Search Results (58)

Studies on the significance of “place” as a theological concept are in the early stages of development in ecotheology. However, the few scholars who have provided key insights into the concept have approached it from a narrow perspective. In contrast, this article approaches the notion of “place” from a broader perspective that engages philosophy, scripture, theology, and contemporary social thought. The aim of the article is to demonstrate the centrality of “place” in relation to environmental care as the necessary enabling condition for human and ecological flourishing amid our global ecological crisis. To advance this argument, the article adopts a textual method of analysis that draws significantly on secondary literature. It begins with a brief description of what integral ecology is about; it then proceeds to provide an overview of the contemporary crisis of “place”. This is followed by an examination of “place” from biblical and theological perspectives. The article concludes by discussing “place” as an ethical praxis at the heart of integral ecology. Central to the discussion is the usefulness of talking about “place” as a site of both action and resistance in the face of our present ecological crisis. Full article

Genesis 2:15 has been widely used to support both a vocational dimension of work and an earth-caring attitude that goes beyond the dominion narrative of Genesis 1:28. However, this verse has not been interpreted to ground the connection between theology of work and ecotheology. Based on the concept of Christian materialism proposed by Saint Josemaría Escrivá, we give a new interpretation to this biblical passage in order to ground the human vocation to work by linking it to the need to care for or preserve the earth. Therefore, the transformation of creation that most professional activities carry out is qualified by the duty to do it with “care”, that is, to transform the natural world with due respect for God’s original creative plan. In this way, work can become co-creative, and the transformation of nature that work entails is linked to a divine call to develop it with respect for the inner meaning of all creatures. Full article

This paper delineates the theology of creation in Brazilian theologian Cláudio Carvalhaes’ eco-liturgical theology of liberation. Reorienting lex orandi-lex credendi-lex vivendi by his liturgical methodological innovation lex naturae, he envisions every dimension of worship as deeply connected to a planet in crisis. Lex naturae transforms liturgical spaces into creational–political spaces which invoke and evoke people to deeply attend to, to cry with, to wonder with, and to pray and sing with the forests, animals, soil, water, and all earthly beings. Celebrating a creational solidarity and wisdom, lex naturae ritualizes that people are the earth, the earth is in people, and human and more-than-human beings belong to each other. Using the seven petitions of his “The Ecological Lord’s Prayer”, Carvalhaes’ theology of creation, which reimagines the Divine, the earth, and the human in a multispecies context via the (re)orienting ground of lex naturae, is “unearthed.” His theology of creation centers the creaturely commonality with more-than-human neighbors and challenges human beings to live, love, and flourish within all the entanglements of created life. Lex naturae is also a form of asceticism which aims to recalibrate the human focus towards environmental justice for the planet. It aims at changing human desire to turn away from the brutalism of colonialism’s ecocide and toward wholesome relations with animals, plants, soil, land, and water. In the end, this paper claims that Carvalhaes’ theology of creation affirms a “godly animism”. Full article

The climate crisis is now a defining challenge of the Anthropocene era, underscoring humanity’s profound impact on Earth’s ecosystems and the ethical responsibilities that accompany this influence. This paper explores how religious and philosophical frameworks can provide transformative approaches to the climate crisis, particularly through the lens of intergenerational ethics. Ecofeminism critiques humanity’s exploitative relationship with nature, advocating for an ethos of respect and intrinsic appreciation—a perspective that has evolved into fourth wave feminism, embracing digital activism and intersectionality. Similarly, Pope Francis’ ecotheology calls for a “conversion of heart” that redefines humanity’s relationship with the environment, urging us to view nature not as a mere resource for exploitation but as a fraternal partner deserving of care and respect. Hans-Georg Gadamer’s “hermeneutics of appreciation” further complements this perspective by demonstrating how language and dialogue shape our attitudes and behaviors toward nature. Moreover, contemporary ecofeminist voices have exemplified how historical insights are extended through modern, intergenerational climate justice initiatives. By integrating ecofeminism, Gadamerian hermeneutics, and Pope Francis’ ecotheology, this paper proposes a comprehensive framework for addressing the ethical, spiritual, and philosophical dimensions of the climate crisis. It emphasizes the need for a fraternal and inclusive relationship with nature, aligning with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 13 on climate action. This interdisciplinary approach contributes to the scholarly discourse on religion, spirituality, and sustainability, offering novel insights for meaningful ecological change in a rapidly evolving global context. Full article

The Autobiography of Saint Marguerite-Marie Alacoque recounts her many visions, ecstasies, and sufferings as she became God’s messenger, initiating the highly successful modern form of devotion to the Sacred Heart. Reading the Autobiography today is difficult, however. She constantly practices forms of obedience, self-control, and self-abuse that are offensive to today’s sensibilities. Her image of Jesus is as her “Master’ and “Sovereign” who desires and demands suffering on the part of those who love him. Her theology of the necessity of repairing God’s wounded honor by suffering is likewise outdated. Finally, the reliance of her message on visions does not inspire trust in an era that generally views visions as symptoms of pathology. This essay proposes that it is possible to discover authentic inspiration in the Autobiography by reading it with the help of several mediating theories. First, Hubert Hermans’ Dialogical Self Theory offers insight into traditional, modern, and postmodern styles of self-construction, thus situating Alacoque’s stories and practices within her time (at the cusp between traditional and modern styles) while offering a glimpse of how she can be understood within our time (at the cusp between modern and postmodern styles). Second, a historically contextualized eucharistic theology of embodied self-giving helps to see past the problematic elements of her theology. Finally, an ecotheological theory of visions suggests a way to understand her visions that may unveil their significance for our own time of crisis. Full article

The Logos has made a Garden. That short sentence might sum up the ‘eco-theology’ (or, as some would have it, theo-ecology) of Joseph Ratzinger—Benedict XVI. It is ripe for unpacking, by considering not only his general approach to the God–world relation (always presupposed as this is in his comments on environmental issues) but also how his theological insights into the created realm, understood as humanity’s common home (oikos), might now be taken further in the great pope’s footsteps, drawing on the doctrinal and hagiographical traditions of the Church. Full article

Ongoing discussions on creation care and agapeic ethic have paid less attention to the interplay between love, creation, waste management challenges, and mission. This paper, therefore, discusses a missional perspective of agapeic ethic as a ground norm for eco-theology and motivation for eco-care (especially proper waste management). An attempt is made to discuss the concept and dimensions of love and the nexus between love, creation, and missional purpose. This paper adopts a non-participant observation of refuse collection as carried out by refuse collectors, the waste disposal practices of people, and the waste handling and disposal practices of selected churches. This research was conducted across Port Harcourt City, Obio Akpor, Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni, Oyibo, and Eleme municipal areas of Rivers State, Nigeria. The churches observed include Protestant Churches (Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Church of Nigeria that is Anglican Communion, and Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints); the Roman Catholic Church; Pentecostal Churches (such as Salvation Ministries Worldwide, Redeemed Christian Church of God, and Deeper Life Bible Church); and African Indigenous Churches (namely, the Christ Apostolic Church, Cherubim and Seraphim, and Celestial Church of Christ). The information gathered was critically analysed and used in measuring stakeholders’ disposition to and understanding of the research focus. Ecological liberation hermeneutics was adopted as an interpretative framework, while the eco-justice principles of interconnectedness and purpose were engaged to foreground the underlying issues in this study. This paper argued that Christians’ involvement in proper waste management, keeping both private and public spaces clean, is a morally and divinely imposed duty and a practical testimonial of their love for God, their fellow human beings, and non-human others. This is a fulfilment of the mission where Christian love (agape) serves as an ethical principle of inflicting ‘no harm’ to humans or non-human others. Full article

Pentecostal ecotheology presents a holistic approach to healing that recognises the inherent worth of all creation and the interconnectedness of human and nonhuman creation. It draws on the Pentecostal full gospel and the experiences of biblical Pentecost to inspire an expansive pneumatology that transcends an anthropocentric soteriology and views the entire cosmos as the altar where human and nonhuman creation can tarry for and experience the sacred presence, power, and conviction of the Holy Spirit with a sense of eschatological urgency such that (inter alia) repentance from ecological transgression becomes normative. This framework envisions all of creation participating in the Spirit’s presence, power, gifting, and renewal. Leveraging Pentecostal ecotheology for holistic healing involves intentionally engaging, replicating, and contextualising the pneumatological experiences of the biblical Pentecost. It also involves embracing the pneumatological continuity between us and the biblical charismatic communities, enabling us to administer healing in contemporary environmental contexts through the Spirit’s anointing. Engaging in ecotheological intercession, overcoming the creational desacralisation that leads to the mechanistic exploitation of creation, and adopting a Spirit-born sense of solidarity with creation are further essential strategies for leveraging Pentecostal ecotheology for holistic healing. Full article

In the burgeoning field of ecotheology, scholars have been compelled to propose typologies to introduce and categorize existing but diffuse ecotheological insights. Taking ecotheology as a particular epistemic theology, I argue for an alternative way of typologizing that entails meticulously examining the extent to which ecotheologians engage with competing epistemes, namely “postcolonial typology”. To illustrate, I will examine a range of ecotheological works from a postcolonial nation, Indonesia. I present three groups of ecotheologies: the “expansionist”, the “tribalist”, and the “essentialist” approaches (or strategies). The expansionist group extends or expands the systematic theology formerly introduced by European missionaries during the colonial period as a way to ecologize their theology. The tribalist approach prioritizes retrieving and incorporating local or tribal wisdom. Finally, the essentialist group focuses on identifying categorical frameworks that may signify “Indonesianness”, which involves a “strategic” choice of essentialism that yields to a national or transtribal theological cohesion. In the end, I will also note one pedagogical implication of employing postcolonial typology. Full article

This study investigates the theological and philosophical interplay between Rosemary Radford Ruether’s ecofeminist theology and Neo-Confucian cosmology in the context of Korean Protestant Christianity. By exploring intolerant interpretations of the Christian creation story, it critiques the anthropocentric domination of nature and proposes a reformed ecological spirituality. The research integrates Ruether’s covenantal and sacramental traditions, arguing for the significance of “relational consciousness” as a framework for eco-spiritual formation. Drawing from Ruether’s examination of creation myths and Neo-Confucian perspectives, this study asserts the necessity in reshaping Christian theology to embrace human interdependence with nature and the cosmos. It proposes that Korean Christians, influenced by Calvinist theology, must move beyond human dominion over nature to a role of co-creator and nurturer of the ecosystem, advocating for an eco-theological renewal that centers on relational consciousness for spiritual formation. Full article

This paper proposes a synthesis of Christological and pneumatological insights to present a more inclusive vision of creation’s role in divine worship and redemption. While deep incarnation emphasizes Christ’s identification with all of creation, this study extends the discussion by incorporating the Spirit’s ongoing work through the framework of animal glossolalia. Nonhuman creatures are seen not merely as passive recipients of Christ’s redemptive work but as active participants in cosmic worship through the Spirit’s intercession. By uniting the shared flesh of Christ with the Spirit’s transformative presence, the paper suggests a more integrated theological vision that includes all living beings in the divine narrative. This approach invites us to reconsider the role of animals within a broader ecological and theological framework, urging a reimagining of their spiritual capacities and their place in the eschatological hope for the renewal of all creation. Full article

The ocean is a site of energy, space, movement, depth, and extraction. The biblical creation account begins there, with the energy of movement of the Spirit over the Deep. The exploitation of the ocean can be read as a desecration of the Deep, of divine presence and creativity, where beings of the deep roam. Many of these beings are beyond human knowledge, known only to the Creator. Many disturbances of the ocean floor and ocean dwellers have already occurred; penetrating even deeper into the ocean is a form of sacrilege. Extractive politics in the Arctic Ocean and in Northern Sápmi continue following decades of overfishing, poaching, and repression of indigenous coastal traditions. The Sámi tradition and ecological theologies offer a different way of looking at coastal and ocean regions. As tools to counter the calls for endless extraction, we offer narratives that highlight the importance of the coastal Sámi oral tradition and a decolonial ecotheology of a protective apophasis of the Deep. Countering extraction involves rejecting a hermeneutics of commodity fetish that distorts the ocean and those that live and travel within it by framing them as endlessly extractable. This article seeks to resist the extraction of oceanic waters and remind us of ways to respect ocean-dwelling species, the ocean, and ourselves in a time where we are facing the sixth great extinction. Full article

Trying to answer the challenges proposed by the Laudato si’ encyclical letter and its proposed “integral ecology,” this essay deals with the possible interactions between ecotheology, ecophenomenology, and cultural anthropology, outlining an interdisciplinary approach to Incarnation. In the first part, the core ideas of the aforementioned encyclical are discussed. In the second part, ecotheology is discussed as an answer to the critiques that see in Christianism a hindrance against a deeper ecological thought. The third part discusses ecophenomenology, while proposing to integrate within the debate some new theoretical proposals. The fourth part discusses how to “cross the Rubicon” between ecotheology and ecophenomenology, while also describing both limits and opportunities for such crossings. In the conclusions, some ideas for further research are proposed, in the sense of a layered theory of Incarnation. Full article

Against the background of contemporary debates about the Anthropocene and the attendant danger of global warming and climate change, which is causally linked to the unchecked exploitation of the earth by humans, narratives which embody an earth-centric scientia sacra become tools of advocacy for the ‘resacralization’ of the earth. This paper explores three South Asian river narratives that offer a blueprint for mindfully inhabiting the earth under the shadow of the Anthropocene. Calling for a participatory relationship with the holiness of water, they challenge the construction of water in a rapidly globalizing, uneven society shaped by a colonial hydrology in which the ecological relationship between land and water is out of balance. Drawing attention to the multiple ways in which the human and non-human world are enmeshed in the Anthropocene, these narratives engage with environmental justice concerns and challenge the hierarchy or perspectives and worldviews regarding accepted notions of subalternity. These texts construct a triptych suggesting an embedded ecotheology of the material and the spiritual, thereby sensitising the reader to the endangered waterscapes of the Anthropocene and also to the promise of the Symbiocene through an awareness of the fluid relational field that we share with the greater-than-human world. Full article

Climate change evokes many kinds of emotions, which have an impact on people’s behavior. This article focuses on three major climate emotions—guilt, grief, and anger—and other closely related emotional phenomena, such as climate anxiety/distress. The article explores ways in which these emotions could be engaged with constructively in religious communities, with a certain emphasis on Christian, monotheistic, and Buddhist communities. These religious communities have certain special resources for engaging with guilt and grief, but they often have profound difficulty working with constructive anger. The ways in which these emotions can affect each other are probed, and the complex dynamics of climate guilt are given special attention. Based on the work of psychologists Tara Brach and Miriam Greenspan, a four-step method of engaging with these emotions is proposed and discussed: self-reflection, exploration of various forms of these emotions, contextualization, and creative application of various methods to channel the energies in these emotions. The article draws from interdisciplinary research on eco-emotions, religion and ecology studies, and psychology. Full article