Browse

This volume examines the complex roles of religious values and perceptions of place in the efforts of twenty-first-century anti-mountaintop removal activists in Appalachia. Applying theoretical insights from religious studies, Appalachian studies, and critical regionalism, the work charts how views of Appalachian place were transformed and revised through activism and how different religious threads were involved in that process, weaving together patterns of meaning and significance to help motivate activist efforts and reshape visions of Appalachia. The specific religious threads examined include Catholic and mainline Protestant visions of eco-justice (or religiously inspired arguments in support of social and environmental justice), evangelical Christian views of Creation Care (a term encompassing multiple visions of theocentric stewardship ethics), and forms of nature-venerating spirituality (including spiritual and religious proponents of biocentric ethics and “dark green religion”). These religious perspectives encountered friction with other perspectives, structures, and practices, generating new perspectives on the issue formed from physical interactions between diverse stakeholders as well as new visions for Appalachia in a post-mountaintop removal future. The work points to ways that scholars might continue to analyze the interconnections between local religious values and perceptions of place, influencing further studies in the interdisciplinary field of religion and nature, place studies, and social movements.

Mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining, which has profound environmental and social impacts on the Appalachian Mountain region, represents an urgent ethical issue for Christians. The book proposes a Christian ethical approach to MTR that addresses the various intersecting discourses and narratives that shape an understanding of this region and this issue. It draws on the ethical thought of H. Richard Niebuhr, whose theocentric ethic integrates a relational theory of value, a view of moral agency as responsible, and a steadfast insistence on the centrality of God and God’s purposes. The proposed Niebuhrian theocentric approach examines and challenges the church’s imaginations in this regard and offers alternatives centered on the purposes of God rather than on finite human interests. In applying this approach to MTR, the author considers three specific discursive pairs in order to critique them and suggest how a theocentric imagination might modify them: power and powerlessness, insiders and outsiders, and destruction and reclamation. Finally, the author argues that this approach, informed by a practiced love of the mountains, can support a strong but nuanced prophetic critique of the most destructive aspects of this practice.