Ecotheology

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Ecotheology is a form of

The burgeoning awareness of environmental crisis has led to widespread religious reflection on the human relationship with the earth. Such reflection has strong precedents in most religious traditions in the realms of ethics and cosmology, and can be seen as a subset or corollary to the theology of nature.

It is important to keep in mind that ecotheology explores not only the relationship between religion and nature in terms of degradation of nature, but also in terms of ecosystem management in general. Specifically, ecotheology seeks not only to identify prominent issues within the relationship between nature and religion, but also to outline potential solutions. This is of particular importance because many supporters and contributors of ecotheology argue that science and education are simply not enough to inspire the change necessary in our current environmental crisis.^[1]

There is not a clear distinction between environmental theology and ecotheology, though the term environmental theology might indicate a theology in which environmental ethics is established prior to one's understanding of the meaning of God.

Background

Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a pioneering figure in the field of ecotheology,^[2][3] was among the early thinkers "to draw attention to the spiritual dimensions of the environmental crisis" He first presented his insight in a 1965 essay, expanding it in a series of lectures given at the University of Chicago the following year, in May 1966, several months before Lynn White, Jr. gave his famous lecture before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on December 26, 1966 (published in Science in 1967 as “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis”).^[4][5][6][7] Nasr’s lectures were later published as Man and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis of Modern Man in 1968 in which he argued, in a detailed manner, "for the revival of a sacred view of the universe in order to combat the contemporary environmental crisis".^[2] Anna M. Gade states that the "short and often credited" article by Lynn White contained "similar arguments" made by Nasr in his "influential" Rockefeller Series Lectures at the University of Chicago Divinity School, about a year ago.^[7] Richard Foltz is also of the view that Nasr's Lectures that "preceded" White's 1967 article presented "similar argument".^[8] Foltz argues that "Nasr has made the connection between the West's spiritual and environmental crises since the 1950s" and "actually anticipated White's critique in his own lectures given at the University of Chicago earlier in the same year as White's address".^[9][10] Nasr is credited for making "significant methodological and theoretical contributions to the development of eco-theology".^[2]

The relationship of theology to the modern ecological crisis, however, became an intense issue of debate in Western

Some scholars argue that Christians actually helped bring about the current global environmental crisis by instructing followers that God, and by extension mankind, transcends nature. Much of the development of ecotheology as a theological discourse was in response to this argument, which has been called "The Ecological Complaint". Defendants of this perspective essentially claim that Christianity promotes the idea of human dominion over nature, treating nature itself as a tool to be used and even exploited for survival and prosperity.^[13]

However, Christianity has often been viewed as the source of positive values towards the environment, and there are many voices within the

The significance of indigenous traditions for the development of ecotheology also cannot be overstated. Systems of

Hindu ecotheology includes writers such as Vandana Shiva. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a Perennialist scholar and Persian Sufi philosopher, was one of the earlier Muslim voices calling for a reevaluation of the Western relationship to nature.

Annie Dillard, Pulitzer Prize-winning American author, also combined observations on nature and philosophical explorations in several ecotheological writings, including Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.^[18]

Terry Tempest Williams is a Mormon writer and conservationist who sensitively and imaginatively explores ecotheology in her very personal writing.

The majority of the content of Indians of the Americas, by former Bureau of Indian Affairs head

Mark I. Wallace is a self-described Christian animist; his research argues that when God appears in the Bible as a dove, a snake, or the burning bush, that this is a literal transformation rather than a metaphorical one.

See also

References