God And The Human Environment

God and the Human Environment: Catholic Principles of Environmental Stewardship as a Template for Action in Nigeria brings into conversation the Church’s theological reflection on the mandate to care for God’s creation and the circumstances of the environment in Nigeria. In vivid terms and with systemic thinking, Fr. Jude Osunkwo, a theologian who specializes in Environmental Studies and Pastoral Catechesis, explores the biblical, theological, magisterial, and doctrinal bases that underlie a faithful response to contemporary environmental challenges. After setting the stage with a summation of the issues and a survey of significant ecclesiastical statements on the topic of the environment, God and the Human Environment addresses Catholic theological principles of stewardship, Christian responsibility, and the ethics of development. Then the discussion turns to the environment of Nigeria, assessing its current state and reviewing the causes and consequences of environmental challenges before proposing pastoral responses for the Church. Finally, some chapters address likely developments in Nigeria and the Church. An extensive bibliography and several appendices provide additional support. God and the Human Environment is a rigorously researched and passionately presented exploration of the issues growing out of the environmental circumstances Nigerians currently face. Whether you live in Nigeria or count yourself as a member of the Catholic Church and live somewhere else, God and the Human Environment explores a topic that promises to make a difference in your life and to protect the part of the environment that God has created for you to tend.

In this collection of his writings, Pope Benedict XVI speak to the important relationships between the environment, Catholic social teaching, and theology. During his papacy, Pope Benedict XVI repeatedly drew attention to the environment. He spoke of preserving it, such as his address concerning the Amazon rainforest and his letter regarding the Arctic, and of distributing its vital resources—such as water—more equitably. Benedict led by example when the Vatican became the first carbon-neutral country in the world. This book collects Benedict’s many audiences, addresses, letters, and homilies on a wide range of topics dealing with the world about us. The major themes and connections he explores include creation and the natural world; the environment, science, and technology; and hunger, poverty, and the earth’s resources. In these pages, Benedict insists that if we truly desire peace, we must consciously nurture all of creation. He speaks in favor of alternative energy while speaking out against the spread of nuclear weapons and threats to biodiversity. He urges sustainable development, equitable distribution of food and water, and an end to hunger. In summation, Benedict argues that our love of God should cause us to protect the environment, and that in turn, our heightened appreciation of the natural world will draw us closer to God.

Diversity of life. Water resources. Global climate change. Cities and global environmental issues. We all know being a Christian involves ethical responsibility. But what exactly are our environmental obligations? This unique volume teams up scientists with biblical scholars to help us discern just not that question. What does the Lord require of us?

In the last two decades a new form of religiously motivated social action and a virtually new field of academic study each based in recognition of the connections between religion and humanity 's treatment of the environment have developed. Interactions between religion and environmental concern have been manifest in the explosive growth of ecotheological writings, institutional commitment by organized religions, and environmental activism explicitly oriented to religious ideals. Clergy throughout the world in virtually every denomination have received word from leaders of their religion that the environment no less than sexuality, poverty, or war and peace is now a basic and compelling religious matter. Out of this confrontation have been born vital new theologies based in the recovery of marginalized elements of tradition, profound criticisms of the past, and ecologically oriented visions of God, the Sacred, the Earth, and human beings. Theologians from every religious tradition along with dozens of non-denominational spiritual writers have confronted world religions past attitudes towards nature. In the realm of institutional commitment, public statements and actions by organized religions have grown dramatically. In the context of political action, throughout the U.S. and the world religiously oriented groups take part in environmentally oriented political action: from lobbying and consciousness raising to activist demonstrations and civil disobedience. This collection serves as a comprehensive introduction, overview, and in-depth account of these exciting new developments. The four volumes cover virtually every aspect of the field from theological change and institutional commitment to innovation in liturgy, from new ecumenical connections among different religions and between religion, science and environmental movements, from religious participation in environmental politics to an account of the global social and political contexts in which religious environmentalism has unfolded.

The recent release of Pope Francis's much-discussed encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si': On Care for Our Common Home, has reinforced environmental issues as also moral and spiritual issues. This anthology, twenty years ahead of the encyclical but very much in line with its agenda, offers essays by fifteen philosophers, theologians, and environmentalists who argue for a response to ecology that recognizes the tools of science but includes a more spiritual approach - one with a more humanistic, holistic view based on inherent reverence toward the natural world. Writers whose orientations range from Buddhism to evangelical Christianity to Catholicism to Native American beliefs explore ways to achieve this paradigm shift and suggest that "the environment is not only a spiritual issue, but the spiritual issue of our time."

Originally published as The God Species: How the Planet Can Survive the Age of Humans The green movement has got it very wrong.

Question Reality is an arduous journey of re-organization of the mind of an anorexic, academic female in fight for her own physical and mental survival. In the process, she re-invents the wheel of ecology and science, in consideration of human interactions with the environment. Written in a synergistic, humorous dialogue between two graduate students--Terra the Biogeek and Buz the Geobum--who venture on a fictional road trip up the California Coastline. Part 1 of a two-part edition.

This Is My Father's World critically engages contemporary environmental ethics and provides Christians with a theological foundation for appropriately relating to the world they call God's creation--a creation ethic. It is refreshingly and thoroughly scriptural. However, what the Bible says may shock people with conservative or liberal presuppositions already in mind. This book is a challenge to both sides of the debate.