Creative Adaptations in an Interdependent World: Recent Studies in Religion and Ecology

Abstract

The Earth in Gods Economy: Creation, Salvation and Consummation in Ecological Perspective. By Emst M. Conradie. Studies in Religion and Environment. Wien: LIT Verlag, 2015. 368 pp. $69.95 (paper).The Future of Ethics: Sustainability, Social Justice, and Religious Creativity. By Willis Jenkins. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2013. 352 pp. $34.95 (paper).Preservation and Protest: Theological Foundations for an EcoEschatological Ethics. By Ryan Patrick McLaughlin. Emerging Scholars. Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 2014. 460 pp. $49.00 (paper).A Political Theology of Climate Change. By Michael S. Northcott. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing, 2013.345 pp. $30.00 (paper).Systematic Theology and Climate Change: Ecumenical Perspectives. Edited by Michael S. Northcott and Peter M. Scott. London: Routledge, 2014. 180 pp. $49.95 (paper).Earth-honoring Faith: Religious Ethics in a New Key. By Larry L. Rasmussen. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. 480 pp. $47.95 (paper).The relationship between human beings and ecosystems that both threaten and sustain us has always been complex, but thresholds that have been crossed by human technological intervention in age of Anthropocene (our current age in which human activity has become leading influence on environment) have turned that relationship into a problem. Wicked problems are problems that cannot be treated with linear, analytic approaches. They are often difficult to clearly define, have many interdependencies, and are multi-causal. Attempts to address them often lead to unforeseen consequences. They are often unstable and have no clear solutions. They are socially complex and rarely responsibility of a single organization. They involve changing behavior. For all of these reasons they are frequently characterized by chronic policy failure.1The challenges of managing complex adaptive systems that make up planet Earth are not only scientific, or only technological, philosophical, political, ethical, or theological. They are all of these. The truth of Anthropocene is that consequences of human actions have grown ever larger through combination of population growth and advances in technology so that human action now must be understood to be a causal contributor to functioning and malfunctioning of systems that keep Earth habitable. This truth challenges modernity's assumptions about relative stability of natural world and division between realms of nature and culture. The crumbling worldview of modernity stands in need of something more than cosmetic repairs, and ecotheology is turning to resources of world's religions in search of an alternate worldview that can enable us to navigate wicked problems we now face.Do we need a new politics? A new economy? A revised theology or a new religion? New practices or new ethics? This review of six recent contributions to conversation indicates that answer is yes to all of above. These texts all offer their own improvisations on themes of modernity, technology, climate change, religion, and ethics, developing different approaches to interrelated aspects of problems we face. Although none possesses the to our current environmental challenges, nature of wicked problems means that a single comprehensive solution does not exist. Instead, each offers a piece of solution in their visions of ethics, politics, economy, and theology that we need today.A Theological EnsembleIn Systematic Theology and Climate Change: Ecumenical Perspectives, editors Michael S. Northcott and Peter M. Scott bring together theologians from Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, and Reformed traditions to critically retrieve Christian doctrine in light of climate change. The main point of consensus among these theologians is that anthropogenic climate change is a real threat to flourishing, and possibly survival, of both human beings and other forms of life. …