Rooted and Rising is for everyone who worries about the climate crisis and seeks spiritual practices and perspectives to renew their capacity for compassionate, purposeful, and joyful action.

Leah Schade and Margaret Bullitt-Jonas gather twenty-one faith leaders, scientists, community organizers, theologians, and grassroots climate activists to offer wisdom for fellow pilgrims grappling with the weight of climate change. Acknowledging the unprecedented nature of our predicament—the fact that climate disruption is unraveling the web of life and threatening the end of human civilization—the authors share their stories of grief and hope, fear and faith. Together, the essays, introductory sections, and discussion questions reveal that our present crisis can elicit a depth of wisdom, insight, and motivation with power to guide us toward a more peaceful, just, and Earth-honoring future.

With a foreword by Mary Evelyn Tucker and a special introduction by Bill McKibben, the book presents an interfaith perspective that welcomes and challenges readers of all backgrounds.

About the Authors
Leah Schade, PhD, is a Lutheran pastor, eco-theologian, author of Creation-Crisis Preaching: Ecology, Theology and the Pulpit, and assistant professor of preaching and worship at Lexington Theological Seminary in Kentucky.

Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, PhD, is an Episcopal priest, author, and climate activist serving as missioner for Creation Care in the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts and Massachusetts Conference, United Church of Christ.

Reviews
If you’re part of the ‘choir’ regarding climate change, if you get it, if you’re on board, this is the book you need right now. It will help you keep singing, even when politicians and corporate leaders prove themselves bigger fossil fools than before, even when the news is bleaker, even when you lose hope for the tenth time, but still can’t give up. This book puts new steel in my spine and fires up my resolve. You need this book, and the Earth needs you to take its message and resources to heart. (Brian D. McLaren, author of The Great Spiritual Migration)

Huge problems—war, poverty, civil rights—experienced serious progress in America only after the religious community got committed. Just in time for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, Rooted and Rising provides a powerful spiritual and moral case for people of faith becoming involved in climate activism. (Denis Hayes, founder of The Earth Day Network)

It is now clear: prophetic, spiritual resilience in the face of the Earth emergency is indispensable to our health and a catalyst for any eco-social transformation we might muster. In Rooted & Rising, climate activists beneath the Abrahamic canopy—Jews, Muslims, Christians—voice exactly what we need and show the way. Kudos to Margaret Bullitt-Jonas and Leah Schade for convening this remarkable gathering and offering spiritual practices to accompany the inspiring witness. (Larry Rasmussen, Reinhold Niebuhr Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics, Union Theological Seminary)

Click here to read PC.org’s Jamieson Spencer’s review of Rooted and Rising.