Preaching Green

Preaching Green

By John Carey

With publishers rushing into environmental titles, there’s growing worry about a glut. “How many guides to a green life do you need?” asks Mark Tauber, senior vice-president for HarperOne, a HarperCollins imprint. Here’s how his company figures to stand out: This fall, it will publish The Green Bible, complete with cotton/linen cover, partly recycled paper, soy-based ink, and passages about caring for the earth highlighted in green. The $29.95 edition of the Good Book also includes essays and a study guide about the spiritual mandate to protect the environment. (Tauber says study guides helped sell the Archeological Study Bible, published in 2006 by Harper’s Zondervan unit.) Hoping to sell 25,000 to 30,000 copies a year, he plans to market The Green Bible to eco-aware churches and influential thinkers. Essay contributor Calvin B. DeWitt, a University of Wisconsin environmental professor and an evangelical Christian, says the Bible is “a kind of ecological handbook for right living on Earth.” A passage he cites: Genesis 2:15, in which God bids Adam to serve and keep the Garden of Eden.