Shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker prize, The Overstory stands apart from most other contemporary novels. The first surprise is that it doesn’t centre around people and their problems; the second that it is fundamentally evangelistic. By that I don’t mean that it is a Christian book (far from it, in fact), rather that it aims to convict readers and change their thinking and lives. The message that it proclaims on every page are that trees are complex “social beings with memory and agency” (1) , which deserve our reverence.
It might be a shock to you to learn that trees communicate with each other. It certainly was to me, and if I hadn’t stumbled upon this fact a couple of months ago when turning on the radio (you can hear about it here) , I might have dismissed The Overstory as fictional whimsy. But this, or at least the bare bones of it is genuine science. The root systems of trees in forests send messages to each other, appearing to collaborate and share resources. Above the ground, trees learn to recognise danger and then to anticipate it. Or maybe something like that – it’s hard to write about this without using anthropomorphic language.
But the trees aren’t the main characters in The Overstory, though they are its point. Instead the book begins with eight separate stories, revealing to us nine characters who have significant relationships with trees. One inherits a book of photos of the same chestnut tree, taken a month apart over decades. Another has a father who teaches her everyday about the forest. Another has his life saved when he falls from an aeroplane onto a banyan tree. Yet another hears ancient voices telling her to rescue trees. These lives become gradually intertwined into a narrative centred on eco-activism, a seemingly doomed fight to save ancient US woodland.
The book is long. 500 pages of unremitting present tense action and powerful description. I was taken with it and found it hard to put down, but ultimately it is frustrating. Powers’ aim “to resurrect a very old form of tree consciousness, a religion of attention and accommodation, a pantheism of sorts”(2) failed to convince me stylistically as well as philosophically. There is no debate or nuance in this book, despite the careful sentences, colourful vocabulary and genuinely interesting ideas. All the activists are good, all those who would chop down trees bad. For fiction to work, above all else characters need to be credible and complex, but these were not.
So why did has it done so well? I think because it speaks into our world dominated by dismal evolutionary materialism, with a call to awe and purposeful action focused on a massively important theme. Like today’s veganism and identity politics, it offers something which looks like immediate virtue but is an ultimate dead-end. Nature can lower the blood pressure, but it can’t teach us right from wrong. Whilst pantheism might look noble, it comes close to nihilism; human life matters little from the perspective of a tree.
There is a challenge for Christians here then. Are we prepared to honour the creator of trees by truly caring for His complex, beautiful creation? More than others we should be filled with wonder at nature (Psalm 8), as it testifies to an even greater beauty. More than others we should be ready to reduce our consumption so that we steward God’s resources for the good of all, for we know of His love for all he has made (Psalm 145).
Sarah Allen is a wife, mother, student and teacher. She lives in Huddersfield with husband, a decreasing number of children and her dog.
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1.Los Angeles Review of Books, Interview with Robert Powers https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/heres-to-unsuicide-an-interview-with-richard-powers/#!
2.Idem.
Perhaps only the foolish, unwary or brave would step into this vast field of two millenia of contention! Certainly the aim of presenting a fair and balanced picture of the church’s moral and ethical record, which is neither a Hitchensesque hatchet-job or a hagiographical series of ‘lives of the saints’, is a bold one. However, this is exactly what CPX (The Centre for Public Christianity in Australia) have done, in a 90 minute film entitled “For The Love of God: How The Church is Both Better And Worse Than You Ever Imagined”. Fearing the worst, I watched this film with some trepidation, but they have really pulled it off, it is a great piece of work.
Finally the filmakers ask us to examine the record of the church, as it stands up against the teachings of Jesus Christ himself. The obvious point that Jesus’ ethical teaching commands great respect isn’t laboured, but rather what is observed is that where the church has stuck to his words and example, it has been beautiful; but where it has veered off into contemporary cultures, it has looked ugly. Central to this discussion is Jesus’ charge to his people to “love their enemies”. This main thesis is explored through a charming musical metaphor, which I won’t explain, but will leave you to enjoy in the film.
This honest film leaves little room either for Christian triumphalism on one hand, or mud-slinging anti-Christian polemics on the other. In that sense, CPX have done a remarkable job in opening up a sensible discussion in which the very real contributions of Christian ethics, and Jesus’ teaching can be seen alongside many of the sins of the church. As such the film will perhaps contain surprises for people on both sides of that debate. There is some uneasy viewing for Christians, especially on the Crusades and the Nazis; while some secularists will be alarmed at the extent to which so many of the values we celebrate in the western liberal tradition have distinctly Christian roots, and were pioneered in history by Christians. Furthermore, many of them are grounded in Christian beliefs, and sustained by them, and are indeed inseparable from them.
CPX are to be congratulated on the way in which they have stepped so nimbly across this historical minefield, and produced such a stimulating, thought-provoking film, which is both visually stunning and academically rigorous.
In the run-up to Christmas, I spoke at Glasgow Cathedral for the joint Carol Service of Glasgow Caledonian and Glasgow Strathclyde University Christian Unions. It was a fantastic event in an amazing location, with hundreds and hundreds of people in the packed Cathedral. Lots of the students had invited non-Christian friends. University carol services offer great evangelistic opportunities, and the students really made the most of it in Glasgow.
It was a huge privilege to share that message with the students. A couple of weeks later I received a lovely e-mail from the CU saying that they felt it had gone well, and that it touched lots of people, and led to many useful conversations afterwards. I’m back there to do a mission week, for the University in 2019, so it was a good kind of set up for that.
Jeremy Suisted is an Innovation Consultant, as well as a part-time Old Testament lecturer, copywriter and speaker. He is a New Zealander who blogs at 
A few weeks ago I was back in Canada, where I lived from 2010-2016 — and I always enjoy opportunities to go back and speak in the country that was home for six years.
When we were in Canada I also took part in a mission at Ottawa University, in Canada’s capital city. It’s always exciting to do university missions in Canada because when I was there (2010-2016), I helped to start them off. To see them now, thriving and having a life of their own is so exciting.
DB: So the book is trying to bridge the gap between the subjective and the objective, the theological and the personal. I think the question of human sexuality and desire is a profound one to our personhood, in our bodies and in the world. It really requires a different approach than just a statement of belief, it’s something which requires an incarnational, as much as a scriptural response. My book doesn’t say “here’s what scripture says – now go live it”, it says, “here’s what scripture says, this is how I as a human being have lived it.” I think that is so important for gay people that this question doesn’t remain abstract but comes down and dwells with them and relates to them. That’s what I needed when I was going through my own questioning. So I want the book to make people feel that they have ‘company’ and draw them towards intimacy with God. At the very centre of the book is the question, “have you experienced the love of God?”. I really don’t think that the question of who we are, including our sexuality is really answerable until we have experienced the love of God in Jesus. I don’t think you can understand the Christian ethic without knowing Christ. So I wrote this primarily as an invitation to embrace the love of God.
He tried to use mockery, putting up a couple of Bible verses as if they were self-evidently ridiculous. It’s hard to deal with those in a short space of time – but it can be done! (although I am not sure I did it well).
Andrew Roycroft