Nature and the Environment in Contemporary Religious Contexts PDF Download

Author: Thomas Donlin-Smith
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 152751207X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
This collection of essays discusses the human relationship with, and responsibilities toward, the natural environment from the perspective of religions and the social sciences. The chapters examine a variety of conditions that have contributed to the contemporary environmental crisis, including abuse of power, economic greed, industrialization, deforestation, and unplanned waste management. They then discuss concepts from several different religious texts and traditions that promote environmental protection as a sacred moral duty for all humanity. Religious concepts such as dharma (duty toward Mother Earth), tikkun Olam (repair of the world), khalifa (people as deputies of God on earth), amanah (the universe as a trust in human hands), and paticca samuppada (dependent co-arising) are employed to argue that all the components of the biosphere are integral to the cosmos, each piece with its own value and role in the harmony of the whole. The book makes it clear that religions can become more “green” and play a helpful role in raising our ecological consciousness and supporting preservation of the environment into the future.

Author: Roger S. Gottlieb
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Christian stewardship
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
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.

Author: Evan Berry
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520285727
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
"Devoted to Nature explores the religious underpinnings of American environmentalism, tracing the theological character of American environment thought from their Romantic foundations to contemporary discourse about nature spirituality. This history is most readily visible during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, when religious sources tangibly shaped ideas about the natural world, recreational practices, and modes of social and political interaction. The roots of the environmental movement evidence explicitly Christian understandings of salvation, redemption, and progress, which provided the context for Americans enthusiastic about the out-of-doors and established the horizons of possibility for the national environmental imagination"--Provided by publisher.

Author: Tarjei Rønnow
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
ISBN: 3643110529
Category : Environmentalism
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Environmentalism has moved into the center of the most influential social movements in late modernity. From preserving pre-industrial landscapes, advocating the intrinsic value of nature, and protecting ecosystems against overexploitation, it has developed into a worldview, ethos, and practice, that is radically shifting the frontiers of politics, economics, and ethics. Saving Nature approaches environmentalism as a belief system. The book explores the impact of environmentalism on faith communities and vice versa, and analyzes how environmental worldviews, values, attitudes, and discourses affect religion. By drawing on sources in the sociology of religion and environmental sociology, it sheds light on the religious dimensions of environmentalism. It locates the quick growth of environmentalism in the history of allegedly secular modernity and interprets environmentalism in the context of modernity's re-sacralization. (Series: Studies in Religion and the Environment/Studien zur Religion und Umwelt - Vol. 4)

Author: Sigurd Bergmann
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
ISBN: 3825819019
Category : Ecofeminism
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
The understanding of nature is at the heart of European self - understanding, while in Asia the terms of life and energy play a similar central role. Globally, many institutions and movements have made the protection of the environment and climate a top policy priority. Given the urgency of environmental problems the lack of reflections about the human and especially the spiritual dimension of environmental problems is striking. Environmental - and - climatic change transforms not only culture, politics, and economy, but also religion. Religious traditions have on the one hand always been dependent on human ecologies; on the other hand they vibrantly affect our perceptions of nature and sociocultural practices with(in) it. If life and religion change dramatically at present, how could religion make a change? How are religious and ecologic processes gendered, and how can ecofeminism deepen our understanding of justice? What are the life - enhancing spiritual resources in the East and the West? How can Christian theology contribute to the necessary eco - cultural revolution ahead of us? And how can Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian and Christian spiritualities cooperate in a common space and future? Questions like these are reflected upon by scholars of religion and theology from Korea, Canada and Scandinavia. Their chapters emerge from an international workshop, which was arranged and convened by the editors 2007 in Yecheon on the Korean countryside and in Seoul.

Author: Forrest Clingerman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317080416
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
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.

Author: Bronislaw Szerszynski
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1405137770
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
This provocative and timely book argues that contemporary ideas and practices concerning nature and technology remain closely bound up with religious ways of thinking and acting. Using examples from North America, Europe and elsewhere, it reinterprets a range of 'secular' phenomena in terms of their conditioning by a complex series of transformations of the sacred in Western history. The contemporary practices of environmental politics, technological risk behaviour, alternative medicine, vegetarianism and ethical consumption take on new significance as sites of struggle between different sacral orderings. Nature, Technology and the Sacred introduces a radically new direction for today's critical discourse concerning nature and technology – one that reinstates it as a moment within the ongoing religious history of the West.

Author: Jerome A. Stone
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131748438X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
Sacred Nature examines the crisis of environmental degradation through the prism of religious naturalism, which seeks rich spiritual engagement in a world without a god. Jerome Stone introduces students to the growing field of religious naturalism, exploring a series of questions about how it addresses the environmental crises, evaluating the merits of public prophetic discourse that uses the language of spirituality. He presents and defends the concept of religious naturalism while drawing out the implications of religious naturalism for addressing some of the major environmental issues facing humans today. This book is designed for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as scholars specializing in contemporary religious thought or environmental studies.

Author: Willis J. Jenkins
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317655338
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 463

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Book Description
The moral values and interpretive systems of religions are crucially involved in how people imagine the challenges of sustainability and how societies mobilize to enhance ecosystem resilience and human well-being. The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Ecology provides the most comprehensive and authoritative overview of the field. It encourages both appreciative and critical angles regarding religious traditions, communities, attitude, and practices. It presents contrasting ways of thinking about "religion" and about "ecology" and about ways of connecting the two terms. Written by a team of leading international experts, the Handbook discusses dynamics of change within religious traditions as well as their roles in responding to global challenges such as climate change, water, conservation, food and population. It explores the interpretations of indigenous traditions regarding modern environmental problems drawing on such concepts as lifeway and indigenous knowledge. This volume uniquely intersects the field of religion and ecology with new directions within the humanities and the sciences. This interdisciplinary volume is an essential reference for scholars and students across the social sciences and humanities and for all those looking to understand the significance of religion in environmental studies and policy.

Author: Sigurd Bergmann
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
ISBN: 3825819507
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
The past years have seen an ecological development in religions that is staggering. These efforts are responses to difficult local and global ecological problems, with an increased awareness that religions need to be alert, engaged and active partners in the work for a sustainable future. Ecological Awareness - with 17 authors from theology, religious studies, biology, sociology and philosophy - explores how religious practitioners have become increasingly aware of ecological challenges. The book considers aspects of ecological awareness: personal, social, political, religious and ecological. It sheds new light on an essential function of belief systems, which function not only as cognitive and moral systems, but emerge from and affect our human body and its mode of perceiving our milieu and ourselves within it. The book contributes to an increasing awareness of our embeddedness in larger life processes, as well as the awareness of life as a gift.