The Roots of Endurance: Invincible Perseverance in the Lives of John Newton, Charles Simeon, and William Wilberforce (Swans Are Not Silent)

Book Description

John Newton, Charles Simeon, and William Wilberforce suffered lifelong opposition and endured for the causes of gospel truth, missionary zeal, and political justice. They found, in solid doctrine and humble joy, the tough roots for habitual tenderness in response to their adversaries—without doctrinal or moral flinching. They are examples of remarkable grace.

In Book 3 in The Swans Are Not Silent series, best-selling author John Piper looks at the lives of these three great men and focuses on how they not only endured great opposition, but that they did so with joy and without bitterness. Their lives exemplify how to set a pace and finish the race before us, encouraging every heart that it is possible to jump the hurdles in our paths.

Customer Reviews:

Saints, But Not In The Catholic Tradition.......2007-09-22

Piper continues his eulogies in 'The Swans Are Not Silent' by tracing the lives of three unique men called of God to be Job in our era.

These godly men had a tenacity that transcends human ability. As such, we can and do readily accept that it was God's providence in their lives that led them to such mighty labor.

All these men lived holy lives, yet suffered reproach for righteousness' sake. They all had a desire to put Christ first and this they then did in exemplary fashion. Once again, Calvinists glorifying God in the totality of their human life. It is an awe-inspiring read. When Piper introduces the modern way of 'giving-up' so easily and too often, it honestly probed into the depths of my soul. A great contribution to their Puritan piety.

Edifying Biographies of Three Great Men of God.......2007-05-09

I love biographies. I love John Piper. So I really love biographies written by John Piper. The Roots of Endurance: Invincible Perseverance in the Lives of John Newton, Charles Simeon and William Wilberforce is the third book (of four) in the Swans are not Silent biography series. Each book contains short, 30-40 page biographies of three saints; each section focusing on particular distinctives of that specific saint.

John Newton, Charles Simeon and William Wilberforce are the subjects of book three and are brought together under a common theme: each man possessed and exhibited character qualities that are essential to perseverance in Christian life and ministry. For Newton, it was the "tough roots of his habitual tenderness"; for Simeon, it was the "ballest of brokeness" that kept his ship from being tossed to and fro; and for Wilberforce, it was child-like joy in Christ that enabled him to steadily persevere with patience and hope in the midst of great opposition.

Piper shows us John Newton as a man who, after his conversion to Christ, lived out these words:

"Whoever...has tasted of the love of Christ, and has known, by his own experience, the need and the worth of redemption, is enabled, yea, he is constrained, to love his fellow creatures. He loves them at first sight, and, if the providence of God commits a dispensation of the gospel and care of souls to him, he will feel the warmest emotions of friendship and tenderness, while he beseeches them by the tender mercies of God, and even while he warns them by his terrors" (54).

There is much, much more; but to suffice it to say, Newton was a man who lived the truth of II Timothy 2:24-26.

Charles Simeon helps us to obey the commandment, "Be patient in tribulation" Romans 12:12. Piper wants Simeon's life to help us "see persecution, opposition, slander, misunderstanding, disappointment, self-recrimination, weakness, and danger as the normal portion of faithful Christian living and ministry" (78). Simeon himself endured such things and so becomes a model to us as we seek to live faithfully in the present age. Piper explains that Simeon's ability to persevere grew from "Roots of Endurance":

He had a strong sense of his accountability before god for the souls of his flock
He was free from the scolding tone even through controversy
He was not a rumor tracker
He was not a heresy-hunter
He dealt with opponents in a forthright, face to face way
He learned to receive rebuke and grow from it
He was unimpeachable in his finances and he had no love of money
He saw discouraging things hopefully
He saw suffering as a privilege of bearing the cross with Christ

But the deepest roots that gave health and life to these other 'roots' was Simeon's devotion to Bible study and meditation; and his experience of "Growing downward in humiliation before God and upward in adoration of Christ." Simeon said, "Meditation is the grand means of our growth in grace; without it prayer itself is an empty service."

But it was his experience of humiliation before God that could be considered his 'deepest root.' Simeon said,

"Repentance is in every view so desirable, so necessary, so suited to honor God, that I seek that above all. The tender heart, the broken and contrite spirit, are to me far above all the joys that I could ever hope for in this vale of tears. I long to be in my proper place, my hand upon my mouth, and my mouth in the dust...I feel this is safe ground. Here I cannot [error]...I am sure that whatever God may despise...He will not despise a broken heart" (110).

William Wilberforce's most well known accomplishment was his success in fighting for the abolition of slavery and slave trade in the British Empire. Both evils were abolished before his death in 1833. But Wilberforce was not a 'Single issue candidate." After his conversion in his mid -twenties, Wilberforce, who was already a member of the British Parliament, fought on a number of levels for the good of mankind. Piper informs us that "There was a steady stream of action to alleviate pain and bring greater social (and eternal!) good. 'At one stage, he was active in sixty-nine different initiatives.'"

Wilberforce, however, did not lose his edge on pure doctrine while pursuing social good. Piper explains,

"Many public people say that changing society requires changing people, but few show the depth of understanding Wilberforce did concerning how that comes about. For him, the right grasp of the central doctrine of justification and its relation to sanctification--an emerging Christlikeness in private and public--were essential to his own endurance and for the reformation of the morals of England" (158).

Wilberforce would write,

"The grand distinction which subsists between the true Christian and all other Religionists...is concerning the nature of holiness and the way it is to be obtained...[nominal Christians think that] morality is to be obtained by their own natural unassisted efforts: of if they admit some vague indistinct notion of the assistance of the Holy Spirit, it is unquestionably obvious on conversing with them that this does not constitute the main practical ground of their dependence" (159).

Amidst all his efforts for the good of all men, Wilberforce would suffer great slander, pain at home (with his wayward son), and tremendous physical sufferings brought about by medical ailments. But he persevered through these trials by a child-like joy in Christ. Joy, to Wilberforce, was a Christian's high duty:

"We can scarcely indeed look into any part of the sacred volume without meeting abundant proofs, that it is the religion of the Affections which God particularly requires...joy...is enjoined on us as our bounden duty and commended to us as acceptable worship...A cold...unfeeling heart is represented as highly criminal" (150).

In each example, I gave only a taste of what is in the book. And I strongly recommend not only this volume, but each volume of the Swans are not Silent series. They are edifying, strengthening, and very interesting. I am confident that they will encourage you as you seek to persevere with tenderness, brokeness, and joy in Christ.

Amazing Endurance by the Grace of God.......2007-03-12

The Roots of Endurance is the third volume in a series of biographical books by John Piper called "The Swans Are Not Silent." Each book covers three figures from Christian history under a common theme. In this book, Piper looked at the lives of John Newton, Charles Simeon, and William Wilberforce, each of which endured to their ends facing remarkable adversity.

Piper set the stage with an introduction connecting the three men together in history, spiritually, and theologically. As usual, his words are salted with spiritual wisdom and worth meditation. From the life of John Newton, Piper explored "habitual tenderness" and what it means to have "a tender heart and a theological backbone of steel."

The biography of Charles Simeon is one of my favorite from the series so far. For the first twelve years of his service at Trinity Church his congregation resisted and rebelled against him, and yet he remained there for fifty-four years! And as many now know due to the recent movie, "Amazing Grace," William Wilberforce also maintained his service through many years, though for him it was in Parliament fighting slavery. Piper told the stories of these men's inspiring lives along with great academic footnotes and insightful practical application.

Unlike the other books in this series, I thought the concluding thoughts to The Roots of Endurance were a bit shallow (compared to Piper's other reflections) and perhaps rushed. However, the book stands well enough on its own without the conclusion and I would recommending reading it if only for the biography of Charles Simeon.

Encouragement from three great saints of the faith.......2007-01-30

What a great book - in my opinion Piper is such a great writer and the subject of his essay this time was one of my personal heroes - William Wilberforce. But this wasn't just a book about the life and ministry of Wilberforce, it was a look at the interaction of three incredible men of God that all lived at the same time in England and how they each endured through extraordinary conditions. The elder statesman was John Newton, well-known today as the author of the hymn "Amazing Grace." Newton, a former slave-trade captain, became an outspoken abolitionist as he pastured a church and ministered to the lives of his parishioners. Piper also brings into the mix another pastor, a contemporary of Wilberforce, Charles Simeon who pastured Trinity Church on the campus of Cambridge for fifty-four years.

The primary emphasis of this book is simply to introduce Christians today to some of the great men of the faith from years past - the great cloud of witnesses of Hebrews 12. This book is actually Book Three of The Swans are not Silent series and after reading this one, I'm looking forward to diving into the others. But the book is not just biographical in nature - Piper does a great job applying the lessons learned from the lives and struggles of these great men to our own personal spiritual journeys. In this book, specifically, each man had to overcome significant opposition to their faith and the common root of endurance they shared was their deep devotion to God's Word and their unwillingness to compromise their principles for expediency or approval. However, each individual did have opportunities to demonstrate God's grace in their own lives as they worked with those who stood in opposition to them, and in most cases, won them over as brothers-in-Christ by their compassion.

Three incredible stories of three god-sized challenges overcome by three humble, but God-centered, men. The book is a great read for almost anyone - a friend struggling with a life issue, a young person wondering how God could use them, or a pastor as he sacrifices to lead and minister to his flock - The Roots of Endurance is a challenging, uplifting and encouraging read and just what the doctor ordered to spur one another one toward love and good deeds (Heb. 10:24).

Superb!.......2003-09-06

John Piper produced another top-notch work. This book is articulate, to the point, and easy to read. He clearly did a tremendous amount of scholarly work in writing this book. Very few works exist in Reformed circles wherein non-theologians can read and understand due to the concise nature of the writing. Piper did an excellent job describing how these men dealt with tremendous strife - and where the ability to do so originated. These men understood God's grace... and that is a point not lost, but rather promoted, by Piper. This is another book I can highly recommend.

Book Description

Inaugurated in 1984, America's "War on Drugs" is just the most recent skirmish in a standoff between global drug trafficking and state power. From Britain's nineteenth-century Opium Wars in China to the activities of Colombia's drug cartels and their suppression by U.S.-backed military forces today, conflicts over narcotics have justified imperial expansion, global capitalism, and state violence, even as they have also fueled the movement of goods and labor around the world.

In Drug Wars, cultural critic Curtis Marez examines two hundred years of writings, graphic works, films, and music that both demonize and celebrate the commerce in cocaine, marijuana, and opium, providing a bold interdisciplinary exploration of drugs in the popular imagination. Ranging from the writings of Sigmund Freud to pro-drug lord Mexican popular music, gangsta rap, and Brian De Palma's 1983 epic Scarface, Drug Wars moves from the representations and realities of the Opium Wars to the long history of drug and immigration enforcement on the U.S.-Mexican border, and to cocaine use and interdiction in South America, Middle Europe, and among American Indians. Throughout Marez juxtaposes official drug policy and propaganda with subversive images that challenge and sometimes even taunt government and legal efforts.

As Marez shows, despite the state's best efforts to use the media to obscure the hypocrisies and failures of its drug policies—be they lurid descriptions of Chinese opium dens in the English popular press or Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign—marginalized groups have consistently opposed the expansion of state power that drug traffic has historically supported.

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Why should anyone believe in God?

Important to God/Science Discussion

Disappointing on almost all levels

A non-believer examines Guillen's thesis

Blah.

Can a Smart Person Believe in God?
Michael Guillen
Manufacturer: Thomas Nelson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Science & Religion | Religious Studies | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0785260242

Book Description

As Christians, we are often urged to turn away from scientific discovery and rely solely on the Bible as the source of our faith. On the other hand, many people in areas such as science, law, and education insist that Christian faith is lowbrow or unintelligent. But is it possible to reconcile science with what you believe about God? As someone who has grappled with the issues of science and faith in the public eye for more than a decade as a television journalist, Dr. Michael Guillen believes it is possible. In fact, by embracing the discoveries of science we can see God, the universe, and humanity in full, multidimensional glory.

Fortunately, you don't have to be a genius to enjoy this book. The bite-sized chapters are full of fascinating scientific tidbits in an easy-to-understand format. Captivating stories of the author's childhood in the Mexican barrio of East L.A. and his work in television and research are woven throughout. There is even an entertaining SQ (Spiritual Quotient) test for readers to take.

Customer Reviews:

Why should anyone believe in God?.......2006-07-27

To determine what to believe in we first have to find out what is known about God. The Judeo-Christian God that Guillen wants us to believe in is a creator god who supposedly created everything in the universe. As part of this creation package he also gave us a "soul" that survives death and whose fate in the next world depends on how well you observed his rules in this world. There is a mysterious aspect to him too: he cannot be seen or heard but he himself sees and hears everything and knows just what you think. With this device he has you over the barrel: he knows everything about you, and if you didn't observe his rules your soul ends up in "Hell" after you die. But before you buy into this scenario you will want to know what evidence is there for any of this. You start with the Bible and you note that the oldest parts of it were not written down until the seventh century B.C. This is much later than the religions of neighboring Egypt and Mesopotamia so that the possibility exists of borrowing from these antecedent civilizations. And lo and behold, the Bible does contain a flood story that is obviously borrowed from the Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh. And Moses, the Egyptian who led the Exodus, is a monotheist, not a polytheist like the other Egyptians. But wait, the Egyptians also had a monotheistic religion under pharao Akhenaten which was suppressed after his death. Is it possible that Moses was one of Akhenaten's followers who was forced underground and then took the opportunity to flee Egypt with the Israelis? Quite possible, for the time frame fits, but unprovable. Yet there are hints. To Akhenaten the one and only god was the sun god Aten. Aten was also known by other names, one of which was Amun-Ra and another one was Amen. And not coincidentally the Hebrew prayers always end with the word "Amen," an invocation to the Egyptian sun god and not to their own god Yahweh. Next, you check out theology. To theologians God is, by definition, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and eternal. Pretty strong stuff. Omnipotence means that he can make anything happen. And here we come to the real problem: there is much evil in the world and if he really is omnipotent he could put a stop to it. He obviously did not prevent Nazi and Communist mass murders or the Rwandan genocide. This leaves only two possibilities: either he is omnipotent and he wanted these massacres to happen, or he simply does not exist. There is something to be said for his love of massacres for if you know your Bible you know that he once drowned the entire human race for not following his rules and left only one family alive. That must count as the greatest mass murder in history, greater than any of those twentieth century massacres he seems to have approved of. Its intent is basically similar to killing cattle that have the foot and mouth disease - you just kill the diseased ones as England did and grow more from uninfected cattle. You might say that by drowning us he has treated us like cattle. But I prefer the second possibility because the theory of evolution tells us that we were not created but evolved, thus invalidating the creation story of evey religion there is. Which leaves us GODLESS. And that is why a smart person can not believe in God. But Guillen has his own unique way of determining what to believe. His parents and grandparents were all pentecostal ministers and he is the only one in the family who took up science and obtained a Ph.D. from Harvard. He has taught physics at the university level and was also a science popularizer on TV. In this book-length sermon he postulates the existence of an SQ or Spiritual Quotient, analogous to an IQ but measuring your degree of spirituality. To him both IQ and SQ are needed for a complete person - it is like stereo vision allowing you to appreciate both the physical and the spiritual worlds, both science and religion, to the fullest. But if one of them is low or missing you are a cyclops. High IQ - low SQ person is an intellectual cyclops or an atheist while a low IQ - high SQ person is a spiritual cyclops of blind faith like some seventeenth-century churchmen. If you have that stereo vision, however, you can see both science and faith clearly and to you they do not conflict. And having glimpsed such a paradise, how can you not believe in God? Along the way we are given statistics that ninety four percent of Americans believe in God and that only one percent of us are atheists. For such a rare breed of person he has met quite a few of them and this book is aimed at converting them to God. He himself says that while in the company of intellectuals he was reluctant to speak of his faith and did not even say his prayers daily as he had been taught as a child. But that changed when he outed himself on TV and the public responded wonderfully, convincing him that his belief was right. This book does not even attempt to discuss religion seriously and relies on the emotional appeal of his anectotes to try to make a point. He comes across as a likeable, well-meaning person permanently disabled by his childhood indoctrination that he lacks the courage to reject. His "stereo vision" is a pitiful attempt to solve this dilemma.

Important to God/Science Discussion.......2006-02-22

This is a short (160pp) but interesting little book. Basically it focuses on how atheists promote the idea that "smart" people can't believe in God and how they have promoted the idea that science and religion are separate realms.

Guillen details why science and religion are not at odds but are in fact complimentary. He does tend to still keep them in separate compartments, whereas many Christian scientists wouldn't.. The new and important contribution Guillen makes to the issue is his idea of the "spiritual quotient", or SQ, the companion to IQ. His discussions on how people tend to ignore the intellectual part of their humanity (IQ) or ignore their spiritual part (SQ) is right on the mark. Usually it's the atheists ignoring the spiritual side (or reforming it naturalistic terms) and Christians ignoring the intellectual side of faith.

This book can be useful in discussions with atheists, but Guillen does stop a step or two short in not allowing science and religion to completely converge even though he believes they are from the same source. For example, he states science can't prove God. Think about that, it doesn't make sense. It's like saying an archaeologist who finds an object in the ground, concludes it's designed but then says he can't infer anything about the person who created it or if that person exist at all. That's absurd reasoning, especially after Guillen spends all that time showing how there is design in the universe.

Disappointing on almost all levels.......2006-02-08

I picked up this slim book because it was directed to both believers and atheists. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to its marketing copy. "Can A Smart Person Believe In God?" never properly answers its title question and utterly fails to address the concerns of the nonbeliever. Unfortunately it doesn't even address all believers, as this work is willfully ignorant of the existance of any religion but evangelical Christianity.

Michael Guillen is an evangelical Christian who accomplished a lot in a field that usually doesn't attract religious believers. He feels this book will straddle these two disparate worlds, but all he's accomplished is demonstrating how out of his depth he is with a work like this. In order to reconcile science and religious belief, Guillen would have done well to learn plenty of philosophy, history of philosophy, history of religion, and history of science. But this book seems to have been put together with a few Google searches and a couple of lookups in an encyclopedia. He missteps left and right in invoking arguments that were abandoned more than a hundred years ago in trying to 'disprove' atheism, while at the same time admitting that most areas of religion cannot be measured scientifically.

His categorization of the different varieties of atheist were at best patronizing and in many cases far worse. While he quotes Robert Ingersoll, it isn't apparent that Guillen ever actually read his work for understanding. He seems unsure how to handle the "practical atheist" who is willing to accept a divinity should one actually manifest. And he saves his greatest contempt for the rock-solid atheist such as Richard Dawkins, labeling them Arrogant Atheists.

More than a third of the book suffers from the Argument from Authority when the authority is the Bible. Guillen never makes a case for why the nonbeliever or the non-Christian would accept the King James Bible as a solution. In fact, Guillen never addresses the existence of any form of religious tradition other than Christianity at all, which is probably the book's biggest failing on the believers' side. It's as provincial as a book on Life in the Twentieth Century only talking about New York City; yeah, it's big, but it isn't all there is.

The Spiritual Quotient is another one of Guillen's ideas gone wrong, because he doesn't seem to be able to define it very well. The scoring of his SQ test shows some hostility toward not only rational-types but again, non-Christians (not going to church counts against you). And he missed the boat by not looking into the work being done in neurology and evolutionary psychology which shows that religious ecstacy can be induced with proper stimulation of certain brain regions, or that humans may have been selected for belief in the divine as a social survival trait, whether or not any divine being exists or not.

Ultimately, the biggest failing of this book is that Guillen was the wrong person to write it. The intersection between science and religion is a fascinating field for discussion. But when a proponent dismisses atheism with one straw man argument after another, ignores the existence of most of the world's religious traditions other than his own, and treads on the field of philosophy without understanding it, the result is an embarassment that should not have been published.

A non-believer examines Guillen's thesis.......2006-01-26

I approached this book with interest because, although I am a non-believer, I share Guillen's sense of wonder and awe when we contemplate the mysteries of the universe.

Guillen, of course, believes (pages 11-12) in the "...God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.... who defines standards of behavior that invite us to transcend our baser, more destructive tendencies ..." Yes, some sections of the Bible provide fine standards of behavior - but this is not uniformly so. Guillen does not mention that God approved selling one's daughter into slavery (Exodus 21:7), or that God apparently favored genocide, ordering the deaths of many tribes - among others, almost everyone in Jericho (Joshua 6), all the male Midianites (Numbers 31) and all the Amalekites (Samuel 15).

Guillen ignores the obvious question of whether God is cruel and vengeful - and the more likely explanation that the Bible was written by ordinary mortals who were themselves cruel and vengeful. Biblical scholars tell us that the Torah, the core of the Old Testament, is a compendium authored by a series of remarkable writers over a period of some 500 years, from about 900 to 400 BCE. Analysis of the Bible and its authorship does not detract from the wisdom contained in its pages, but should raises questions as to whether the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob dictated the Bible to Moses.

Guillen seems to believe that one can curry favor with God and that God can interfere in the affairs of our world. An especially dangerous belief is that "God is on our side" in whatever war we are currently prosecuting. Such a conviction was used by Islamic terrorists to justify destroying the World Trade Center - and has been used by many world leaders to intimidate those who disagree with their policies.

Guillen offers the pretence of fairness - for example, on page 33 he expresses the hope that he has "...done justice to [the] arguments [of atheists]..." but I think not. He has caricatured, ridiculed and patronized atheists. He has set up straw men and knocked them down, but hasn't come close to addressing the serious views put forward by thoughtful non-believers.
Yes, some atheists are - as he notes - shamefully arrogant. But so are many religionists - arrogant to the point of believing that it is all right to disregard the views and feelings of any who disagree, to trample on their rights, to dispossess them from their lands and, if it seems convenient, to kill them.
Guillen implies (pages 49-51) that the horrendous crimes committed by various leaders in the USSR, China and North Korea are related to "... their godless political philosophies..." This suggests that atheism is at the root of these crimes, for which there is no evidence. Long before the barbarities of the 20th Century, the world witnessed, throughout the millennia, barbaric cruelties that clearly were inspired by religion, but Guillen takes no note of this.

As evidence of a coherent worldview (pages 135-6) Guillen juxtapose angels and neutrinos, the devil and a black hole, monotheism and quantum mechanics. This is mind-boggling. Intelligent people believes in neutrinos, black holes and quantum mechanics because there is abundant evidence for them. Inexplicably, Guillen finds an analogy between such evidence and a belief in angels or in the devil. But somehow he suggests that intellectual people and spiritual people are moving toward a mutually coherent understanding of the world.

Guillen's approach to miracles (page 119) is astonishing. He suggests that because modern science can help a 63-year-old woman become pregnant, this somehow gives credibility to the story that God caused Sarah, at age 90, to become pregnant. He seems to be trying to make science complicit in legitimizing a miracle.
Aside from statements of faith - where Guillen has as much right to his opinion as I have to mine - there are occasional misstatements of fact. For example, he states (page 137) that "The three angles of any triangle - wide, narrow or in-between - always add up to 180 degrees." Really? Try that on the surface of a sphere, like the one we live on. (A cheap shot, but I couldn't resist.)

Guillen finds meaning and purpose in life through his "...wise inner counsel [that Christians call] the Holy Spirit..." (page 140). All well and good. But many others find wise, inner counsel in their own ways. Inner wisdom is not denied to Jews, to Buddhists, to Muslims, to pantheists or to non-believers.

I think Guillen is probably correct (page 102) that we can never hope to fully understand the world solely on the basis of intellectual analysis and that some questions will always remain beyond the reach of scientific knowledge. But this does not justify the notion that we must formulate answers to those questions solely on the basis of faith. He alludes (pages 40-41) to "...the ubiquitous evidence for God's existence..." Where is that evidence? The evidence seems to be "... the deity inside my head, and also my heart and soul..." (page 44). That is not evidence, but simply a matter of faith. Although he has every right to maintain that faith, he has failed completely to make his case (page 146) that a smart person cannot avoid believing in God.

In the final analysis Guillen's thesis is unconvincing, lacking in logic, and unlikely to persuade many non-believers. Although secular humanists do not believe in God, they believe in the beauty and grandeur of the natural world and in the importance of cherishing and preserving it. They believe in human decency and dignity and caring and love, and in striving for justice and fairness to all human beings. They seek those goals as urgently as any devout religionist and their ability to achieve them is not diminished because of their agnosticism.

Blah........2005-08-05

First let me say it's a pity that in Mr. Guillen's proffesional milieu a person should feel compelled to defend his faith in God.

This book is a let-down because the author defends his rather limited idea of spirituality and God (the sadist in the Old Testament that tells us to murder the children of our enemies), leaving little to no room for less dogmatic forms of spirituality. The tone of the book is defensive and unscientific. The author argues that God must exist because most people through the ages have believed in God. One could use this logic to justify scapegoating (killing) women as witches since so many people through the ages have believed in evil spells and black magic!

Book Description

Tropical forests have seen a tremendous growth in logging, mining, and oil and gas development over the past decades. These industries and their infrastructure, including roads and power lines, have a tremendous impact on the environment and often conflict with the growing concern for conservation, particularly the conservation of tropical biodiversity. However, development in the tropics is extremely important economically, both for developing and industrialized nations, and Footprints in the Jungle is an invaluable reference in this important and highly politicized debate. This volume looks at new approaches that lessen the impact of development. It collects numerous case studies by project managers, advocates, and researchers from major international companies, development agencies, universities, and non-governmental organizations. It also examines the environmental and social impact of resource development, proposes a rigorous "best practices" approach, and analyzes a number of challenging technical, environmental, social, and legal issues.

Customer Reviews:

Engaging Private Sector in Environmental Protection.......2001-10-30

Business which is based on profit maximization is usually considered to be in conflict with the goals of environmental protection. This contradiction can be even more severe when the business owned by private sectors in developed countries extend their activities in far-away underdeveloped areas. The book looks at the environmental protection from business perspectives, especially extractive industries' involvement in biodiversity conservation. It explores numerous cases ("best practices") showing how business interests reconcile with environmental protection goals. The dynamics of various stakeholders was investigated to illustrate how the business strategic calculation of benefit and cost has been shaped by other stakeholders. According to the authors, there are two major reasons of why business starts to voluntarily involve in environmental protection: corporate reputation (intangible value) and eco-efficiency (tangible value). The book is a big contribution to the empirical studies of how business operation has been shaped by environmental protection and vice versa. I recommend the book to environmental experts, project managers and corporate environmentalists.

Engaging Private Sector in Environmental Protection.......2001-10-30

Footprints in the Jungle : Natural Resource Industries, Infrastructure and Biodiversity Conservation

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Footprints in the Jungle : Natural Resource Industries, Infrastructure and Biodiversity Conservation
Lan A. (editor); Prickett, Glenn T. (editor) Bowles
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, Incorporated
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000KWQG38

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