Seyyed Hossein Nasr
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195108231
- eISBN:
- 9780199853441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195108231.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
After several centuries of an ever-increasing eclipse of the religious significance of nature in the West and neglect of the order of nature by mainstream Christian religious thought, many Christian ...
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After several centuries of an ever-increasing eclipse of the religious significance of nature in the West and neglect of the order of nature by mainstream Christian religious thought, many Christian theologians have in the past two or three decades become interested once again in nature and in addressing the environmental crisis. Diverse paths have been chosen to face this challenge, some seeking to go back to the traditional roots of Christianity, others to turn East to Indian and Far Eastern religions, and yet others to search for the wisdom of the Native Shamanic religions, especially those of the Americas. This chapter casts a critical glance on at least some of the Christian voices seeking to create what some now call “eco-theology” before turning to other religions. Today, there is much written by philosophers and scientists concerned with ecology that deals with environmental ethics and that have in fact a religious impact and in some cases a directly religious dimension.Less
After several centuries of an ever-increasing eclipse of the religious significance of nature in the West and neglect of the order of nature by mainstream Christian religious thought, many Christian theologians have in the past two or three decades become interested once again in nature and in addressing the environmental crisis. Diverse paths have been chosen to face this challenge, some seeking to go back to the traditional roots of Christianity, others to turn East to Indian and Far Eastern religions, and yet others to search for the wisdom of the Native Shamanic religions, especially those of the Americas. This chapter casts a critical glance on at least some of the Christian voices seeking to create what some now call “eco-theology” before turning to other religions. Today, there is much written by philosophers and scientists concerned with ecology that deals with environmental ethics and that have in fact a religious impact and in some cases a directly religious dimension.
Willis Jenkins
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195328516
- eISBN:
- 9780199869862
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195328516.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
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 ...
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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. This book 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, the book maps the way Christian environmental strategies draw from traditions of salvation as they engage the problems of environmental ethics. It then uses this new map to explore afresh the ecological dimensions of Christian theology. The book first shows how Christian ethics uniquely frames environmental issues, and then how those approaches both challenge and re-inhabit theological traditions. It 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. The book then confronts the problems of each of these strategies through critical reappraisals of Thomas Aquinas, Karl Barth, and Sergei Bulgakov.Less
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. This book 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, the book maps the way Christian environmental strategies draw from traditions of salvation as they engage the problems of environmental ethics. It then uses this new map to explore afresh the ecological dimensions of Christian theology. The book first shows how Christian ethics uniquely frames environmental issues, and then how those approaches both challenge and re-inhabit theological traditions. It 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. The book then confronts the problems of each of these strategies through critical reappraisals of Thomas Aquinas, Karl Barth, and Sergei Bulgakov.
Stephen R. Kellert
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195309454
- eISBN:
- 9780199871261
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195309454.003.0021
- Subject:
- Biology, Ecology, Biodiversity / Conservation Biology
This chapter addresses the contemporary environmental crisis as one that requires fundamental societal shifts of values and ethical relations to the natural world. It discusses the important and ...
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This chapter addresses the contemporary environmental crisis as one that requires fundamental societal shifts of values and ethical relations to the natural world. It discusses the important and progressive changes that have occurred in perceptions of nature during the past half century, changes that have resulted in improved stewardship of aspects of the natural world. It advocates a biocultural perspective, a response that views human values and ethical relations toward the natural world as bounded by species biological requirements, but shaped and influenced by individual and cultural learning and experience.Less
This chapter addresses the contemporary environmental crisis as one that requires fundamental societal shifts of values and ethical relations to the natural world. It discusses the important and progressive changes that have occurred in perceptions of nature during the past half century, changes that have resulted in improved stewardship of aspects of the natural world. It advocates a biocultural perspective, a response that views human values and ethical relations toward the natural world as bounded by species biological requirements, but shaped and influenced by individual and cultural learning and experience.
Roger S. Gottlieb
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195176483
- eISBN:
- 9780199850846
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195176483.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The new ecotheologies—accounts of God, ultimate meaning, human responsibility, and ethical life—typically begin with the pained recognition of just how bad things have become. Why do we need ...
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The new ecotheologies—accounts of God, ultimate meaning, human responsibility, and ethical life—typically begin with the pained recognition of just how bad things have become. Why do we need ecotheology? Simply because before we can act, we must think, and before religion can act in response to the environmental crisis, it must learn to think religiously about it. Thus, the task of the new ecotheology is to think about the environmental crisis, and our human response to it, in religious terms. The fundamentally human-centered, or anthropocentric, perspective on nature, many theologians believe, is at the core of the crisis. Ecotheology offers an enormous range of answers to this question, reflecting a breathtaking diversity of traditional viewpoints and contemporary responses.Less
The new ecotheologies—accounts of God, ultimate meaning, human responsibility, and ethical life—typically begin with the pained recognition of just how bad things have become. Why do we need ecotheology? Simply because before we can act, we must think, and before religion can act in response to the environmental crisis, it must learn to think religiously about it. Thus, the task of the new ecotheology is to think about the environmental crisis, and our human response to it, in religious terms. The fundamentally human-centered, or anthropocentric, perspective on nature, many theologians believe, is at the core of the crisis. Ecotheology offers an enormous range of answers to this question, reflecting a breathtaking diversity of traditional viewpoints and contemporary responses.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195108231
- eISBN:
- 9780199853441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195108231.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
The world of nature is being desecrated and destroyed in an unprecedented manner globally by both those who have secularized the world about them and developed a science and technology capable of ...
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The world of nature is being desecrated and destroyed in an unprecedented manner globally by both those who have secularized the world about them and developed a science and technology capable of destroying nature on an unimaginable scale and by those who still live within a religious universe, even if the mode of destruction of the order of nature by the two groups is both quantitatively and qualitatively different. This book challenges the totalitarian claims of modern science and opens up a space for the assertion of the religious view of the order of nature that various traditions developed over the centuries in their cosmologies and sacred sciences. It examines the relation of religion to the order of the nature and brings into focus the religious and spiritual dimensions of the environmental crisis. It also emphasizes the significance of the gulf between knowledge and the sacred in precipitating the chaos and upheavals of a spiritual and intellectual order of which the pollution and destruction of the natural order is a most visible consequence.Less
The world of nature is being desecrated and destroyed in an unprecedented manner globally by both those who have secularized the world about them and developed a science and technology capable of destroying nature on an unimaginable scale and by those who still live within a religious universe, even if the mode of destruction of the order of nature by the two groups is both quantitatively and qualitatively different. This book challenges the totalitarian claims of modern science and opens up a space for the assertion of the religious view of the order of nature that various traditions developed over the centuries in their cosmologies and sacred sciences. It examines the relation of religion to the order of the nature and brings into focus the religious and spiritual dimensions of the environmental crisis. It also emphasizes the significance of the gulf between knowledge and the sacred in precipitating the chaos and upheavals of a spiritual and intellectual order of which the pollution and destruction of the natural order is a most visible consequence.
Ken Hiltner
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801449406
- eISBN:
- 9780801460760
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801449406.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This introductory chapter sets out the book's main arguments: that Renaissance pastoral, in addition to sometimes being a figurative mode masking political controversies, is also frequently concerned ...
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This introductory chapter sets out the book's main arguments: that Renaissance pastoral, in addition to sometimes being a figurative mode masking political controversies, is also frequently concerned with literal landscapes, even though it does little to describe them; and early modern England was in the throes of what can only be described as a “modern” environmental crisis, which engendered a number of contemporary debates, some of which address issues of environmental justice that informed (and were informed by) both canonical and noncanonical literature of the period. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less
This introductory chapter sets out the book's main arguments: that Renaissance pastoral, in addition to sometimes being a figurative mode masking political controversies, is also frequently concerned with literal landscapes, even though it does little to describe them; and early modern England was in the throes of what can only be described as a “modern” environmental crisis, which engendered a number of contemporary debates, some of which address issues of environmental justice that informed (and were informed by) both canonical and noncanonical literature of the period. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195108231
- eISBN:
- 9780199853441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195108231.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
Although the crisis of the relationship between man and the world of nature on the scale observable today first began in the West where modernism was born, it is now global and demands an inquiry ...
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Although the crisis of the relationship between man and the world of nature on the scale observable today first began in the West where modernism was born, it is now global and demands an inquiry beyond the borders of the Western tradition and the history of the attack against that tradition in modern times. Any inquiry into the question of the relation between religion and the order of nature, one that wishes to address the crucial issues emanating from the present-day environmental crisis, needs to cross the frontiers of various spiritual universes and journey from the Heaven and Earth of a single human collectivity to the many Heavens and Earths of the several “humanities” constituting present-day global humanity as such. To understand the relation of religion to the order of nature on a global scale, rather than from the perspective of a single tradition, it is necessary to understand the meaning of the order of nature or the “Earth” in the context of various religions.Less
Although the crisis of the relationship between man and the world of nature on the scale observable today first began in the West where modernism was born, it is now global and demands an inquiry beyond the borders of the Western tradition and the history of the attack against that tradition in modern times. Any inquiry into the question of the relation between religion and the order of nature, one that wishes to address the crucial issues emanating from the present-day environmental crisis, needs to cross the frontiers of various spiritual universes and journey from the Heaven and Earth of a single human collectivity to the many Heavens and Earths of the several “humanities” constituting present-day global humanity as such. To understand the relation of religion to the order of nature on a global scale, rather than from the perspective of a single tradition, it is necessary to understand the meaning of the order of nature or the “Earth” in the context of various religions.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195108231
- eISBN:
- 9780199853441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195108231.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
The Greek word for order, cosmos, is used to refer to the totality of external reality which is perceptible, while naturalistic philosophers identify with reality as such and religions and religious ...
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The Greek word for order, cosmos, is used to refer to the totality of external reality which is perceptible, while naturalistic philosophers identify with reality as such and religions and religious philosophers consider it to be all that is other than the Divine Principle. This chapter examines the meaning of order in nature, and of necessity the order of nature, not according to the modern scientific view but as treated by various religious traditions that have not only created a human society but also a cosmic ambience imbued with religious significance. These religions, including, Christianity, Shamanism, Hinduism, Confucianism, and Taoism, present a primordial view of the order of nature and man's rapport with the natural world. In certain religious climates such as those of Abrahamic monotheisms, there arises the question of the contingent nature of the world in contrast to God, and also determinism versus free will in relation to the order of nature and our rapport with it.Less
The Greek word for order, cosmos, is used to refer to the totality of external reality which is perceptible, while naturalistic philosophers identify with reality as such and religions and religious philosophers consider it to be all that is other than the Divine Principle. This chapter examines the meaning of order in nature, and of necessity the order of nature, not according to the modern scientific view but as treated by various religious traditions that have not only created a human society but also a cosmic ambience imbued with religious significance. These religions, including, Christianity, Shamanism, Hinduism, Confucianism, and Taoism, present a primordial view of the order of nature and man's rapport with the natural world. In certain religious climates such as those of Abrahamic monotheisms, there arises the question of the contingent nature of the world in contrast to God, and also determinism versus free will in relation to the order of nature and our rapport with it.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195108231
- eISBN:
- 9780199853441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195108231.003.0009
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
One solution to the current environmental crisis is to resacralize nature, not by man who has no power to bestow the quality of sacredness upon anything, but through the remembrance of what nature is ...
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One solution to the current environmental crisis is to resacralize nature, not by man who has no power to bestow the quality of sacredness upon anything, but through the remembrance of what nature is as theater of Divine Creativity and Presence. Nature has been already sacralized by the Sacred Itself, and its resacralization means more than anything else a transformation within man, who has himself lost his Sacred Center, so as to be able to rediscover the Sacred and consequently to behold again nature's sacred quality. And this remembrance and rediscovery can only be achieved through religion in its traditional forms as the repositories of the Sacred and the means of access to it. Furthermore, such a transformation can only come about through the revival of religious knowledge of the order of nature, which itself means the undoing of the negative effects of all those processes of transformation of man's image of himself, his thought, and the world about him that have characterized the history of the West during the past five centuries.Less
One solution to the current environmental crisis is to resacralize nature, not by man who has no power to bestow the quality of sacredness upon anything, but through the remembrance of what nature is as theater of Divine Creativity and Presence. Nature has been already sacralized by the Sacred Itself, and its resacralization means more than anything else a transformation within man, who has himself lost his Sacred Center, so as to be able to rediscover the Sacred and consequently to behold again nature's sacred quality. And this remembrance and rediscovery can only be achieved through religion in its traditional forms as the repositories of the Sacred and the means of access to it. Furthermore, such a transformation can only come about through the revival of religious knowledge of the order of nature, which itself means the undoing of the negative effects of all those processes of transformation of man's image of himself, his thought, and the world about him that have characterized the history of the West during the past five centuries.
Finis Dunaway
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226169903
- eISBN:
- 9780226169934
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226169934.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Environmental History
Certain images stand out as icons of American environmentalism: a 1971 public service announcement featuring the “Crying Indian,” who sheds a tear in response to litter and pollution; the cooling ...
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Certain images stand out as icons of American environmentalism: a 1971 public service announcement featuring the “Crying Indian,” who sheds a tear in response to litter and pollution; the cooling towers of Three Mile Island, site of a notorious nuclear power accident in 1979; the sorrowful spectacle of oil-soaked wildlife following the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill; and, more recently, Al Gore delivering his global-warming slideshow in An Inconvenient Truth. These images, and others like them, have helped make environmental consciousness central to American public culture. Yet most historical accounts ignore the crucial role images have played in the making of popular environmentalism. This book looks at a wide array of visual texts—including pictures in popular magazines, television news, advertisements, cartoons, films, and political posters—to show how popular environmentalism has been entwined with mass media spectacles of crisis. Yet, even as media images have made the environmental crisis visible to a mass public, they often have masked systemic causes. Deflecting attention from corporate and government responsibility, popular images have instead emphasized the idea that individual Americans are personally culpable for pollution and other environmental problems. The visual media have thus offered environmentalists a double-edged sword: Images have helped them popularize their cause, but also distorted their ideas by portraying their movement as a moralistic crusade to absolve the nation of its guilt. Ultimately, this dual focus on spectacles of crisis and individual moral choices has hidden underlying causes and structural solutions behind a veil of inattention.Less
Certain images stand out as icons of American environmentalism: a 1971 public service announcement featuring the “Crying Indian,” who sheds a tear in response to litter and pollution; the cooling towers of Three Mile Island, site of a notorious nuclear power accident in 1979; the sorrowful spectacle of oil-soaked wildlife following the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill; and, more recently, Al Gore delivering his global-warming slideshow in An Inconvenient Truth. These images, and others like them, have helped make environmental consciousness central to American public culture. Yet most historical accounts ignore the crucial role images have played in the making of popular environmentalism. This book looks at a wide array of visual texts—including pictures in popular magazines, television news, advertisements, cartoons, films, and political posters—to show how popular environmentalism has been entwined with mass media spectacles of crisis. Yet, even as media images have made the environmental crisis visible to a mass public, they often have masked systemic causes. Deflecting attention from corporate and government responsibility, popular images have instead emphasized the idea that individual Americans are personally culpable for pollution and other environmental problems. The visual media have thus offered environmentalists a double-edged sword: Images have helped them popularize their cause, but also distorted their ideas by portraying their movement as a moralistic crusade to absolve the nation of its guilt. Ultimately, this dual focus on spectacles of crisis and individual moral choices has hidden underlying causes and structural solutions behind a veil of inattention.
