EDU 276: Ecology and Hope
Spring 2007
Henry C. Simmons

Goal: Prepare students for green 1 leadership in congregational or other ministries.

Objectives:

Strategies:

--Read, present, and discuss selected texts identified in the chapter outlines of Ecology and the Practice of Hope.

--Read and discuss completed chapters of Ecology and the Practice of Hope

--Articulate, at least in outline form, the key elements of coherent ecotheology eco-biblical hermeneutic and an eco-ethical framework. This is both an ongoing and a final assignment.

--Compare and contrast signature themes from and vocabulary of some ecotheologians, scientists, and humanists.

--Select one media source (print, plastic, video, or performance arts, websites or blogs, music, advertisements, etc.)

--Track representative environmental themes, issues, and approaches in   your selected media source

--Participate in liturgies from Seven Songs of Creation

--Lead and participate in other liturgies

--As a class, identify a representative sample of initiatives

--Individually, select, study and report on one initiative

Course requirements

Bibliography

29-Jan
[to be read in class] John Cobb, Jr., “The Greening of Theology,” http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1093

[to be read in class] Glenn Scherer, The Godly Must Be Crazy: Christian-right views are swaying politicians and threatening the environment , 27 Oct 2004. Last accessed 1-7-07. http://www.organicconsumers.org/corp/bible102904.cfm

[to be read in class] Gary Gardner, Invoking the Spirit: Religion and Spirituality in the Quest for a Sustainable World.Worldwatch Papers 164 (Worldwatch Institute, December 2002), p. 48.

­5-Feb
H. Paul Santmire, The Travail of Nature: The Ambiguous Ecological Promise of Christian Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), pp. 1-29.

Charles Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries (Duke University Press, 2004), pp. 23-30. http://books.google.com/books?id=5vFjIflzod8C&pg=RA2-PA31&lpg=RA2-PA31&dq=%22modern+social+imaginaries%22&source=web&ots=rOYBOC9K3w&sig=KW4ATLkZgzcqzmVPyWDcVPDmcLk#PRA2-PA23,M1

Femke Stock, Imaginaries Imagined: A Discussion of Charles Taylor’s Modern Social Imaginaries, Ars Disputandi, 6(2006). [8-page Word document]
http://www.arsdisputandi.org/index.html?http://www.arsdisputandi.org/publish/articles/000258/index.html

Anne Marie Dalton and Henry Simmons, Ecology and the Practice of Hope (draft), Chapter 1, A World Imagined and Desolate.

12-Feb
Lynn White, Jr., The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis, Science (March 1967). http://www.uvm.edu/~jmoore/envhst/lynnwhite.html

Garrett Hardin, The Tragedy of the Commons, Science, 162 (1968): 1243-1248. http://dieoff.org/page95.htm

Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (Houghton Mifflin, 1962), pp. 15-37, 189-198

Barry Commoner, The Closing Circle: Nature, Man, and Technology (Knopf, 1971), pp 14-48.

19-Feb
Thomas Berry, Evening Thoughts: Reflecting on Earth as Sacred Community, edited by Marty Evelyn Tucker. (Sierra Club Books, 2006), pp. 17-32.

Catherine Keller, No More Sea: The Lost Chaos of the Eschaton, in Dieter Hessel and Rosemary Radford Ruether (eds.), Christianity and Ecology ( Harvard University Press, 2000), pp. 183-203.

Barbara R. Rossing, Alas for Earth! Lament and Resistance in Revelation 12, in Norman Habel and Vicky Balabanski (eds.), The Earth Story in the New Testament (Pilgrim, 2002), pp. 180-192.

Earth Bible Team, Guiding Ecojustice Principles, in Readings From the Perspective of Earth (Pilgrim, 2000), pp. 38-53.

John B. Cobb, Jr., Is It Too Late? A Theology of Ecology, Revised Edition (Denton TX: Environmental Ethics Books, 1994), pp. 4-25. [Original edition, 1972]

26-Feb
Loren Wilkinson (ed.), Earth Keeping: Christian Stewardship of Natural Resources (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980), pp. vii-viii, 1-7, 224-249.

Larry L. Rasmussen, Earth Community, Earth Ethics (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1996), pp. 1-19.

Gabriele Dietrich, The World as the Body of God, in Rosemary Radford Ruether (ed.), Women Healing Earth (Orbis, 1996), pp. 82-98.

Carol Johnston, The Wealth or Health of Nations: Transforming Capitalism from Within (Pilgrim Press, 1998), pp. 1-9.

2. Anne Marie Dalton and Henry Simmons, Ecology and the Practice of Hope (draft), Chapter 2, Ecotheology and its publics.

5-Mar
Marina Schauffler, Turning To Earth: Stories of Ecological Conversion ( University of Virginia Press, 2003), pp.1-25.

Joseph Sittler, The Care of the Earth (September, 1954), in The Care of the Earth and Other University Sermons (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1964), pp. 88-98.

Thomas Berry, The Meadow Across the Creek, in The Great Work (Random House: 1999), pp. 12-20.

Steve Zavestoski, Constructing and Maintaining Ecological Identities: The Strategies of Deep Ecologists, in Susan Clayton and Susan Optow, Identity and the Natural Environment: the psychological significance of nature (MIT Press, 2003), pp. 297-315).

Anne Marie Dalton and Henry Simmons, Ecology and the Practice of Hope (draft), Chapter 3, Imagined Futures.

19-Mar
Giovanna DiChiro, Nature as Community: The Convergence of Environment and Social Justice,” in Privatizing Nature (Rutgers University Press, 1998), pp. 130-143.

Vandana Shiva, Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution and Profit ( Toronto: Between the Lines, 2002), 156p.

26-Mar
Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Healing a Broken World ( Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002), pp. xiii-xiv, 1-16, 100-132.

Kwok Pui-Lan, Ecology and Christology, Feminist Theology 15(1997), pp. 113-25.

Sallie McFague, An Ecological Christology: Does Christianity Have It?, in dieter Hessel and Rosemary Radford Ruether (eds.), Christianity and Ecology (Harvard University Press, 2000), 29-45.

Ivone Gebara, The Trinity and Human Experience, in Women Healing Earth, pp. 13-25.

2-Apr
Carolyn King, Habitat of Grace: biology, Christianity and the global environmental crisis ( Hindmarch, Australia: The Australian Theological Forum, 2002), 235p.

9-Apr
Anna Primavesi, Ecology and Christian Hierarchy, in Alaine Low and Soraya Tremayne, Women as Sacred Custodians of the Earth? Women, Spirituality, and the Environment ( New York and Oxford: Bergamon Books, 2001), pp. 121-139.

Bill Lawson, Living for the City: Urban United States and Environmental Justice, in Laura Westra and Peter Wentz, Faces of Environmental Racism: Confronting issues of global justice (Rowman & Littlefield, 1995, pp. 41-55.

Peter Wentz, Just Garbage, in Laura Westra and Peter Wentz, Faces of Environmental Racism: Confronting issues of global justice (Rowman & Littlefield, 1995, pp. 57-71.

Ivone Gebara, Ecofeminism: An ethics of life, in Heather Eaton and Lois Ann Lorentzen (eds.), Ecofeminism and Globalization: Exploring Culture, Context, and Religion (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), pp. 163-176.

16-Apr
Anna Primavesi, Gaia’s Gift: Earth, Ourselves, and God After Copernicus (Routledge, 2003), pp. 70-86.

Denominational Statements: PC( USA), Methodists, Episcopalian,UCC, Uniting Church, United Church of Canada, etc.

Jay McDaniel, Living From the Center: Spirituality in an age of consumerism ( St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press), pp. 137-158.

Rosemary Radford Ruether, Gaia & God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing (HarperSanFrancisco, 1992), pp. 254-274.

Carol Dempsey and Russell Butkus, Chapter 10, Development of Environmental Responsibility in Children, in All Creation is Groaning: An Interdisciplinary Vision for Life in a Sacred Universe (Collegeville, MN: Michael Glazier, 1999), pp. 193-211.

John Chryssavgis, Cosmic grace, humble prayer: the ecological vision of the green patriarch Bartholomew I (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2003), pp. 22-33, 40-42.

 

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1. John B. Cobb, Jr., “ The Greening of Theology,” http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1093, 1/16/2007.

 

2. E.g., The Bioneers https://secure.bioneers.org/blog/813, Living On Earth, www.loe.org/, or Simple Living www.simpleliving.net/main.