribute we entered into a partnership with Climate Outreach and Information Network (see www.coinet.org.uk to deliver a series of high profile climate change events in Bristol. We are also in the process of launching a city wide campaign known as Chooseday, which hinges around making Tuesdays a day for lifestyle reinvention and begins in a few weeks with ‘choose to leave your car at home’ (see www.chooseday.org )

Which all brings me to the reason for this blog. I have a hunch that underneath all the science and the various gut level opinions on offer about climate change lies a disease which is best understood as spiritual and concerns our whole relationship with the earth and its creatures. Modern life is often largely cut off from the natural world. We no longer feel ourselves to be creatures or sense a proper dependence on other living systems. This must be part of the reason that our lifestyles are now compulsive and destructive of the earth. Likwise the answer must lie in a recovery of vision.

 I have a hunch, well actually it is more than a hunch, that the Judaeo-Christian scriptures can offer something to this search for vision. Religion has a bad name in the West just now with leaders taking us off to war, each with their own brand of ‘conviction’ politics. But I have a sense that faith can become constructive if it takes on its true role in society which is to act as a focus for reflection about life and its meaning.

The primary purpose of this blog will be to explore a particular dream or vision of a great peace which is found shot through the Bible almost from the first page to the last – and that is the Dream of Shalom.

Although I have research level degrees in both science and theology I am all too aware that these big subjects cannot be grasped by any one individual. We need each other to explore this ground. So I welcome and need your comments, whether you are a published theologian or just an ordinary person with an interest in the subject, and hope in due course that some of those who interact with this site will become co-authors with me. Perhaps we may develop a Shalom community?