The Forum on Religion and Ecology is the largest international multireligious project of its kind. With its conferences, publications, and website it is engaged in exploring religious worldviews, texts, ethics, and practices in order to broaden understanding of the complex nature of current environmental concerns. The Forum recognizes that religions need to be in dialogue with other disciplines (e.g., science, economics, education, public policy) in seeking comprehensive solutions to both global and local environmental problems. Read the Overview for the Forum.
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Ecology and Religion by
From the Psalms in the Bible to the sacred rivers in Hinduism, the natural world has been integral to the world's religions. John Grim and Mary Evelyn Tucker contend that today's growing environmental challenges make the relationship ever more vital. This primer explores the history of religious traditions and the environment, illustrating how religious teachings and practices both promoted and at times subverted sustainability. Subsequent chapters examine the emergence of religious ecology, as views of nature changed in religious traditions and the ecological sciences. Yet the authors argue that religion and ecology are not the province of institutions or disciplines alone. They describe four fundamental aspects of religious life: orienting, grounding, nurturing, and transforming. Readers then see how these phenomena are experienced in a Native American religion, Orthodox Christianity, Confucianism, and Hinduism. Ultimately, Grim and Tucker argue that the engagement of religious communities is necessary if humanity is to sustain itself and the planet. Students of environmental ethics, theology and ecology, world religions, and environmental studies will receive a solid grounding in the burgeoning field of religious ecology.
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Divinanimality by
A turn to the animal is underway in the humanities, most obviously in such fields as philosophy, literary studies, cultural studies, and religious studies. One important catalyst for this development has been the remarkable body of animal theory issuing from such thinkers as Jacques Derrida and Donna Haraway. What might the resulting interdisciplinary field, commonly termed animality studies, mean for theology, biblical studies, and other cognate disciplines? Is it possible to move from animal theory to creaturely theology? This volume is the first full-length attempt to grapple centrally with these questions. It attempts to triangulate philosophical and theoretical reflections on animality and humanity with theological reflections on divinity. If the animal human distinction is being rethought and retheorized as never before, then the animal human divine distinctions need to be rethought, retheorized, and retheologized along with it. This is the task that the multidisciplinary team of theologians, biblical scholars, philosophers, and historians assembled in this volume collectively undertakes. They do so frequently with recourse to Derrida's animal philosophy and also with recourse to an eclectic range of other relevant thinkers, such as Haraway, Giorgio Agamben, Emmanuel Levinas, Gloria Anzaldua, Helene Cixous, A. N. Whitehead, and Lynn White Jr. The result is a volume that will be essential reading for religious studies audiences interested in ecological issues, animality studies, and posthumanism, as well as for animality studies audiences interested in how constructions of the divine have informed constructions of the nonhuman animal through history.
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The Noetics of Nature by
Contemplative or "noetic" knowledge has traditionally been seen as the highest mode of understanding, a view that persists both in many non-Western cultures and in Eastern Christianity, where "theoria physike," or the illumined understanding of creation that follows the purification of theheart, is seen to provide deeper insights into nature than the discursive rationality modernity has used to dominate and conquer it.Working from texts in Eastern Orthodox philosophy and theology not widely known in the West, as well as a variety of sources including mystics such as the Sufi Ibn 'Arabi, poets such as Basho, Traherne, Blake, Holderlin, and Hopkins, and nature writers such as Muir, Thoreau, and Dillard, The Noeticsof Nature challenges both the primacy of the natural sciences in environmental thought and the conventional view, first advanced by Lynn White, Jr., that Christian theology is somehow responsible for the environmental crisis.Instead, Foltz concludes that the ancient Christian view of creation as iconic its "holy beauty" manifesting the divine energies and constituting a primal mode of divine revelation offers the best prospect for the radical reversal that is needed in our relation to the natural environment.
The Future of Ethics by
In a world of climate change and wicked social problems, including rampant inequality and poverty, what kinds of solutions can religious communities offer? Traditional religious ethics examines texts and traditions and highlights principles and virtuous behaviors that can apply to particular issues. Jenkins turns this tradition on its head by developing a strategy of "prophetic pragmatism," an approach to ethics that begins with concrete problems and adapts to changing circumstances, inventing the practices that sustain the possibility of love and justice in the face of social quagmires. This brand of pragmatism takes its cues from liberationist theology, with its emphasis on how individuals and communities actually live their lives, and Jenkins is deeply influenced by such figures as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Dietrich Bonhoeffer who prioritized practical justice over dusty theological formulations. The problems Jenkins addresses are enormous: climate change, intergenerational justice, human rights, and human development. Can religious communities make a real difference? They can, ultimately, by sustaining a love of justice.
Animals Erased by
Animals are disappearing, vanishing, and dying out—not just in the physical sense of becoming extinct, but in the sense of being erased from our consciousness. Increasingly, interactions with animals happen at a remove: mediated by nature programs, books, and cartoons; framed by the enclosures of zoos and aquariums; distanced by the museum cases that display lifeless bodies. In this thought-provoking book, Arran Stibbe takes us on a journey of discovery, revealing the many ways in which language affects our relationships with animals and the natural world. Animal-product industry manuals, school textbooks, ecological reports, media coverage of environmental issues, and animal-rights polemics all commonly portray animals as inanimate objects or passive victims. In his search for an alternative to these negative forms of discourse, Stibbe turns to the traditional culture of Japan. Within Zen philosophy, haiku poetry, and even contemporary children’s animated films, animals appear as active agents, leading their own lives for their own purposes, and of value in themselves.
Ecospirit by
We hope - even as we doubt - that the environmental crisis can be controlled. Public awareness of our species' self-destructiveness as material beings in a material world is growing - but so is the destructiveness. The practical interventions needed for saving and restoring the earth willrequire a collective shift of such magnitude as to take on a spiritual and religious intensity. This transformation has in part already begun. Traditions of ecological theology and ecologically aware religious practice have been preparing the way for decades. Yet these traditions still remain marginal to society, academy, and church. With a fresh, transdisciplinary approach, Ecospirit probes the possibility of a green shift radical enough to permeate the ancient roots of our sensibility and the social sources of our practice. From new language for imagining the earth as a living ground to current constructions of nature in theology, science, and philosophy; from environmentalism's questioning of postmodern thought to a garden of green doctrines, rituals, and liturgies for contemporary religion, these original essaysexplore and expand our sense of how to proceed in the face of an ecological crisis that demands new thinking and acting. In the midst of planetary crisis, they activate imagination, humor, ritual, and hope.
The Environment and Christian Ethics by
This book is about the extent, origins and causes of the environmental crisis. Dr. Northcott argues that Christianity has lost the biblical awareness of the interconnectedness of all life. He shows how Christian theologians and believers might recover a more ecologically-friendly belief system and life style. The author provides an important corrective to secular approaches to environmental ethics, including utilitarian individualism, animal rights theories and deep ecology.
Integrity, Ecology, and Community by
Jennie Ratcliffe, drawing on her years of experience and reflection as a scientist and active participant in peace and ecological concerns, believes that a deeper transformation is needed. A spiritual awareness of our oneness reminds us that we live in intimate relationship and kinship with each other, the earth, and the Divine.
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