Environmental Theology

The fourth edition of The Christian Theological Tradition provides students with essential theological knowledge of key persons and events of the Bible and the Christian faith, and of Christianity’s multifaceted encounter with Western culture.

Historically arranged, the textbook addresses major theological themes such as revelation, God, Jesus Christ, Creation, salvation, and the church. The textbook deals with the entire Christian tradition from an orientation that is both Catholic and ecumenical, with the fourth edition including expanded coverage of modern Protestant Christianity. The Christian Theological Tradition has been thoroughly revised and updated with nine new or rewritten chapters, including:

• A new section on the reception of the Second Vatican Council, including the pontificate of Pope Francis
• A new treatment of contemporary developments in liberation and environmental theology
• A new examination of the relationship between science and Christianity
• An entirely rewritten treatment of Islam that focuses on the ways in which the Christian tradition has historically understood and responded to Islam
• A new discussion of the “New Atheism,” with theological responses to this influential movement.
• New textboxes on aspects of religious life, such as liturgy, prayer, art, moral teaching, and social institutions, appropriate to given chapters.

With the assistance of images and maps, key words, and recommended reading, this textbook outlines the methods for Christian theology and demonstrates the relevance of the Christian theological tradition for our contemporary world.

This is an ideal resource for students of theology, biblical studies, or religious studies, and anyone wanting an accessible and comprehensive introduction to the Christian theological tradition.

Stephen M. Vantassel explores how Andrew Linzey's view of animal rights matches with the Biblical testimony. Vantassel explains that Dr. Linzey's position selects passages in an arbitrary and proof-texting manner thereby violating the original intent of the references. He also ignores passages that directly contradict his view resulting in a stilted and incomplete view of the Bible's theology on human-animal relations.

In the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania, particularly the Northern Diocese, a significant portion of environmental discourse focuses on land: animals, mountains, soil, and especially trees and forests. Tree-planting and reforestation schemes are given particular emphasis by church officials and individual parishioners alike, and this paper will discuss their cultural, moral, and political dimensions.

The diocese is centred around Mt. Kilimanjaro where the Chagga people form the ethnic majority. As many as 70% of Chagga people are Christian, and many of them hear exhortations to "care for the environment" every Sunday in church. Clergy attempt to inculcate a moral duty in parishioners, drawing on environmental and stewardship theologies. At the same time, environmental discourse reflects cultural concepts of domesticity (as "the environment" is also understood to mean the household), and connection to the land - which is itself grounded in contemporary understandings of historical Chagga spirituality.

Environmental discourses also reflect contemporary political issues, including debates on household energy consumption, (particularly the use of firewood and charcoal versus gas and electricity) and the engagement between church officials and government leaders on environmental policies. Debates on energy and the promotion of tree-planting schemes over other options (e.g. reducing carbon emissions) also reflect locally understood ideas of modernity and development.

I demonstrate how environmental discourse and tree-planting schemes reflect cultural understandings of domesticity, land, and spiritual heritage; contemporary political debates; and moral understandings of Chagga spiritual heritage and its application to contemporary environmental theology.

When the dust has settled from our time in Prague, what conclusions can we make about the present state of adult Christian environmental education in Europe? The aims of the present paper will be to conduct a preliminary survey of what is available, and to provide some leads for those who might wish to develop courses in this topic area in the future. As far as I am aware there has been no previous attempt to conduct a survey of this type. What follows is obviously going to be a personal view, and will undoubtedly have some bias towards the situation in the UK in 2007.

Jurgen Habermas states that religion and philosophy are engaged in a mutual talk that participates in producing modern states norms. From this hypothesis of contemporary society “prepolitical sources” we explore the specificity of French “agriculteurs paysans” commitment. Based on peasants interviews and Christian thinkers writings we show the links existing between an ecologist ethos build around the concepts of autonomy and coherence and a particular Christian thought that emphasizes the importance of action and thought unity. The peasants’ wish of doing agriculture in a not-conventional way is to be linked with their moral motivation of “doing what one should”. Their actions take the form of their moral and philosophical quest. That unity between what one does and what one thinks or believes can be found in the personnalist’s thought of Jacques Ellul, Bernard Charbonneau or Denis de Rougemont. Thanks to Christian interpretations, they all depict human freedom as being the fusion ...

The emergence of environmental ethics in the Western world is typically dated to the nineteenth century. However, modern environmentalism was preceded by over two thousand years by Scriptural teaching. This article demonstrates that the Law of Moses contains important ecological care legislation, and that this was well understood by early Jewish commentators. Ecological care in the Law of Moses It is well recognized that the early Hebrews maintained a high degree of ecological sustainability which was unique to their era. "Archaeological records show that the Israelites were the first example in world history of a society that succeeded in managing a sustained management of their environment for about thousand and seven hundred years." 1 "Thus the ancient Israelites developed a level of environmental sensitivity. They were aware of the fact that they had settled in an area with a fragile ecology. They knew that their land would be fertile only if it was managed with proper care." 2 This was a direct result of the Law of Moses, 3 which regulated fruit crops, 4 prohibited certain mixed crops, 5 and required the non-cultivation of the land in the seventh year, enabling the land to recover from human activity. 6 1

گفتگو با برنامه‌ی بامدادی رادیو بی بی سی فارسی در باب سند مهمی که کلیسای کاتولیک در باب بحران زیست محیطی صادر کرده است. Yaser Mirdamadi's short interview with BBC Persian radio (15/06/2015) about the encyclical letter issued by Pope Francis on the environmental crisis.

In today’s scattering world, challenged as it is by climate change, pollution and other forms of environmental degradation, developing an adequate theology of creation is not just an armchair luxury, but a vital task, a mission in which we are implicated whether we like it or not. Such an adequate theology of creation should allow theologians and believers in general to enter into processes of personal and social transformation that bring about justice between human beings and a sustainable relationship of humankind with non-human reality. The contributions to this volume take up the difficult task of developing an adequate theology of creation for our times. They seek to reflect on creation in our scattering world from multiple and diverse perspectives, engaging Scripture, old and new traditions, philosophy, ethics, science, Christology, ecclesiology, sacraments and the liturgy. The wealth and heterogeneity of perspectives gathered in this collection is a gift to be explored and cherished. The articles gathered in this book contribute to an urgently needed re-articulation of the idea of creation and offer to theologians the occasion to sound their own voice in the forum of those who attempt to answer the great challenges posed by the times in which we live.

Description:
The Bible contains a variety of passages that defend the poor and champion the cause of the oppressed, but are these ancient texts able to find a voice in confronting injustice in the modern world? This selection of papers, compiled from the proceedings of the 2008 Conference on Bible and Justice at the University of Sheffield, address this question. Bible and Justice: Ancient Texts, Modern Challenges explores the various ways in which the Bible might effectively confront an array of human rights, poverty and environmental concerns, while considering the difficulties that arise when ancient concepts of justice are applied to modern socio-political ideals. Written to be accessible to those outside the field of biblical studies, this volume will be a valuable resource for both academics and non-academics alike.

Endorsement:
"This is a truly major contribution to discourse about the Bible and Ethics. To date the discussion has been dominated by simplistically polarized positions: on the one hand, the assumption that the Bible supports justice today without equivocation; on the other hand, the assumption that the outdated ethical views of the Bible are inapplicable today. The present volume confronts this dichotomy head-on by showing how the Bible may indeed contribute to efforts at social justice today once the difficulties in bridging the temporal and sociopolitical gap that separates us from the biblical world is taken fully into account. This volume coincides with the newly established Center and Library for the Bible and Social Justice in the United States which is committed to a critical sharing of the biblical imperatives for social justice with scholars, clergy, laity, and especially social activists and educators."
Norman K. Gottwald, author of The Tribes of Yahweh, Professor emeritus of biblical studies at New York Theological Seminary

Contents:
Introduction
Matthew J.M. Coomber, Concordia College

Part 1:Challenges and Understanding of Bible and Justice

1. On the Genesis of the Alliance between the Bible and Rights
Yvonne Sherwood, University of Glasgow

2. Rough Justice?
Philip Davies, University of Sheffield

3. Is the Belief in Human Rights either Biblical or Useful?
John Sandys-Wunsch,

4. Jesus: The Justice of God
Stanley Hauerwas, Duke University Divinity School

Part 2: Uses and Approaches to Bible and Justice

5. Justice and Violence in the Priestly Utopia
Walter J. Houston, Mansfield College, Oxford

6. A Signs Source: Approaching Deaf Biblical Interpretation
Louise J. Lawrence, University of Exeter

7. From a Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) of the Economy to the RDP of the Soul: Public Realm Biblical Appropriation in Postcolonial South Africa
Gerald West, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Part 3: Prospects for Applications of Bible and Justice

8. The Old Testament and the Environment
J.W. Rogerson, University of Sheffield

9. Ecojustice in the Bible? Pauline Contributions to an Ecological Theology
David G. Horrell, University of Exeter

10. Can the Book of Revelation be a Gospel for the Environment?
Simon P. Woodman, South Wales Baptist College

11. ‘I Have Always Relied on the Kindness of Strangers’: Hospitality and the Geneva Conventions of Ancient Israel
Diana Lipton, King’s College London

12. Prophets to Profits: Ancient Judah and Corporate Globalization
Matthew J.M. Coomber, Concordia College