Environmental Science And Theology In Dialogue

This work demonstrates how understanding environmental science and theology can provide new resources for sustaining the Earth. With sidebars, discussion questions, and recommended readings, the book provides students with a text that nurtures both critical thinking and ethical action.

This book opens with an examination of the meaning of the innocent sounding category of “Integral Ecology” in contemporary thought and its significance for theology today. According to well known Irish theologian Dermot Lane, Integral Ecology changes everything. In this book he focuses on the neglected implications of Integral Ecology for systematic theology. Ecology challenges theology to reimagine who we are, who the Spirit of God is, who Christ is, where creation is going, and what is the role of liturgy in society-- all in the glare of the ecological crisis. This book also mines the theology within and behind the ground-breaking encyclical Laudato Si’: On Care for our Common Home. Until fairly recently, climate change was left to the scientists, politicians, and activists. More is needed. Now is the time to hear voice of religion in that debate in the public forum with a view to initiating new, transformative practices in society, in politics, and in religions. This new book will be of interest to activists, politicians, priests, christian educators, and theologians. The book is born out of the conviction that climate change is not just one more problem to be addressed by politicians; rather it is the challenge facing humanity in the 21st century and as such is the challenge underlying all other challenges at this moment in history.

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Description: This book records a set of dialogues between scientists, theologians, and philosophers on what can be done to prevent a global slide into ecological collapse. It is a uniquely multidisciplinary book that exemplifies the kinds of cultural and scholarly dialogue urgently needed to address the threat to the earth represented by our super-industrial civilization. The authors debate the conventional account of nature conservation as protection from human activity. In contrast to standard accounts, they argue what is needed is a new relationship between human beings and the earth that recovers a primal respect for all things. This approach seeks to recover forgotten resources in ancient cultures and in the foundational narratives of Western civilization contained in the Bible and in the culture of classical Greece. Endorsements: ""A refreshing critique of both evangelical and liberal North American environmental discourse, a bold exercise in multi-disciplinary conversation, and a welcome retrieval of the virtues of creaturely humility and gratitude."" -Ernst M. Conradie University of the Western Cape, South Africa ""This wonderfully rich book is a model of deep conversation on crucial challenges we face. The most important issues are intrinsically interdisciplinary, yet we often settle for talking 'at' or 'to' one another. This is especially true among the 'environmental' and 'religious' communities. The conversations in this book show that deep interdisciplinary engagements offer opportunities to re-frame the questions and re-describe the challenges in more promising and life-giving ways, transforming participants and the issues alike. A terrific achievement."" -L. Gregory Jones Duke University ""Underlying the environmental movement are a set of mostly undiscussed ethical and theological assumptions about the nature of the world and our relationship to it. In this pioneering volume, scholars from various perspectives engage in a deep exploration of the relationship of ecology, theology, and ethics. The results are often illuminating, sometimes surprising, and uniformly worth engaging."" --Paul Root Wolpe Emory University ""Van Houtan and Northcott engage scientists, ethicists, theologians, and other thinking persons in dialogue, working to re-ligate the torn academic and social fabric, and bringing all to see and respond to the biosphere--the awesome creation that calls for our guardianship and respectful service. They have us join this dialogue, motivating us--guardeners all--toward nurturing the kind of wisdom and humility that brings good news to every creature."" --Calvin DeWitt University of Wisconsin About the Contributor(s): Kyle S. Van Houtan is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Program in Science and Society and a Research Fellow in the Center for Ethics at Emory University. He has served as a biologist with the Smithsonian Institution and the U.S. Geological Service. Michael S. Northcott is Professor of Ethics in the School of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He is the author of The Environment and Christian Ethics (1996)

This volume brings together contributions from the 2022 conference of the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology, held in Ålesund, Norway, to address the many urgent questions raised by the concept of global sustainability. Scholars from the fields of philosophy, theology and the sciences offer a variety of perspectives on global sustainability, and on how the need for it can best be effected and sustained. The material assembled here – covering the roots of the present ecological crisis, as well as means for addressing it from ecological, societal, and both Christian and Islamic theological perspectives – inform discussions of these questions both within the academy and in wider public fora. This text appeals to students and researchers in the field.

The natural world has been "humanized": even areas thought to be wilderness bear the marks of human impact. But this human impact is not simply physical. At the emergence of the environmental movement, the focus was on human effects on "nature." More recently, however, the complexity of the term "nature" has led to fruitful debates and the recognition of how human individuals and cultures interpret their environments. This book furthers the dialogue on religion, ethics, and the environment by exploring three interrelated concepts: to recreate, to replace, and to restore. Through interdisciplinary dialogue the authors illuminate certain unique dimensions at the crossroads between finding value, creating value, and reflecting on one's place in the world. Each of these terms has diverse religious, ethical, and scientific connotations. Each converges on the ways in which humans both think about and act upon their surroundings. And each radically questions the damaging conceptual divisions between nature and culture, human and environment, and scientific explanation and religious/ethical understanding. This book self-consciously reflects on the intersections of environmental philosophy, environmental theology, and religion and ecology, stressing the importance of how place interprets us and how we interpret place. In addition to its contribution to environmental philosophy, this work is a unique volume in its serious engagement with theology and religious studies on the issues of ecological restoration and the meaning of place.

Denis Edwards was a theoloian concerned with the science and religion discourse and eco-theology. He died in March 2019. This book is a collection of his till now unpusblished talks and essays.