Climate Change and the Symbol Deficit in the Christian Tradition Expanding Gendered Sources
Produktdetaljer
Om bidragsyterne
Jan-Olav Henriksen is Professor of Philosophy of Religion in MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society, Norway.<p>Jan-Olav Henriksen has produced a valuable resource for the church as it struggles to bring Christian faith to bear fruitfully on the climate crisis. He offers a deep dive into the power of symbols to engender consistent action – including political action – for transformation toward ways of living that allow earth’s climate systems to flourish. This book will be invaluable in the academy and in the church.</p>
- Cynthia D. Moe-Lobeda, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary of California Lutheran University, USA,
<p>The late Ursula K Le Guin argued that if we going to think ourselves out of the current problems of climate change and globalization, we are going to need more speculative fiction writers. This means we need new symbols with which to imagine our planetary futures. This book is important because it critiques the underlying theological symbols of western style democracies and economics that are, in the era of the Anthropocence, quite simply deficient. We need new, planetary ways of imagining human-God-Earth relations that suggest we (and all things human) are emergent from the process of planetary evolution.</p>
- Whitney Bauman, Florida International University, USA,
Exploring how the climate crisis discloses the symbol deficit in the Christian tradition, this book argues that Christianity is rich in symbols that identify and address the failures of humans and the obstacles that prevent humans from doing well, while positive symbols that can engage people in constructive action seem underdeveloped. Henriksen examines the potential of the Christian tradition to develop symbols that can engage peoples in committed and sustained action to prevent further crisis. To do so, he argues that we need symbols that engage both intellectually and emotionally, and which enhance our perception of belonging in relationships with other humans, be it both in the present and in the future.
According to Henriksen, the deficit can only be obliterated if we can develop symbols that have some root or resonance in the Christian tradition, provide concrete and specified guidance of agency, engage people both emotionally and intellectually, and finally open up to visions for a moral agency that provide positive motivations for caring about environmental conditions as a whole.
Introduction: The Deficit Thesis and the Task It Presents
Part 1: Contexts for the Symbol Deficit
Chapter One:
From Acts of God to the Anthropocene
Chapter Two:
Culprits for the Predicament
Chapter Three:
Consumer Idolatry
Chapter Four:
Religion in Denial
Chapter Five:
To Empower Those Who Suffer and Give Voice to Those Who Lack It
Part 2: Conditions for symbolic practices
Chapter Six:
Symbols as Mediating Practice
Chapter Seven:
Conditions for Agency: A Critique of Modernity’s Detached Subject
Chapter Eight:
Symbols for Enhancing Moral Motivation and Avoiding Defection
Chapter Nine:
An Inductive, Experientially Oriented Theology
Part 3: Symbols for Practices
Chapter Ten:
God as Creator - A Critical Symbol?
Chapter Eleven:
From Anthropos to All of Creation
Chapter Twelve:
Symbolic Deficits in Apocalypticism – Towards a Presentist Eschatology
Chapter Thirteen:
Sin
Chapter Fourteen:
Symbols for Hope – A Critical Evaluation
Chapter Fifteen:
Sacrifice, Hope, and Grace
Bibliography
Index
This international book series promotes creative and innovative theological engagements at the intersection of gender and ecology. The series aims to publish books that respond theologically to the multiple changes at different levels in the environmental landscape—such as evolution, climate change, biodiversity, Anthropocene, extinction and de-extinction, technological innovation, food security, animal ethics and other geo-political concerns—and the various ways these changes interact with issues of gender and sexuality. To this end, the books published in this series may intersect with the following fields of study: critical theories of gender, race, class and sexuality; evolutionary and ecological science; new materialism; affect theory; animal studies; and Indigenous cultures and spirituality.
An important characteristic of this series is its emphasis on the engagement with Judeo-Christian theology. The precise form of theological engagement may vary, including potential for inter-theological dialogue with other theological traditions. Thus the series will consider studies in systematic, constructive, fundamental, philosophical, biblical theology, moral theology or theological ethics (or a combination of these), including works that draw on either traditional theological sources from particular denominational traditions or religious studies’ methodologies. The series will include studies working within an eco-feminist/womanist/mujerista theological framework. Whatever theological discipline or framework is chosen, the series operates with the assumption that issues of gender and ecology raise important questions for Christian theological traditions and practices, and vice versa that theology can chart alternative narratives for engaging concerns at the intersection of gender and ecology.
Board Members: Celia Deane-Drummond, Sharon Bong, Lisa Cahill, Melanie Harris, Susan Rakoczy, Lisa Sideris, Barbara Rossing, Elaine Wainwright