Can One Solution fix Two Problems?
By | Mar 2, 2009
I have just come across a book review on Van Jones’ The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems (HarperOne, 2008) by Van Jones.
Van Jones is the founder and president of Green For All, and his work is a model for Christians who want to do community development in environmentally-friendly ways and for those who want to find ways out of the “environment vs. jobs” debate.
Jones points out the many ways in which solving environmental problems can be done with justice. His position is that as long as we’re going to all the trouble to create a clean energy economy, we might as well make a renewed effort to tackle discrimination and inequality, too.
He addresses the involvement of faith communities directly and challenges the “so-called progressives [who] snarl the word ‘Christian’ as if it were an insult or the name of a disease.” He presses activists to become problem-solvers, to become more about “proposition” than “opposition.” In a short list of principles for a new movement, Jones advocates fewer “issues,” more solutions; fewer “demands,” more goals; fewer “targets,” more partners; and less “accusation,” more confession.
I really like the sound of this approach. It rings true with my conviction that as Christians we have a call not to protest but to witness. Not just doing something to protest an injustice, but something that highlights another possible way of living. Turning the other cheek – or planting a garden in the parking lot of a coal power plant instead of holding a placard.
Has anyone read this book?
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“Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets.” Num. 11:29
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