Theological Foundations For Environmental Ethics

Earth is imperiled. Human activities are adversely affecting the land, water, air, and myriad forms of biological life that comprise the ecosystems of our planet. Indicators of global warming and holes in the ozone layer inhibit functions vital to the biosphere. Environmental damage to the planet becomes damaging to human health and well-being now and into the future--and too often that damage affects those who are least able to protect themselves. Can religion make a positive contribution to preventing further destruction of biological diversity and ecosystems and threats to our earth? Jame Schaefer thinks that it can, and she examines the thought of Christian Church fathers and medieval theologians to reveal and retrieve insights that may speak to our current plight. By reconstructing the teachings of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and other classic thinkers to reflect our current scientific understanding of the world, Schaefer shows how to "green" the Catholic faith: to value the goodness of creation, to appreciate the beauty of creation, to respect creation's praise for God, to acknowledge the kinship of all creatures, to use creation with gratitude and restraint, and to live virtuously within the earth community.

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.

Earth is imperiled. Human activities are adversely affecting the land, water, air, and myriad forms of biological life that comprise the ecosystems of our planet. Indicators of global warming and holes in the ozone layer inhibit functions vital to the biosphere. Environmental damage to the planet becomes damaging to human health and well-being now and into the future—and too often that damage affects those who are least able to protect themselves. Can religion make a positive contribution to preventing further destruction of biological diversity and ecosystems and threats to our earth? Jame Schaefer thinks that it can, and she examines the thought of Christian Church fathers and medieval theologians to reveal and retrieve insights that may speak to our current plight. By reconstructing the teachings of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and other classic thinkers to reflect our current scientific understanding of the world, Schaefer shows how to "green" the Catholic faith: to value the goodness of creation, to appreciate the beauty of creation, to respect creation's praise for God, to acknowledge the kinship of all creatures, to use creation with gratitude and restraint, and to live virtuously within the earth community.

A title, that systematically develops the paradigm of cosmocentric transfiguration, arguing that the entire cosmos-including all instantiations of life therein-shares in the eschatological hope of a harmonious participation in God's triune life, a participation that entails the end of suffering, predation, and death.

This book covers the contribution of Christianity in the care, stewardship, and management of the environment. It uses ideas from the logical position of a Christian, created in God's image, redeemed by God, and given responsibility to subdue and keep the earth, arguing that a Christian has the responsibility and mandate to care for the environment. It shows that successful stewardship happens when a Christian is aware of God's intention for creation, exerts effort to increase it, and is expected to give an account to God for their actions toward it. The book presents environmental concerns in Kenya as an opportunity for change, describing situations and why they could become opportunities for change. Seven worldviews are presented that discourage Christians who want to do environmental stewardship, and Christian theological doctrines are discussed that could be used to cause ecclesial participation in environmental stewardship. Finally, the book envisions a "Conserving Church" with specific activities the church can do to successfully influence people to do environmental stewardship.

Christianity struggles to show how living on earth matters for living with God. While people of faith increasingly seek practical ways to respond to the environmental crisis, theology has had difficulty contextualizing the crisis and interpreting the responses. In Ecologies of Grace, Willis Jenkins presents a field-shaping introduction to Christian environmental ethics that offers resources for renewing theology. Observing how religious environmental practices often draw on concepts of grace, Jenkins maps the way Christian environmental strategies draw from traditions of salvation as they engage the problems of environmental ethics. He then uses this new map to explore afresh the ecological dimensions of Christian theology. Jenkins first shows how Christian ethics uniquely frames environmental issues, and then how those approaches both challenge and reinhabit theological traditions. He identifies three major strategies for making environmental problems intelligible to Christian moral experience. Each one draws on a distinct pattern of grace as it adapts a secular approach to environmental ethics. The strategies of ecojustice, stewardship, and ecological spirituality make environments matter for Christian experience by drawing on patterns of sanctification, redemption, and deification. He then confronts the problems of each of these strategies through critical reappraisals of Thomas Aquinas, Karl Barth, and Sergei Bulgakov. Each represents a soteriological tradition which Jenkins explores as an ecology of grace, letting environmental questions guide investigation into how nature becomes significant for Christian experience. By being particularly sensitive to the ways in which environmental problems are made intelligible to Christian moral experience, Jenkins guides his readers toward a fuller understanding of Christianity and ecology. He not only makes sense of the variety of Christian environmental ethics, but by showing how environmental issues come to the heart of Christian experience, prepares fertile ground for theological renewal.

Lisa Sideris proposes a new way of thinking about the natural world, an environmental ethic that incorporates the ideas of natural selection and values the processes rather than the products of nature. Such an approach encourages us to take a minimally interventionist approach to nature. Only when the competitive realities of evolution are faced squarely, Sideris argues, can we generate practical environmental principles to deal with such issues as species extinction and the relationship between suffering and sentience.