Lindsay Falvey's Books


Religion and Agriculture: Sustainability in Christianity and Buddhism. c.350pp. Institute for International Development, Adelaide (2005)

Back Cover words: Religion is perhaps our most powerful expression of culture and nowhere is it more obviously expressed than in our relationships with nature. As our major meeting point with nature is the food we produce and eat, it provides a fertile field for cultivating the wisdom that Professor Falvey concludes is the essence of all forms of sustainability. By bringing sustainability, agriculture, global issues, Buddhism, Christianity and a host of other factors into discussion, the author reveals a pattern that indicates where our motivations belie our rhetoric – in environmental actions through to international relations and aid. This book contains a wealth of analysis, alternative logics and an open spirit that makes it essential to serious readers about nature, the environment, spirituality and religion, Asia and ourselves.

Beginning with science and spirituality, the discussion moves from immortality to theology to literal misinterpretations before unifying these themes around unacknowledged Western core values. Then shifting the context to philosophy, ethics, and rights, an ecological argument about our selective ‘liberation’ of nature is proffered as an introduction to global issues and in particular the traditional values of less-developed countries and the lost traditions of the West. The analysis is engrossing in its use of a hybrid Oriental-Western dialectic in the discussion as well as in the format of discrete chapters, which can be seen as both different perspectives on sustainable actions, and as a thesis that develops chapter by chapter. Thus Buddhist and Christian teachings are applied to agriculture and sustainability – and they are found to be at one with each other. Whether it is biblical metaphor, karmic logic or enlightened self-interest, the continuous thread of a strong suture stitches a complex set of issues into a coherent sutra that will vivify the current moribund dialogue between agriculture, science and religion.

I have read all of Dr. Falvey's books and this is his magnum opus. It is a tour de force across subjects previously left unrelated and is critical to our understanding of science, sustainability and ourselves. It must be read and discussed.      John Espie Leake, CEO, Institute for International Development

 This work is unique and fills the gap that neither theologians nor scientists will readily attempt to fill; it has not been done before and is critically important. Will Johnston, University of Massachusetts &  Melbourne College of Divinity

… the sutra of sustainability in the final chapter will certainly become a classic …  Gabriel Fragnière, Ancien Recteur du Collège d’Europe (series editor ‘Dieux, Hommes et Religions’)

 

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