This book is the tenth in the series New Studies in Christian Ethics. Each book has worked closely within the remit of the series, namely to engage centrally with secular moral debate at the highest possible intellectual level, and to demonstrate that Christian ethics can make a distinctive contribution to this debate – either in moral substance, or in terms of underlying moral justifications. Some authors have used this remit to examine a moral theme of current importance – rights, justice, power, responsibility, plurality and moral action. Others have examined issues – sex, gender and feminism. Michael Northcott offers a challenging examination of a major and highly topical issue on which Christianity often seems very vulnerable, namely the environment.

Can Christian ethics realistically offer a distinctive justification of environmental ethics when its own history in this area appears to be so dubious? And, even if it can, how does Christian ethics hope to shape human action on the environment when only a minority of the world's population is Christian? The sheer dimensions of environmental ethics appear to be so huge and the record of Christian responses to that environment so doubtful. Some argue that it is only secular voices that might hope to change humanity's lamentable history of environmental degradation.

Michael Northcott is well aware of the immense difficulties here. His first book, The Church and Secularisation (Lang, 1989), showed that he had the right combination of theological and sociological skills to tackle such an area. In this early book he offered a sharp critique of industrial mission and urban ministry in the North East of England.