Books – Interfaith dialogue on environmental issues
Kearns, Laurel and Catherine Keller. Ecospirit: Religions and Philosophies for the Earth. New York: Fordham University Press, 2007.
We hope-even as we doubt-that the environmental crisis can be controlled. Public awareness of our species’ self-destructiveness as material beings in a material world is growing-but so is the destructiveness. The practical interventions needed for saving and restoring the earth will require a collective shift of such magnitude as to take on a spiritual and religious intensity.This transformation has in part already begun. Traditions of ecological theology and ecologically aware religious practice have been preparing the way for decades. Yet these traditions still remain marginal to society, academy, and church. With a fresh, transdisciplinary approach, Ecospirit probes the possibility of a green shift radical enough to permeate the ancient roots of our sensibility and the social sources of our practice. From new language for imagining the earth as a living ground to current constructions of nature in theology, science, and philosophy; from environmentalism’s questioning of postmodern thought to a garden of green doctrines, rituals, and liturgies for contemporary religion, these original essays explore and expand our sense of how to proceed in the face of an ecological crisis that demands new thinking and acting. In the midst of planetary crisis, they activateimagination, humor, ritual, and hope.
Rockefeller, Steven C. and John C. Elder, eds. Spirit and Nature: Why the Environment is a Religious Issue: An Interfaith Dialogue. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992.
This fine volume (as well as a 1991 PBS documentary by Bill Moyers) grew out of a convocation atMiddleburyCollegethat assessed the spiritual dimensions of the world’s ongoing environmental crisis. Rockefeller ( John Dewey: Religious Faith and Democratic Humanism ) and Elder (co-editor of The Norton Book of Nature Writing ) assembled an excellent panel of theologians and environmentalists, representing Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Islamic, Native American and other traditions. Ismar Schorsch, chancellor ofNew York’s Jewish Theological Seminary, reflects upon whether Judaism’s legal regulation of humankind’s relationship with nature might promote self-restraint and help us adapt to a world of diminished resources. Methodist theologian Sallie McFague discusses how theologians might help us reimagine ourselves by reconsidering the central images from metaphors of dominion to those of interrelatedness. The Dalai Lama suggests that we see environmentalism as a “practical ethic,”117 simply “taking care of our own house.” These uniformly strong contributions offer a good start toward asking whether religion might, at once, marshal its resources and find a renewed sense of purpose in helping save the planet.
