Description: Will we choose life for our children and the future of our planet?
Everywhere we look, we see signs that all is not right with our earth: Extreme weather patterns wreak havoc. Pollutants sour soils and waterways. Fires and floods ravage land and communities. Climate change is just a symptom of a larger ecological crisis. If we want change, the solutions can't come through the same systems that created those problems.
Ecological justice requires us to challenge our assumptions about creation and our relationship to it. It requires decolonization. We must turn to the leadership of Indigenous communities who struggle for all life as land and water protectors, and we must call on people of faith to join them--to confront climate change and resource extraction and choose life for our children and the future of our planet. This book offers hope for a better future alongside concrete actions for joining with Indigenous Peoples to protect life and negotiate with decision-makers for sustainable change that follows Jesus.
Brief description: Sarah Augustine, who is a Pueblo (Tewa) descendant, is cofounder and executive director of the Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery Coalition. She is also the cofounder of Suriname Indigenous Health Fund (SIHF), where she has worked in relationship with vulnerable Indigenous Peoples since 2005. She has represented the interests of Indigenous community partners to their own governments, the Inter-American development bank, the United Nations, the Organization of American States Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and the World Health Organization, among others. She cohosts the Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery podcast with Sheri Hostetler and is the author of The Land Is Not Empty. She serves in a leadership role on multiple boards and commissions to enable vulnerable peoples in Washington State to speak for themselves in advocating for structural change. She and her husband Dan Peplow and their son live in the Yakima Valley of Washington.
Review Quotes: "So We and Our Children May Live is such an important and impactful book for our time. Sarah Augustine and Sheri Hostetler have given us tools for talking about not just the climate crises we find ourselves in today, but what it takes to place ourselves in a relationship of care with Mother Earth and one another along the way. In this refreshing book that melds faith and science, the research, stories, and worldwide Indigenous wisdom included will help readers find the courage to act in a time that feels overwhelming. For those who wish to use their spiritual lives to invest in a better future for all, this book is essential."
--KAITLIN B. CURTICE, bestselling author of Native and Living Resistance