The last two decades have seen the emergence of a new field of academic study that examines the interaction between religion and ecology. Theologians from every religious tradition have confronted world religions past attitudes towards nature and acknowledged their own faiths complicity in the environmental crisis. 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. The proposed handbook will serve as the definitive overview of these exciting new developments. Divided into three main sections, the books essays will reflect the three dominant dimensions of the field. Part one will explore traditional religious concepts of and attitudes towards nature and how these have been changed by the environmental crisis. Part II looks at larger conceptual issues that transcend individual traditions. Part III will examine religious participation in environmental politics.
Introduction:Religion and Ecology: What's the connection and why does it matter? -- Roger S. Gottlieb Part I Transforming Tradition Chapter 1 Judaism -- Hava Tirosh-Samuelson: Chapter 2 Catholicism -- John Hart: Chapter 3 The Earth as Sacrament: Insights from Orthodox Christian Theology and Spirituality -- John Chryssavgis: Chapter 4 The World of Nature According to the Protestant Tradition -- H. Paul Santmire and John B. Cobb, Jr.: Chapter 5 Jainism and Ecology: Transformation of Tradition -- Christopher Key Chapple: Chapter 6 Hindu Religion and Environmental Wellbeing -- O.P. Dwivedi: Chapter 7 Buddhism -- Stephanie Kaza: Chapter 8 Islam -- Richard C. Foltz: Chapter 9 Taoism and Ecology -- James Miller: Chapter 10 Motifs for a New Confucian Ecological Vision -- John Berthrong: Chapter 11 African Religions -- Jacob Olupuna: Chapter 12 Indigenous Traditions: Religion and Ecology -- John A. Grim: Part II Religion and Ecology: Conflicts and Connections Chapter 13 Population, Religion, and Ecology -- Daniel C. Maguire: Chapter 14 Genetic Engineering and Nature: Human and Otherwise -- Thomas A. Shannon: Chapter 15 So Near and Yet So Far: Animal Theology and Ecological Theology -- Andrew Linzey: Chapter 16 Religious Ecofeminism: Healing the Ecological Crisis -- Rosemary Radford Ruether: Chapter 17 Science and Religion in the Face of the Environmental Crisis -- Holmes Rolston III: Chapter 18 Religion and Ecology: Survey of the Field -- Mary Evelyn Tucker: Chapter 19 The Spiritual Dimension of Nature Writing -- David Landis Barnhill: Chapter 20 Religion, Environmentalism, and the Meaning of Ecology -- Lisa H. Sideris: Part III Religious Environmental Activism Chapter 21 Religious Environmentalism in Action -- Roger S. Gottlieb: Chapter 22 Religion and Environmental Struggles in Latin America -- Lois Ann Lorentzen and Salvador Leavitt-Alcantara: Chapter 23 African Initiated Churches (AICs) as Vehicles of Earth-Care in Africa -- M.L. Daneel: Chapter 24 The Scientist and the Shepherd: The Emergence of Evangelical Environmentalism -- Calvin B. DeWitt: Chapter 25 Religion and Environmentalism in America and Beyond -- Bron Taylor: Bibliography
Roger S. Gottlieb is Professor of Philosophy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He is the author or editor of fourteen books and more than 50 articles on political philosophy, religious life, the Holocaust, environmentalism, and disability, including A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and Our Planet's Future (OUP 2006), This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment (second edition, 2003) and Joining Hands: Politics and Religion Together for Social Change (2002). He writes a column for the national magazine Tikkun and serves on the editorial boards of four scholarly journals.
Reviews for The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Ecology
a 'state-of-the-art' report which provides an introduction to the field or further development of exploration of it. It would seem to seve best as the former...as a way of promoting the field and exploring some of its main issue the Handbook works well. It is an interesting, stimulating, and useful book, well researched and well written. Tony Watling, Journal of Contemporary Religion ...essential work. Nigel Cooper, The Church Times This is truly a ray of light among all the messages of doom. Northern Echo (Darlington/ South Durham)
