These included the challenging experiences of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl, dire predictions regarding growth in human population, glimpses of the limits of production and consumption, and awareness of the loss of species and ecosystems. Subsequent chapters examine the emergence of religious ecology, as views of nature changed in religious traditions and the ecological sciences. Liberating Faith: Religious Values for Justice, Peace, and Ecological Wisdom. However, once divine ownership was acknowledged, we had the full right to use that property to our own advantage. Religions are vehicles for cosmological stories, symbol systems, ritual practices, ethical norms, historical processes, and institutional structures that transmit a view of the human as embedded in a world of meaning and responsibility, transformation and celebration. Religious and moral reflections on environmental problems emerged from several Christian theologians in the second half of the twentieth century. Steward, Julian. For example, the center of much traditional Buddhist meditation is using a mental focus on the breath to calm the mind or reveal the mind's deep currents of unregulated attachment, fear, or anger. The goal of the book as a whole is to make available in one place a comprehensive, organized, and high quality survey of all this field's essential concerns. Cambridge, Mass., 2001. This crisis is, among other things, a spiritual problem, affecting both the passion and the intimacy of religious life. Religions link humanity to the rhythms of nature through the use of symbols and rituals that help to establish moral relationships and patterns for social exchange. The fourth annual Religion & Ecology Summit hosted by the Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion (ESR) program at California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) will build upon Thomas Berry’s Great Work, commemorating the tenth anniversary of his death by convening scholars and activists involved in analyzing, exploring, and advancing integrated cosmological visions as exemplified in … Kalland, Arne, ed. God as manifest in His works became identified with views of the Divine as Artisan who contained within Himself the Divine Forms as articulated by Plato. Roger S. Gottlieb; 2nd ed. Foremost among those thinkers who have urged Christianity to reconsider its relationship to the environment is the process theologian John Cobb. Maguire, Daniel. Is it Too Late? (p. 11) Cambridge, Mass., 2003. What, ultimately, justifies the idea that “all men are created equal” if we are not all “created in the image of God”?13 The upshot of these points is that identifying a person or a movement as either religious or secular tells us nothing about their political commitments. In So if people do not always, or even for the most part, get inspired by religion to act in moral ways, at least they do sometimes. In fact, it could well be argued that the most effective forms of antidemocratic repression and totalitarianism have been, at least until recently, movements that were explicitly secular. For example, the Islamic concepts in the Qurʾān regarding tawḥīd (unity of creation), mizan (balance), and amānah (trust or stewardship) reflect values that have been interpreted in relation to the natural world. ; New York: Routledge, 2004 [orig. For anyone interested in Religious Studies. Perhaps unfortunately, as distasteful and morally complicated as the political process may be in today's world, seriously religious people are not free to refrain from it. Compared to often partial and partisan struggles for democracy, in support of rights for workers, women, or racial minorities, against colonialism, or for more economic justice, environmentalism bears remarkable and crucially important affinities with religion. (p. 18) make the emerging alliance between secular environmental organizations and institutional religion particularly appropriate; and they mean that at times it is quite difficult to talk about the “relations” between religion and environmentalism since the two so shade together that it becomes hard to tell them apart. ; New York: Routledge, 2004), 229–30. The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance. Over 500 million people are considered indigenous; they live on every continent (except Antarctica) as well as in the Pacific Rim. Thankfully, however, this is no longer the case. Knitter, Paul. Religious morality has expanded to include our relations to other species and ecosystems, and religious practice has come to include rituals to help us express our grief and remorse and also to celebrate what is left. . This may result in a new synthesis or in a creative adaptation of traditional ideas and practices into modern modes of expression. With the exception of Yale University, the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology does not support or thereby endorse any organizations listed in this section. (1.) A significant example of this occurred in autumn of 2003 in China. Rockefeller, Steven, and John Elder, eds. If religions themselves are often oriented to their own forms of escapism, they are also at times deeply immersed in realities which are frightening. Gottlieb, Roger, ed. Since spirituality has been a key part of the environmental movement from its inception to the present, it makes environmental politics particularly fertile ground for an alliance with religion. Islam and Ecology: A Bestowed Trust. Charles Lee, ed., Proceedings of the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit (New York: United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, 1992), xiii (emphasis added); repr. In other religious traditions the distinction between humans and nature was not nearly so clear. (16.) In Pigs for the Ancestors (1969), Roy Rapport's seminal study of liturgical cycles among the Maring of New Guinea, Rapport suggested that ritual among indigenous peoples functions as a conventional means for maintaining order between social groups and their environments. This field involves explorations of such topics as the creative and destructive dynamics of nature, divine presence and purpose in nature and the cosmos, the ways in which environments have shaped and been shaped by human culture, the symbolic expression of nature in myth and rituals, and the understanding of ecology as displayed in traditional practices of agriculture, commerce, fishing, or hunting. A Theology of Ecology. Medical Anthropology. Therefore, in order to reconstruct an individuals view to a more positive and respectful relationship with environment we must teach and act non-violently, unlike the organization Earth First, and apply the principles of bio-regionalism, Green Peace, and deep ecology. Washington, D.C., 2002. Ecology and Religion is an exhaustive account of the needs for the various organized religions to step forward and take charge of world-wide ecological issues, and also details the work that's been done, along with the various world council meetings to discuss world ecology. Ecology matters to religion for a number of reasons. government gives $14 billion for road building project in Boston, $14 for public transportation”), immediately suppressing that ECOLOGY AND RELIGION: ECOLOGY AND BUDDHISM In 1967 Lynn White, in an effort to address the roots of the growing global environmental crisis, put forward the thesis that the biblical worldview, which placed God outside of nature and authorized human beings to exploit nature for their proper ends, had been a major factor in the West's degradation of the natural environment (White, 1967). White argued that the technological impact of humans on the planet's ecology has been largely deleterious. Encyclopedia of Religion. The book surveys and discusses concepts of ecology in traditional cultures, Asian religious traditions, and contemporary culture. Peet and Watts used Marxist dialectics to investigate the roles of religions in fostering "ecological imaginaries" within the overall contradictory character of the relations between humans and the Earth. The Dream of the Earth. Here, and in his later work, In Face of Mystery: A Constructive Theology (1993), he raised challenging questions about the anthropocentric model of God as developed in Christianity and the relationship of traditional models of God to creation. But theology is concerned with the religious justification of any eco­ logical concern we might have. He has been the leading spokesperson in the Islamic community for drawing attention to the seriousness of the environmental crisis as well as the need for a revival of the cosmological basis of religions where humans are seen as a microcosm of the macrocosm of the universe. Mapping the local and mapping the universe, or cosmography, often overlapped in cultures. The presence of God's revelation in creation began to diminish for some Western religious thinkers. In a sense modern industry, development, land use, and technology means that if a clear-cut distinction between nature and people was ever possible, it is so no longer. Ecology and Religion is a foundational text for environmental studies and religious ecology. The field of study responds to both historical and contemporary quests for understanding the interrelationships of humans, Earth, cosmos, and the sacred. The first of its kind, this book provides a cross-cultural perspective on ecology and religion. Whether as “nature,” “creation,” the “ten thousand things,” or “all our relations,” humanity's surroundings were both a gift and a problem. (p. 12) Religious studies have contributed to environmental studies from such varied perspectives as the study of world religions and ecology, ecotheology and ecofeminism, social and environmental ethics, nature religions and alternative environmental movements, and cultural and ritual studies. In what some call a crisis of biodiversity, the decimation of habitats through expanding human settlements, logging, mining, agriculture, and pollution and the killing of animals for sport, use, or food have raised rates of extinction to the highest they have been for sixty-five million years. In helping us maintain this focus, religion can thus enable us to take at least the first step toward collective change. Gebara, Ivone. In what ways can the ideas, teachings, or ethics present in these traditions be adopted by contemporary scholars, theologians, or practitioners who wish to help shape more ecologically sensitive attitudes and sustainable practices. Oxford, 1996. Pang Yue, director of the National Environmental Protection Bureau, gave an important speech in which he called for the creation of an environmental culture drawing on traditional values based in Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. While Darwinism resituated Western anthropocentrism in an evolutionary worldview, an abiding tension surfaced in fundamentalist Christianity with its emphasis on the uniqueness of God's creation and the knowledge of reality and revelation localized in the Bible and not in nature. Although the responses of the religions to the global environmental crisis were slow at first, they have been steadily growing since the latter part of the twentieth century. In their book Ecology and Religion, they argue that the religious component is a 'missing link, ' 'an … It should be obvious that no society can function without some comprehensive framework of values. There is by now an extended debate on this position. The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution. They describe four fundamental aspects of religious life: orienting, grounding, nurturing, and transforming. Barbour, Ian, ed. This position reverberates throughout a good deal of Orthodox Christianity. Then our gasoline use—for shopping, commuting, or even going to Mass—had better not threaten the health and livelihood of other people. Because they were the source of our sustenance, a source for which we clearly were not responsible, they were a gift. For example, in the Summa contra gentiles, Thomas Aquinas affirmed a diversity of created forms as coming closest to manifesting the divine. Early social-science contributions to the study of religion and ecology emerged from the field of geography. Washington, D.C., 1997. Nevertheless, the evidence for an association between religion and ecology is currently mixed. Drawing on the social sciences and humanities, the two-volume Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature (2005), edited by Jeffrey Kaplan and Bron Taylor, continues the investigation of religion and ecology by exploring diverse nature-influenced religions as well as traditions that consider nature as sacred. The term invisible religion was introduced by the German sociologist Thomas Luckmann and became widespread following the publica…, Ecological feminism (ecofeminism) emerged in the 1970s predominantly in North America, although the term was coined by Françoise d'Eaubonne in Le Fém…, Since the early 1900s anthropologists have been conducting field research to retrieve, record, classify, and interpret religious beliefs and practice…, Psychology of Religion This emphasis on symbols, imagination, and ecology was taken up by Richard Peet and Michael Watts in Liberation Ecologies: Environment, Development, and Social Movements (1996). For example, religious ideas regarding nature may have deep associations with social beliefs and practices that are seen as unchanging ideals authorizing hegemonic ideologies. To begin with, we should remember that for hundreds of millions of people religion remains the arbiter and repository of life's deepest moral values. Chapple, Christopher Key, and Mary Evelyn Tucker, eds. Religion and environmentalism is an emerging interdisciplinary subfield in the academic disciplines of religious studies, religious ethics, the sociology of religion, and theology amongst others, with environmentalism and ecological principles as a primary focus. It also taints our sense of what is to come, as we realize, perhaps only subliminally, that the future is likely to be worse than the past. The resistance to religions becoming global political players for ecological democracy does occur, as it is a challenge to the corporate and/or militarized state. Leopold, Aldo. It is important to note that Bartholomew did not simply say that bad environmental policies are wasteful, inefficient, or troublesome. San Francisco, 1988. By early modern times the discoveries of the Americas caused major revisions of Western cosmology and introduced a range of new ideas that refuted the presumed flatness, as well as the aging and senescence, of the Earth. Introduction: Religion and Ecology—What Is the Connection and Why Does It Matter? Nature: Western Attitudes since Ancient Times. A growing awareness of cultural diversity and the postwar affluence of the 1950s were accompanied by significant legal cases that made possible the establishment of departments of religion in higher education in North America. Pope John Paul wrote a message for the World Day of Peace, January 1, 1990, titled "The Ecological Crisis: A Common Responsibility." Metropolitan John of Pergamon, a theologian and church leader, points the finger at Christians as well as humanity in general: “The ecological crisis is the most serious contemporary problem facing us. His studies of the Shoshone peoples of North America posited relations between the environment and the economic and technological aspects of society. A third response reflects a thoroughly modern hubris derived from human technological accomplishments that sees the future of the Earth as a controlled, dominated, and managed sphere. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia.com cannot guarantee each citation it generates. Encyclopedia.com. Yet—many religious thinkers argue—the pursuit of these kinds of political and social power is anathema to the religious goals of creating a community governed by values of love of God, discipleship of Christ, following the Mitzvot, or seeking enlightenment. Ethics of Environment and Development: Global Challenge, International Response. Glacken, Clarence. It will be of use to the scholar or intellectual who is unacquainted with the subject; to the scholar knowledgeable about one area (say, Christianity and ecology) who desires to know more about related issues (ecotheology from other traditions, religious environmental activism, etc. In the Christian world, along with the efforts cited earlier of the Protestant community in the WCC, the Catholic Church, has issued several important pastoral letters since around 1990. Here are just a few of the many examples of how these authors not only study this movement but are part of it: John Hart, whose essay focuses on Catholicism, helped write major public environmental statements for the church, including the Columbia River Statement of American and Canadian bishops of the Columbia River region;32 Protestant John Cobb was part of a group writing early—and highly influential material—for the World Council of Churches;33 Mary Evelyn Tucker, whose essay surveys the academic field of religion and ecology, is cochair of one of that field's most important resources: the Forum on Religion and Ecology; Bron Taylor, who describes the role of spirituality in American environmental activism, edited the massive and groundbreaking Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature; and John Chryssavgis, who wrote the essay on Orthodox Christianity, advises that religion's highest authority on environmental matters. Deep ecology has promoted a biocentric equality and the radical interdependence of species as values needed for protection of species diversity—both biological and cultural. He has strongly critiqued human negligence and destruction of the environment by calling it "ecological sin." overirrigation may have destroyed the fertility of much of Babylonia, and Native Americans may have extinguished several species of megafauna before they developed their nature-honoring spiritual traditions, but humans simply did not have the power to transform climate, initiate mass extinctions, or make sunlight more dangerous. It asks as well whether the material world of nature has been devalued by a particular religion, or whether exclusively human-centered ethics are adequate to address environmental problems. Students earning an MA in Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion will be at the forefront of an interdisciplinary field that has grown rapidly over the past decade. Harvard Forum on Religion and Ecology. It suggests that the human community is committing "crimes against creation" and notes that: "Problems of such magnitude, and solutions demanding so broad a perspective must be recognized from the outset as having a religious as well as a scientific dimension." There is much truth in this objection. Classic texts have been read, and interpreted, anew. BIBLIOGRAPHY This has brought theological reflection to bear on environmental destruction and social inequities resulting from economic globalization. (and there was rather wide latitude about what legitimate use included) we could do as we wished.1 On the other hand, both individual injunctions concerning our treatment of nature (e.g., not to muzzle the ox while it threshes grain, to leave spontaneous growth in the fields for “wild animals” during the sabbatical year; see Deut. Explorers noted the limits of the Earth's productivity, while increasingly observing a balance and harmony in nature evident both in the web of life and its potential loss in environmental destruction. But, when I was presented the chance to be part of a panel on the bizarre topic of “Religion and Ecology” at the 5 th International Christian Forum in Moscow I simply could not resist. reveals how religious authorities, once awakened to environmental issues, are led to progressive, one might even say quite radical, political views: Over the years, Albertans have lived as if the abundant forests, minerals, oil, gas and coal deposits, fertile prairie topsoil and clean air and water extended without limit. Two questions form the Heart of the twentieth century American context as we face the now.: New essays on sacred Ground in part I is shaped by the boundaries of broader... Aim at personal salvation or liberation from earthly travails could be stated quite seriously ( New York Oxford! 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