This Globethics collection gathers contributions, resources and perspectives on eco-theology, climate justice, and food security from Christian, Churches, and/or other religious traditions. It also contains the Global Survey on Ecotheology, Climate Justice and Food Security in Theological Education and Christian Leadership Development, the presentations and report of the follow up consultation on the same subject held at the Academy of Volos, Demetriades Diocese of Church of Greece, 10-13 March, 2016.

Recent Submissions

  • Eco-Virtue Ethics and Anthropological Commitments of Laudato Si’ and Laudate Deum: Towards a Renewed Integral Ecology

    Stophynus Anyanwu, Ugochukwu (DigitalCommons@CSB/SJU, 2024-03-03)
    The Fourth Chapter of Laudato Si’ (LS) of Pope Francis deals with the theme of ‘Integral Ecology’ from a religious tradition. This chapter can be interpreted as the fulcrum of the encyclical because of the density of its anthropological and ethical considerations. The theme of this chapter has informed a more emphatic presentation in the apostolic exhortation Laudate Deum (LD) on the climatic challenges confronting humanity. Both documents, with incomparable courage and novelty, offer enriching ethical discourses for advancing social, cultural, and human ecology in consonance with social justice, common good, solidarity, and subsidiarity. They contain the magisterial appeal that shows the unity of the created order. This paper offers an anthropological reading of the two documents to establish an essential framework for forming ecological ethics and virtues that can guide the ongoing global politics and discussions on the urgency of safeguarding the environment. This paper also considers the imperatives of virtue ethics in the institutional and organizational proposals for caring for our common home and the poorest of the earth.
  • Rentmeesterschap:een klassiek christelijk model opnieuw onderzocht

    Pruiksma, Nienke; van der Ham, Kirsten; Luteyn, Mart Jan; van Vliet, Geke; Smit, Peter-Ben; van der Linden, Marieke; Dubbink, Joep (Nederlandse Zendingsraad, 2020-06)
    Deze bijdrage gaat in op de vraag in hoeverre het model van rentmeesterschap bijbels onderbouwd kan worden, aan de hand van twee verschillende contexten: hedendaags en bijbels-historisch.
  • Potential and Opportunities for the Development of Religious Tourism in Western Crete, Greece

    John Vourdoubas; Antonios Kalogerakis; Konstantinos Zormpas (Mohammad Nassar for Researches (MNFR), 2024-03-12)
    The tourism industry is a flourishing global industry with an increasing number of people travelling each year all over the world. Religion used to be since ancient times a motivation for people to travel, visit and pray in holy places and sites. Religion tourism is also growing nowadays while many people visit holy and sacred places for pilgrimage or for seeing religious monuments which are important for their faith. The island of Crete is a famous tourism destination in eastern Mediterranean basin with mild climate, plenty of sunshine, sandy beaches and many natural attractions visited by more than five million of tourists every year. Crete has also many religious, cultural and historical monuments established during the past twenty centuries from different civilizations which are attractive to visitors. The possibility of developing religious tourism in western Crete has been investigated and its impacts on the local stakeholders have been identified. The existing infrastructure in the island favors the development of religious tourism while the local policies support it. The Orthodox Christianity recognizes the links between religion, society and ecology and the development of religious tourism should be combined with ecological sensitization and/or social activities. The implemented SWOT and PESTEL analyses indicated that the potential for the development of religious tourism in western Crete is high resulting to many socio-economic benefits to local stakeholders. The tourism product of the island, which is currently focused on the “sea and sun tourism”, will be differentiated and enriched with the development of cultural tourism. Our results could be useful to policy makers and to local stakeholders who wish to promote the religious tourism with simultaneous promotion of environmental sustainability in the island. 
  • « Création » en travail d’enfantement. Comment le récit mythique de Rm 8,18-30 peut-il être reçu aujourd’hui, en écothéologie ?

    Gignac, Alain (Institut d’études religieuses de l’Université de MontréalÉrudit, 2023)
    Dans le Nouveau Testament, Rm 8,18-30 constitue un des trois textes phares de l’herméneutique écologique de la Bible (avec Col 1,15-20 et 2 P 3,1-13). Or, le texte est de facture théo-logique, eschatologique et mythique. D’où la question : comment recevoir ce texte mythologique prémoderne en (post)modernité ? Après avoir proposé quelques observations sur le texte (ses indéterminations et points de tension, puis l’importance des métaphores de l’enfantement et de la filiation, une symbiose métaphorique négligée par la recherche), l’article expose quatre modèles qui cherchent à résoudre le problème du langage mythologique eschatologique. Cette typologie est empruntée à Jean-Daniel Causse, avec des adaptations : démythisation, démythologisation, perspective narratologique et perspective psychanalytique. En finale, ces quatre modèles sont appliqués à Rm 8 dans le contexte de l’écothéologie, en prenant appui sur les observations textuelles du début de l’article.
  • Corona und andere Weltuntergänge: Apokalyptische Krisenhermeneutik in der modernen Gesellschaft

    Nagel, Alexander-Kenneth (transcript VerlagDEUBielefeld, 2024-02-23)
    Finanzkrise, Flüchtlingskrise, Klimanotstand und nun Corona. Das 21. Jahrhundert ist von Beginn an reich an Krisen. Zugleich haben spätestens seit dem Jahrtausendwechsel apokalyptische Deutungen des Weltgeschehens Konjunktur. Alexander-Kenneth Nagel analysiert die apokalyptische Tiefenstruktur aktueller Krisendiagnosen zur Corona-Pandemie, zur ökologischen Krise vom Club of Rome bis hin zu Extinction Rebellion und zur Krise des Nationalismus. Er vermittelt ein vertieftes Verständnis der Endzeit-Mentalität spätmoderner Gesellschaften und der anhaltenden Konjunktur der Apokalyptik als religiösem und weltanschaulichem Geschäftsmodell.
  • The responsibility of ensuring food security: a cross-country study on reducing the impact of agricultural industries on vulnerability to climate change

    Galbreath, Jeremy; Ljubownikow, Grigorij; Tisch, Daniel; Tuazon, Gerson (Emerald, 2023-12-05)
    Purpose Considering that food security is a global responsibility, the purpose of this study is to examine the impact of agricultural industries on vulnerability to climate change and the moderating effects of gender-diverse parliaments, education expenditures, research and development (R&D) expenditures and foreign direct investment (FDI). Design/methodology/approach Using concepts in governance, innovation and knowledge theory, a large panel data set of 125 countries covering 1997–2018 (1,852 country-year observations) was analyzed. Data were sourced from the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index, the World Bank, the Heritage Index and the International Monetary Fund. Moderated random effects regression was conducted in Stata. Findings The results reveal that agricultural industries are positively associated with vulnerability to climate change and provide support for our predictions that education expenditures and FDI both reduce the impact of agricultural industries on vulnerability to climate change. However, contrary to predictions, the percentage of women in parliament and R&D expenditures both increase this impact. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first quantitative study that uses large, established data sets to explore the relationship between agricultural industries and country vulnerability to climate change. This study shows the significance of country-level factors that both decrease and increase the impact of agricultural industries on vulnerability to climate change.
  • Implementasi Regulasi Keuangan Berkelanjutan Pada Bank Syariah dan Bank Konvensional di Indonesia

    Mabruri Andatu; Abdurrahman Hilabi (STAI Publisistik Thawalib Jakarta, 2023-03-01)
    This article describes the implementation of sustainable financial policies by Islamic Banks and Conventional Banks in supporting environmentally sound business activities in their business activities to minimize environmental damage. The research method in this study is the normative juridical method, namely descriptive-analytical. This research concludes that after the publication of the sustainable finance policy, the business activities of financial service institutions are still in the stage of raising awareness of the financial system in providing financing. Then in its operations, it still calculates paper savings, construction of green buildings, and the amount of financing provided to the company. So that the business activities carried out still cause damage to the environment.
  • Competing perceptions of landscape in the Limi Valley: politics, ecology and pastoralism

    Tara Bate
    A common response to the current global ecological crisis is the conservation of areas still somewhat spared from anthropogenic damage, in spite of an abundant literature evidencing the social and ecological shortcomings of top-down approaches to nature conservation. As part of the Kailash Sacred Landscape Initiative, the Limi Valley of north-western Nepal is currently under consideration for the establishment of one such area. This paper warns about an understanding of conservation as a segregation of humans and nature, which is at odds with local perceptions of landscape as relational. Through the perspective of pastoral practices in the Limi Valley, I show how the Limey – the people of this Valley – conceive of humans as enmeshed within a network of interacting beings under the guiding principles of ecological ethics of care. This conception is framed by religion (a syncretic mixture of Mahayana Buddhism, Bön religion and Animism), as well as by skills of ecological and spiritual embeddedness which are central to pastoral practice. I also warn against the fallacy of considering locals’ relationship to the environment, informed by Buddhism, as intrinsically more prone to eco-friendly practices. I show how this relationship is dynamic and evolving, and influenced by the economic and political context of the last thirty years. This has led to the progressive obsolescence of pastoralism as the main means of livelihood, with consequences for the local inhabitants’ relationship to landscape and to other-than-human species.
  • Literature Review: Implementation of Carbon Tax in Indonesia

    Samuel Niko Putra; Melinda Astuti; Agus Munandar (Universitas KH Abdul Chalim, Prodi Ekonomi Syariah, 2024-01-01)
    Climate change is an international issue that requires fast and decisive action from many countries, including Indonesia, to set a carbon price to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which are the main drivers of climate change. In Indonesia, one of the initiatives to reduce carbon emissions is the implementation of a carbon tax. This study uses a qualitative methodology and a literature review to provide comprehensive knowledge of how Indonesia implements carbon pricing. The results show that the Indonesian government took a proactive approach to addressing problems caused by climate change when implementing the Carbon Tax. The policies set by the government provide a strong basis for implementing the Carbon Tax.
  • Inculturação e lutas ambientais: Igreja Católica, esfera pública e preservacionismo antropocêntrico no Brasil

    Pereira Rufino, Marcos (2023)
    The article investigates the growing convergence between the Catholic Church and environmentalism in Brazil, aiming to demonstrate – through an anthropological reading of the Fraternity Campaigns that address sustainability and environmental crisis issues – how the national episcopate has been striving to reinvent the theology of inculturation as a system that incorporates, among other elements, the “natural world” as well. The hypothesis is suggested that the Church has been producing a symbolic narrative that articulates the fundamental elements of its theological conception of Creation with the set of social representations we know as ecology. This ecotheological narrative promotes a new perspective for interpreting biblical texts, seeking to recreate the relationships between Christianity and "nature" by projecting the origins of a certain Catholic environmental activism into a distant past. Despite being marked by anthropocentric categories, this new apostolic narrative seeks to assert, in favor of the Catholic Church and its pastoral work, a prominent position in the public sphere among the other relevant agents and institutions involved in present-day environmental struggles.
  • Democracy and Climate Change a Confucian Proposal

    de Prada, Aurelio (Milano University Press, 2018-03-31)
    Democracy is one of the West’s most important contributions to universal human heritage. Still it presents some drawbacks in the ways it relates to certain global problems, especially climate change. In this paper we claim that these drawbacks can be ameliorated by turning to a non-Western tradition, specifically to Confucianism. A tradition that, first of all, we will have to analyze in its proper terms – i.e. in ideographical ones –, in order to relate it, afterwards, to democracy in what concerns climate change. Finally, we will propose a synthesis – what we call 君人, individual and king –, introducing in the concept of democracy the idea of harmony between nature and society. In other terms, we will defend a royal/real democracy, in which the political subject would be individual 人and king 君at the same time.
  • Ecological Theology of Creation in The Perspective of The Theology of The Trinity

    Jarosław Babiński (Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Kardynała Stefana Wyszyńskiego, 2023-12-01)
    The action of God is always the action of the Trinity. Therefore, in properly interpreting theological issues, taking this truth into account is necessary. This is the reason for attempting to interpret the ecological theology of creation from a Trinitarian aspect. The analysis of biblical and theological sources provides the basis for this. The analyses carried out reconstruct the traditional issue model of the theology of creation. They develop an understanding of the relationship between God and creation. For the triune God is the model and deepest source of relationality. The essential love between the persons of the Trinity and the profound relationship of love between the Triune God and creation carries an inspiring message for the construction of man's relationship to the world according to God's design. This should constitute the essential foundation of an ecotheological praxeology.
  • Pastoralism without herders in Limi, Nepal

    Bate, Tara (European Bulletin of Himalayan ResearchCentre d’études sud-asiatiques et himalayennes (UMR8077 CNRS/EHESS), 2024-01-12)
    What happens when a people so closely associated with pastoralism – as those of Tibetan culture are – have to give up their pastoral way of life? This thesis argues that pastoralism has shaped and continues to shape the way that the Limey, a borderland community of Tibetan culture and language in Nepal, conceive of and relate to the world and its multiple inhabitants. This work primarily contributes to multispecies scholarship from the angle of political ecology, religious studies and gender...
  • Images of Nature—From the Middle Ages to (Non-)Western Modernities

    MDPI - Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 2024-01-08
    Natura is a polysemic Latin word that has accompanied the historical development of the West for centuries, spreading around much of the globe with colonialism and imperialism. It has been adopted in numerous languages. Our relationship with nature has become a highly charged issue at least since the "ecological turn" around 1970. It is as much about the relationship of humans to the environment as it is about the relationship of humans to each other. In the course of these debates, research has intensified in various disciplines: history, anthropology, philosophy, literature, ecology, etc. The nine contributions gathered in this volume deal with the dimension of perception and its long-term development from the Middle Ages to the present time. They trace in detail how images of nature were adopted, modified, and transmitted for specific purposes in specific situations. The introduction to the volume provides an overview and brings the contributions together.
  • Inculturation and environmental struggles: Catholic Church, public sphere and anthropocentric preservationism in Brazil

    Marcos Pereira Rufino (Universidade de Brasília, 2023-12-01)
    The article investigates the growing convergence between the Catholic Church and environmentalism in Brazil, aiming to demonstrate – through an anthropological reading of the Fraternity Campaigns that address sustainability and environmental crisis issues – how the national episcopate has been striving to reinvent the theology of inculturation as a system that incorporates, among other elements, the “natural world” as well. The hypothesis is suggested that the Church has been producing a symbolic narrative that articulates the fundamental elements of its theological conception of Creation with the set of social representations we know as ecology. This ecotheological narrative promotes a new perspective for interpreting biblical texts, seeking to recreate the relationships between Christianity and “nature” by projecting the origins of a certain Catholic environmental activism into a distant past. Despite being marked by anthropocentric categories, this new apostolic narrative seeks to assert, in favor of the Catholic Church and its pastoral work, a prominent position in the public sphere among the other relevant agents and institutions involved in present-day environmental struggles.
  • Resisting Modernity and Indigenising the Future: Living with Pollution and Climate Change in a Sacred Landscape in Southwest China

    Galipeau, Brendan A. (Centre d'étude français sur la Chine contemporaineChina Perspectives, 2024-01-02)
    In Dechen (Bde chen) County, Yunnan Province, a Tibetan county of the People’s Republic of China, prominent lay Buddhist practitioners work to resist and mitigate the impacts of agrochemical pollution and climate change on sacred landscapes. In this region of northwest Yunnan officially renamed and dubbed “Shangri-La” by the local and national state for tourism purposes, and in alignment of this name with the term Shambala, a place of divine serenity in Tibetan Buddhism, the protagonists in this paper insist that chemical futures and pollution are only adding to the creation of a “fake” Shangri-La, and that more than human- and nature-centric views are necessary in building a more ecologically sound future. This paper ethnographically analyses these activities and motivations in the context of ecocentric views surrounding indigenous Tibetan more-than-human spirit worlds. I ask what drives rural Tibetan grape-growers to pursue an ecologically friendly agenda. Motivations include observation of chemical degradation on land, Buddhist ethics, local land worship, and conceptions that being a local Tibetan should revolve around the preservation of sacred landscapes and mountain gods and spirits rather than purely economic profit and development. A critical variable, however, is that lay Buddhists holding these beliefs are exceptions, with most villages showing more concern for the economic benefits of new cash agricultures over sacred landscapes and spirits. I argue that while many villagers are willing to ignore the long-term vitality of the sacred landscape in favour of economic prosperity and view new economic activities as morally acceptable within Tibetan spirituality, some individuals insist that preserving the local landscape is paramount to a sustainable future both locally and across Greater China.
  • Genetically modified theology: The religious dimensions of public concerns about agricultural biotechnology

    Deane-Drummond, Celia; Grove-White, Robin; Szerszynski, Bronislaw (SAGE Publications, 2007-12-12)
    This is a PDF version of an article published in Studies in Christian Ethics© 2001. The definitive version is available at http://sce.sagepub.com/
  • Inculturation and environmental struggles: Catholic Church, public sphere and anthropocentric preservationism in Brazil

    Rufino, Marcos Pereira (Programa de Pós-Graduação em Antropologia Social (UnB)Anuário Antropológico, 2023-12-26)
    The article investigates the growing convergence between the Catholic Church and environmentalism in Brazil, aiming to demonstrate – through an anthropological reading of the Fraternity Campaigns that address sustainability and environmental crisis issues – how the national episcopate has been striving to reinvent the theology of inculturation as a system that incorporates, among other elements, the “natural world” as well. The hypothesis is suggested that the Church has been producing a symbolic narrative that articulates the fundamental elements of its theological conception of Creation with the set of social representations we know as ecology. This ecotheological narrative promotes a new perspective for interpreting biblical texts, seeking to recreate the relationships between Christianity and “nature” by projecting the origins of a certain Catholic environmental activism into a distant past. Despite being marked by anthropocentric categories, this new apostolic narrative seeks to assert, in favor of the Catholic Church and its pastoral work, a prominent position in the public sphere among the other relevant agents and institutions involved in present-day environmental struggles.

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