Redeeming Creation

"Preeeeep." The sound of the peepers, tiny frogs an inch or two long, penetrated the dusk. Beneath the jack pines at the edge of a small pond in the northern Michigan woods, the males were calling their mates. A professor and a group of ecology students sat speechless as closer and closer, louder and louder, more and more peepers joined in chorus.There was just light enough to see them, crawling up a bracken fern to find a singing perch, filling their throats with air like tiny balloons aboutto burst and then giving forth at close range an ear-splitting 'preeeeep.; . . . Now we were immersed in the peepers' lives, not ours. And when the concert ended and the peepers had gone away, we laughed together for the sheer joy and power of lifedisplayed for a moment in the grand efforts of one tiny creature to be fruitful and multiply."Combining compelling stories with both biblical and scientific investigation, Redeeming Creation addresses the ecological crisis we face today.

• population explosion
• rain forests stripped bare
• destruction of animal habitat
• the death of entire species
• depletion of the ozone layer
• global warming

The authors, four biologists and teachers, believe that we can face these dilemmas with hope. Moving beyond a mere survey of the planet's ills, they bring Scripture into fruitful dialogue with current scientific findings and commitments. They both inspire and inform our individual and corporate response to God's creation.

Fred H. Van Dyke received his Ph.D. in environmental and forest biology from the State University of New York/Syracuse. A former wildlife research biologist with the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, Van Dyke is currently professor of biology and director of the Environmental Studies Program at Wheaton College. He is the author of a textbook on conservation biology, Conservation Biology: Foundations, Concepts, Applications.

Mahan received his Ph.D. in limnology from Michigan State University. He has formerly served on the faculty of Western Michigan University and as field representative for the Michigan Chapter of the Nature Conservancy. Currently Mahan is associatedirector of the Au Sable Institute for Environmental Studies in Mancelona, Michigan.

Joseph K. Sheldon received his Ph.D. in entomology from the University of Illinois. He is a former professor and head of the Department of Biology at Eastern University (St. Davids, Pennsylvania) and former professor of biology at Messiah College(Grantham, Pennsylvania). He is now a research volunteer at the Au Sable Institute of Environmental Studies (Coupeville, Washington). Sheldon is the author of Rediscovery of Creation: A Bibliographical Study of the Church's Response to the Environmental Crisis and a co-author of Redeeming Creation: The Biblical Basis for Environmental Stewardship.

Brand received his Ph.D. in animal ecology from the University of Michigan. He is a retired biology professor and a former chair of the Department of Biology and Division of Science at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. Presently Brand is a research associate of the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois. He is also coauthor (with John R. Sheaffer) of Whatever Happened to Eden? (Tyndale).