Course Description:
Lynn White’s 1967 essay, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,” indicted the Christian tradition for fostering an exploitative attitude toward nature. White contended that the dominion tradition of Genesis 1 in conjunction with the medieval monastic emphasis on holy work laid the “psychic foundations” for industry run amuck. In the years following, others have deepened White’s critique, claiming that the Christian doctrine of creation was deeply anthropocentric, rendering humanity the measure of all things; or that a transcendent summum bonum drained intrinsic value from nature; or else that Christian apocalypticism rendered the earth expendable in the divine drama of human redemption. A host of Christian ecological theologians such as Jürgen Moltmann and Sallie McFague have responded creatively and decisively to these charges.
This course will explore the “ecological complaint” against Christianity (represented by White and others) and how various Christian theologians have responded to that complaint. After reviewing some of the key issues defining ecological theology as a distinct theological perspective, we will trace four major threads that are woven together in various ways in contemporary ecological theology: creation spirituality (Thomas Berry); process theology (Jay McDaniel); ecofeminist theology (Sallie McFague); and what I call “ecclesial” eco-theology (Jürgen Moltmann).
In addition to reviewing these major thinkers, we will take on various “working issues” in ecological theology. I have suggested evolution and theodicy, and the ecological witness of the church, as two possible “working issues.” However, if other pressing issues emerge in our work together, we can turn our attention to those.
This is a theology course, so our primary focus will be on the theological challenges posed by an ecological perspective. However, lurking beneath and behind our theological reflections are several other strands. This is not a science course (and I am certainly not a scientist), but the basic sciences of ecology and climate change will be relevant to our work. This is not a biblical studies course, but we will certainly brush up against biblical texts and their eco-theological implications. This is not a spirituality course, but there is a necessary spiritual, not to mention affective and practical, dimension to our engagement with ecological questions and with nature itself. This is not an ethics course, but there are crucial ethical implications to the theological questions we are discussing. And while this is not a course in ecclesial practice, the question of how the church should respond to the ecological challenges we face will hang over everything we do.
All of this is to say, while the course is focused on theology, it is (like its subject) ecological.
Texts:
Berry, Thomas. The Christian Future and the Fate of the Earth, ed. Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2009.
McDaniel, Jay B. Of God and Pelicans: A Theology of Reverence for Life. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989.
McFague, Sallie. A New Climate for Theology: God, the World, and Global Warming. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008
Moltmann, Jürgen. God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993.
Course Schedule:
Part One: Introduction to Ecotheology
Lesson 1: Introduction to class; the ecological complaint; Read: Lynn White, “The Historic Roots of our Ecologic Crisis”
Lesson 2: Ecotheology as response; climate change as context; Read: Laurel Kearns, “The Context of Eco-theology”
Part Two: Creation Spirituality
Lesson 3: Introduction to creation spirituality; Read: Nelson D. Kloosterman, “Environment as Religion: Matthew Fox’s Creation Spirituality as a Paradigm for Environmental Ethics”
Lesson 4: Berry (1); Read: Thomas Berry, The Christian Future, chapters 1-5
Lesson 5: Berry (2); Read: Thomas Berry, The Christian Future, chapters 6-10
Part Three: Process Theology
Lesson 6: Introduction to process theology; Read: Philip Clayton, “God Beyond Orthodoxy: Process Theology for the 21st Century”
Lesson 7: McDaniel (1); Read: Jay B. McDaniel, Of Gods and Pelicans, chapter 1
Lesson 8: McDaniel (2); Read: Jay B. McDaniel, Of Gods and Pelicans, chapter 2
Lesson 9: McDaniel (3); Read: Jay B. McDaniel, Of Gods and Pelicans, chapters 3-4
Part Four: Ecofeminism
Lesson 10: Introduction to ecofeminism; Read: Catherine Keller, “Dark Vibrations: ecofeminism and the democracy of creation”
Lesson 11: McFague (1); Read: Sallie McFague, A New Climate for Theology, part 1
Lesson 12: McFague (2); Read: Sallie McFague, A New Climate for Theology, part 2
Lesson 13: Journals or 1st essay due
Lesson 14: McFague (3); Read: Sallie McFague, A New Climate for Theology, part 3
Lesson 15: McFague (4); Read: Sallie McFague, A New Climate for Theology, part 4
Part Five: Ecclesial Eco-theology
Lesson 16: Moltmann (1); Read: Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation, parts I, II
Lesson 17: Moltmann (2); Read: Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation, parts III, IV
Lesson 18: Moltmann (3); Read: Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation, parts V, VI
Lesson 19: Moltmann (4); Read: Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation, parts VII, VIII
Lesson 20: Moltmann (5); Read: Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation, parts IX, X, XI
Part Six: Working Issues
Lesson 21: Evolution and theodicy (1): Read: Wesley Wildman, “Incongruous Goodness, Perilous Beauty Disconcerting Truth: Ultimate Reality and Suffering in Nature
Lesson 22: Evolution and theodicy (2); Read: Christopher Southgate, “Re-reading Genesis, Darwin, and Job: A Christian Response to Darwinism”
Lesson 23: Green church (1); Read: Mark I. Wallace, “The New Green Christianity: Why the Christian Church Is Vital to Saving the Planet”
Lesson 24: Green church (2); wrapping up course
Lesson 25: Journals or 2nd essay due
This syllabus pertains to when the course was offered in 2012