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"...probes the possibility of a green shift radical enough to affect the destructiveness of our material world."—Publishers Weekly
"Essays that offer a theological perspective on the environment and its protection."—The Chronicle of Higher Education
Deconstructive postmodernism does not appear to encourage intense attention to the natural world, and for the most part we have expected little leadership in ecological matters from those who follow it. Perhaps the greatest importance of this book is that in signals a change. The joining of deconstructive analysis of our heritage and the love of our fellow creatures contributes richly to this collection. Those of us who believe that of all the crises we humans face, the ecological one is the most fundamental, can only rejoice at the infusion of new insight and energy into the call for a fundamental re-orientation of our psyches and our societies."
—John B. Cobb, Jr., Professor Emeritus, Claremont School of Theology 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 activate imagination, humor, ritual, and hope.
The contributors: Karen Baker-Fletcher, Whitney A. Bauman, Sharon Betcher, Richard R. Bohannon II, Anne Daniell, Heather Elkins, Antonia Gorman, Marion Grau, John Grim, Fletcher Harper, Luke Higgins, Laurel Kearns, Catherine Keller, Seung Gap Lee, Glen Mazis, Barbara Muraca, Jay McDaniel, Kevin J. O’Brien, Anna L. Peterson, Anne Primavesi, Kate Rigby, Nicole A. Roskos, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Daniel T. Spencer, Lawrence Troster, Mary Evelyn Tucker, Mark I. Wallace, David Wood.
| LAUREL KEARNS is Associate Professor of Sociology of Religion and Environmental Studies in the Theological School and Graduate Division of Religion of Drew University. |
| CATHERINE KELLER is Professor of Constructive Theology in the Theological School and Graduate Division of Religion at Drew University. She co-edited with Virginia Burrus the first volume of the Transdisciplinary Theological Colloquia, Toward a Theology of Eros: Transfiguring Passion at the Limits of Discipline (Fordham). |
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