Let’s not enter into the holiday season ahead without letting the climate emergency we’re in shape our celebrations. But how? My new book shows how the birth of Jesus is less focused on saving people than on saving the planet’s life-giving ways. It’s title is “The Liberating Birth of Jesus.” Sounds right for the season ahead, doesn’t it? But the connection with the climate disruption comes in the all important subtitle: “A Birth Story Able to Reverse Our Planet’s Perils.” Not many have read the birth story of Jesus as a story of a new creation—the very thing necessary for the climate emergency we are in. That’s how we must learn to read it now.
The book will be available in November—for you and all whom you want to gift with it. So let me whet your appetite further by sharing the review by Dan Meyer, who has read the manuscript. Dan was educated while in the Jesuit Order and received his PhD in theology from the Gregorian University in Rome. Later he would marry. He still holds to his priestly calling, but, of course, the Catholic Church does not recognize any of it. Dan has a great lifestory. But for now, may I introduce him by simply sharing his brief review of “The Liberating Birth of Jesus.”
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For an exciting, new and refreshing account of the birth of Jesus - and its significance in this perilous time for the survival of our planet, look no further than Lee Van Ham’s latest book, “The Liberating Birth of Jesus.” Based on the infancy narratives of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Van Ham’s thorough exegesis takes the reader all the way back to the Genesis story and to Jesus’ genealogy that includes four “outsider” women (Rahab, Tamar, Ruth, Bathsheba) and thereby distances itself from the royal, official line of descent for the infant Jesus. Here is “newness”!
Van Ham “mines” every detail of the beloved, well-memorized Christmas story. At each step of Matthew’s & Luke’s narratives—involving the whole lineup of Elizabeth, Zechariah, Mary, Joseph, Simeon, Anna, the Magi, plus the “heavenly host” of angels proclaiming the “good news” to the shepherds… and the birth of Jesus himself —the author shows the “newness” of these events. Jesus’ birth is grand in its humility! Likewise, it is NOT part of the ruling economic structure of societies that “go for the money” and eventually seek a “multi-earth” rather than a “one-earth” economy. In contrast, “One Earth Economy” respects both the abundance of nature and the limits necessary to preserve its balance………. There is true excitement in Van Ham’s unveiling of this truth as he re-tells the familiar Christmas story.
In addition to respecting Van Ham’s solid Biblical scholarship, I found myself deeply moved by his sensitive presentation of the pre-birth narratives of both Mary and Elizabeth.
—Daniel P. Meyer, PhD Theology