The Still Burning Bush

Traces the environmental and social significance of the use of fire to shape the environment, throughout Australia's history, beginning with the use of the firestick by Aboriginals, and its subsequent passing-on to rural colonists.

Long a fire continent, Australia now finds itself at the leading edge of a fire epoch. Australia is one of the world's fire powers. It not only has regular bushfires, but in no other country has fire made such an impact on the national culture. Over the past two decades, bushfires have reasserted themselves as an environmental, social, and political presence. And now they dominate the national conversation. The Still-Burning Bushtraces the ecological and social significance of the use of fire to shape the environment through Australian history, beginning with Aboriginal usage, and the subsequent passing of the firestick to rural colonists and then to foresters, to ecologists, and back to Indigenes. Each transfer kindled public debate not only over suitable fire practices but also about how Australians should live on the land. The 2009 Black Saturday bushfires and the 2019-2020 season have heightened the sense of urgency behind this discussion. In its original 2006 edition, The Still-Burning Bushconcluded with the aftershocks of the 2003 bushfires. A new preface and epilogue updates the narrative, including the global changes that are affecting Australia. Especially pertinent is the concept of a Pyrocene -- the idea that humanity's cumulative fire practices are fashioning the fire equivalent of an ice age.

Pyne traces the impact of fire in Australia, from its influence on vegetation to its use by Aborigines and European settlers.“Mr. Pyne, showing what a historian deeply schooled in environmental science can contribute to our awareness of nature and culture, has produced a provocative work that is a major contribution to the literature of environmental studies.”—New York Times Book Review

The bush was burning, yet it was not consumed

Terry Allen Moe came as pastor to Redeemer Lutheran, a traditional, working-class congregation in a poorer, mixed-race neighborhood in Portland, Oregon, in 1981. Five US presidents, six Portland mayors, and four Lutheran bishops later, Redeemer had been transformed into an innovative, spiritual-not-religious, member-based nonprofit called Leaven Community, and a new ELCA congregation--Salt and Light Lutheran--nested in the midst of Leaven. This is the story of how an intertwining of spirituality and organizing transformed a pastor and congregation. Using the metaphor of paying attention to the voice of God in the burning bush (Exodus 3), Moe describes how he and the congregation turned to the burning bush of deepened spirituality coupled with hard-nosed organizing embodied in the IAF network. The process was not easy or smooth, but the pastor and people changed, and together they impacted the larger Portland community. This is the story of listening, discerning, acting, and evaluating to address the upstream causes of pressing issues and of identifying and lifting up the public dimensions of people's pain. This is the story of prayer circles that addressed societal challenges contributing to people's private struggles. This is the story of unearthing and confronting the impacts of political decisions, overcoming the mentality that "church and politics don't mix." Sunday worship shifted to include the stories of addiction, job loss, rising energy costs, and ecological grieving from the members and their neighbors. This book demonstrates how the power of spiritual discernment and community organizing can transform a community of faith. It's timely inspiration for congregations struggling to find their way out of decline and the immobilization caused by fear and lack of creative leadership.

Vladimir Solovyov, one of nineteenth-century Russia's greatest Christian philosophers, was renowned as the leading defender of Jewish civil rights in tsarist Russia in the 1880s. The Burning Bush: Writings on Jews and Judaism presents an annotated translation of Solovyov's complete oeuvre on the Jewish question, elucidating his terminology and identifying his references to persons, places, and texts, especially from biblical and rabbinic writings. Many texts are provided in English translation by Gregory Yuri Glazov for the first time, including Solovyov's obituary for Joseph Rabinovitch, a pioneer of modern Messianic Judaism, and his letter in the London Times of 1890 advocating for greater Jewish civil rights in Russia, printed alongside a similar petition by Cardinal Manning. Glazov's introduction presents a summary of Solovyov's life, explains how the texts in this collection were chosen, and provides a survey of Russian Jewish history to help the reader understand the context and evaluate the significance of Solovyov's work. In his extensive commentary in Part II, which draws on key memoirs from family and friends, Glazov paints a rich portrait of Solovyov's encounters with Jews and Judaism and of the religious-philosophical ideas that he both brought to and derived from those encounters. The Burning Bush explains why Jews posthumously accorded Solovyov the accolade of a "righteous gentile," and why his ecumenical hopes and struggles to reconcile Judaism and Christianity and persuade secular authorities to respect conscience and religious freedom still bear prophetic vitality.