The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Ecology
Wiley Blackwell Companions to Religion Series

In the face of the current environmental crisis?which clearly has moral and spiritual dimensions?members of all the world?s faiths have come to recognize the critical importance of religion?s relationship to ecology. The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Ecology offers a comprehensive overview of the history and the latest developments in religious engagement with environmental issues throughout the world. Newly commissioned essays from noted scholars of diverse faiths and scientific traditions present the most cutting-edge thinking on religion?s relationship to the environment. Initial readings explore the ways traditional concepts of nature in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and other religious traditions have been shaped by the environmental crisis. Readings then address the changing nature of theology and religious thought in response to the challenges of protecting the environment. Various conceptual issues and themes that transcend individual traditions?climate change, bio-ethics, social justice, ecofeminism, and more?are then analyzed before a final section examines some of the immediate challenges we face in caring for the Earth while looking to the future of religious environmentalism. Timely and thought-provoking, Companion to Religion and Ecology offers illuminating insights into the role of religion in the ongoing struggle to secure the future well-being of our natural world.

With a foreword by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I,  and an Afterword by John Cobb

Foreword xvii

Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch

Preface xix

Acknowledgments xxxi

I. Religions and Ecological Consciousness 1

Ecology Perspectives from Diverse Religious and Spiritual Traditions

1 God is Absolute Reality and All Creation His Tajallı̄ (Theophany) 3
Seyyed Hossein Nasr

2 Swaraj: From Chipko to Navdanya 12
Vandana Shiva

3 Eco‐Kabbalah: Holism and Mysticism in Earth‐Centered Judaism 20
David Mevorach Seidenberg

4 Laudato Sí in the Earth Commons—Integral Ecology and Socioecological Ethics 37
John Hart

5 神の大経綸: The Great Divine Plan: Kotama Okada’s Vision for Spiritual Civilization in the Twenty‐First Century 54
Kōō Okada

6 In the Time of the Sacred Places 71
Winona LaDuke

7 Eco‐Theology in the African Diaspora 85
Dianne D. Glave

8 Buddhist Interdependence and the Elemental Life 90
Christopher Key Chapple

9 Theodao: Integrating Ecological Consciousness in Daoism, Confucianism, and Christian Theology 104
Heup Young Kim

II. Care for the Earth and Life 115

Traditions’ Teachings in Socioecological Contexts

10 Science, Ecology, and Christian Theology 117
John F. Haught

11 Exploring Environmental Ethics in Islam: Insights from the Qur’an and the Practice of Prophet Muhammad 130
Fazlun M. Khalid

12 Science and Religion: Conflict or Concert? 146
Francisco J. Ayala

13 The Serpent in Eden and in Africa: Religions and Ecology 163
Kapya J. Kaoma

14 Jewish Environmental Ethics: The Imperative of Responsibility 179
Hava Tirosh‐Samuelson

15 Ecowomanism and Ecological Reparations 195
Melanie L. Harris

16 From Climate Debt to Climate Justice: God’s Love Embodied in Garden Earth 203
Cynthia Moe‐Lobeda

17 The Vision of St. Maximus the Confessor: That Creation May All Be One 220
Elizabeth Theokritoff

III. Ecological Commitment 237

Contextualization of Traditions in Diverse Contexts, Cultures, and Circumstances

18 From Social Justice to Creation Justice in the Anthropocene 239
Larry L. Rasmussen

19 Christianity, Ecofeminism, and Transformation 256
Heather Eaton

20 The Face of God in the World: Insights from the Orthodox Christian Tradition 273
John Chryssavgis

21 Climate Change and Christian Ethics 286
Michael S. Northcott

22 Islamic Environmental Teachings: Compatible with Ecofeminism? 301
Nawal H. Ammar and Allison Gray

23 The Divine Environment (al‐Muhit) and the Body of God: Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Sallie McFague Resacralize Nature 315
Ian S. Mevorach

24 Chondogyo and a Sacramental Commons: Korean Indigenous Religion and Christianity on Common Ground 331
Yongbum Park

25 The Religious Politics of Scientific Doubt: Evangelical Christians and Environmentalism in the United States 348
Myrna Perez Sheldon and Naomi Oreskes

26 The Covenant of Reciprocity 368
Robin Wall Kimmerer

IV. Visions for the Present and Future Earth 383

The Earth Transformed: Altered Consciousness and Conduct on Common Ground

27 Prayer as if Earth Really Matters 385
Arthur Waskow

28 The Evolutionary and Ecological Perspectives of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Thomas Berry 394
Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim

29 Earth as Community Garden: The Bounty, Healing, and Justice of Holy Permaculture 410
Tallessyn Zawn Grenfell‐Lee

30 Theo‐Forming Earth Community: Meaning‐Full Creations 427
Whitney A. Bauman

31 Religious Environmentalism and Environmental Activism 439
Roger S. Gottlieb

32 Global Heating, Pope Francis, and the Promise of Laudato Sí 457
Bill McKibben

33 Respect for Mother Earth: Original Instructions and Indigenous Traditional Knowledge 460
Tom B. K. Goldtooth

34 Common Commons: Social and Sacred Space 471
John Hart

35 A New Partzuf for a New Paradigm: Living Earth—An Icon for Our Age 488
Zalman Shachter Shalomi and in Conversation with John Hart

Afterword 505

John B. Cobb, Jr.

Index 510

Undergraduate and graduate level students for courses on religious ethics, religion and environment/ecology, sociology of religion, socioecological ethics, social justice, environmental justice/wellbeing, comparative religious ethics, comparative religious ecological/environmental ethics, comparative religious studies; also for general readers

John Hart is Professor of Christian Ethics, Boston University. His books include Cosmic Commons: Spirit, Science, and Space (2013), Sacramental Commons: Christian Ecological Ethics (2006), and The Spirit of the Earth (1984). He has lectured globally on socioecological ethics and religion-ecology in eight countries on five continents.