How does religion relate to our global environment? Religion and the Environment provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to this controversial question by covering the following important themes:
- the religion-environment interface
- pre- and post-industrial religious practices related to resource extraction and the rise of the Anthropocene
- an analysis of religious response to the impacts of contemporary industrialization, globalization, and urbanization
- religious thought, leadership, policy formation, and grassroots activism relative to the environment.
Religion and the Environment will offer students and general readers a sophisticated yet accessible exploration of the relationship between religion and the environment, through case studies ranging from climate change to the impacts of warfare. This engaging book will be an excellent addition to introductory courses and those approaching the topic for the first time.
1. Introduction: Religion, social action, and the environment
2. Connections: Sacred stories, sacred springs
3. Communities: Harvesting and respecting the wild
4. Sustenance: Food security, agricultural innovation, and environmental degradation
5. Ignitions: Sacred tools, ritual fires, and the value of "things"
6. Watersheds: Scale, place, and consilience
7. Sanctuaries: Preservation of species, ecosystems, and natural features
8. Megacities: Sacred space, urban planning, and built environments
9. Healing: The iconography of pollution and planetary wellness
10. Networks: Tackling global climate and sea change
11. Models: Conceptual approaches to a planetary future
12. Commonalities: Greening and the challenges of modernity
Biography
Susan Power Bratton is Professor and former chair of the Department of Environmental Science at Baylor University, USA.
