Religion and Ecology
- LAST REVIEWED: 21 February 2023
- LAST MODIFIED: 21 February 2023
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199830060-0103
- LAST REVIEWED: 21 February 2023
- LAST MODIFIED: 21 February 2023
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199830060-0103
Introduction
Religious or spiritual ecology refers to attitudes, values, and practices regarding nature within the world’s religions and outside of those traditions. Religious or spiritual ecology identifies ways of interacting with nature that inspire human responses of respect, protection, and appropriate uses of nature. This bibliography highlights the literature in the field of study called “religion and ecology.” This field is in dialogue with other approaches to environmental studies from the social sciences, such as social ecology, political ecology, cultural ecology, industrial ecology, and ecological economics. This field began with the Harvard conference series on Religions of the World and Ecology at the Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions from 1996 to 1998. During this period and in the ensuing years, historians of religion and theologians began a process of retrieving, reevaluating, and reconstructing religious traditions in light of the growing environmental crisis. This humanistic study of ways of valuing nature, being in harmony with nature, and of ethically protecting nature is seen as a complement to the empirical investigation of nature from a scientific perspective. This work has been fostered by the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology. The field of religious or spiritual ecology has several approaches including: (1) identifying theological approaches to nature within the world’s religions traditions; (2) intersecting with the earlier field of environmental ethics that arose from within Western philosophy; (3) highlighting practices for religious environmentalism on the ground; (4) responding to specific issues such as climate change, environmental justice, food security, biodiversity loss, and toxicities; and (5) drawing on the insights of artists and nature writers articulating the complexity of nature. This work in religious and spiritual ecology is opening up the field of religious studies to a broader understanding of what religion is and how it functions beyond Western categories of interpretation. Monotheism in its various Abrahamic forms does not exhaust the nature of religion. Thus we can now see religion through the lens of religious ecology as a way of orienting humans to the universe, grounding them in the community of nature and humans, nurturing them in Earth’s fecund processes, and transforming them into their deeper cosmological selves. This gives fresh meaning to the Latin term religio “to bind back,” which suggests a return to an awareness of and a commitment to the fundamental wellsprings of life.
Encyclopedias
Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim curate fourteen articles on world religions and ecology in Jones 2005 to highlight this new field of study. They were written by leading historians of religion and theologians such as Vasudha Narayanan, Christopher Chapple, Donald Swearer, James Miller, Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, John Cobb, John Grim, Mary Evelyn Tucker, and ethicists such as Baird Callicott. The effort of religious scholars to speak to the challenge of sustainability is the goal of Jenkins 2010, while Taylor and Kaplan 2005 draws together researchers and practitioners focused on environmental issues. Runehov and Oviedo 2013 looks at the growing field of religion and science.
Jenkins, Willis, ed. 2010. Berkshire encyclopedia of sustainability. Vol. 1, The spirit of sustainability. Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire.
This encyclopedic collection draws from appropriate religious, philosophical, and ethical resources to engage the theme of “sustainability.” In collaboration with the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, manifold scholars address issues related to ecological integrity, economics, value theory, social justice, and more.
Jones, Lindsay, ed. 2005. Encyclopedia of religion. 2d ed. New York: Macmillan.
This fifteen-volume encyclopedia, originally edited by Mircea Eliade, is the definitive work in the field of religious studies. The Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology was invited to organize a new section for the second edition on ecology and religion marking the coming of age of this field as a scholarly discipline. In addition to an overview, these articles cover the ecological worldviews and practices of the Abrahamic traditions, the Asian religions, and Indigenous traditions. They also discuss environmental ethics; science, religion, and ecology; and ecology and nature religions.
Runehov, Anne L. C., and Lluis Oviedo, eds. 2013. Encyclopedia of sciences and religions. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer Reference.
Covers the full spectrum of academic disciplines and religious traditions that contribute to the science and religion debate. In addition, it includes general topics and methods within the field.
Taylor, Bron, and Jeffrey Kaplan, eds. 2005. The encyclopedia of religion and nature. 2 vols. New York: Continuum.
This landmark resource covers a broad interdisciplinary range of topics related to religion and ecology. A key reference for scholars in the field and contains introductory entries covering a wide scope of religious traditions, environmental movements, and key thinkers related to the field of religion and ecology.
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Article
- Accounting for Ecological Capital
- Adaptive Radiation
- Agroecology
- Allelopathy
- Allocation of Reproductive Resources in Plants
- Animals, Functional Morphology of
- Animals, Reproductive Allocation in
- Animals, Thermoregulation in
- Antarctic Environments and Ecology
- Anthropocentrism
- Applied Ecology
- Approaches and Issues in Historical Ecology
- Aquatic Conservation
- Aquatic Nutrient Cycling
- Archaea, Ecology of
- Assembly Models
- Autecology
- Bacterial Diversity in Freshwater
- Benthic Ecology
- Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning
- Biodiversity, Dimensionality of
- Biodiversity, Marine
- Biodiversity Patterns in Agricultural Systms
- Biofuels
- Biogeochemistry
- Biological Chaos and Complex Dynamics
- Biological Rhythms
- Biome, Alpine
- Biome, Boreal
- Biome, Desert
- Biome, Grassland
- Biome, Savanna
- Biome, Tundra
- Biomes, African
- Biomes, East Asian
- Biomes, Mountain
- Biomes, North American
- Biomes, South Asian
- Biophilia
- Braun, E. Lucy
- Bryophyte Ecology
- Butterfly Ecology
- Carson, Rachel
- Chemical Ecology
- Classification Analysis
- Coastal Dune Habitats
- Coevolution
- Communicating Ecology
- Communities and Ecosystems, Indirect Effects in
- Communities, Top-Down and Bottom-Up Regulation of
- Community Concept, The
- Community Ecology
- Community Genetics
- Community Phenology
- Competition and Coexistence in Animal Communities
- Competition in Plant Communities
- Complexity Theory
- Conservation Biology
- Conservation Genetics
- Coral Reefs
- Darwin, Charles
- Dead Wood in Forest Ecosystems
- Decomposition
- De-Glaciation, Ecology of
- Dendroecology
- Disease Ecology
- Dispersal
- Drought as a Disturbance in Forests
- Early Explorers, The
- Earth’s Climate, The
- Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics
- Ecological Dynamics in Fragmented Landscapes
- Ecological Education
- Ecological Engineering
- Ecological Forecasting
- Ecological Informatics
- Ecological Relevance of Speciation
- Ecology, Introductory Sources in
- Ecology, Microbial (Community)
- Ecology of Emerging Zoonotic Viruses
- Ecology of the Atlantic Forest
- Ecology, Stochastic Processes in
- Ecosystem Ecology
- Ecosystem Engineers
- Ecosystem Multifunctionality
- Ecosystem Services
- Ecosystem Services, Conservation of
- Ecotourism
- Elton, Charles
- Endophytes, Fungal
- Energy Flow
- Environmental Anthropology
- Environmental Justice
- Environments, Extreme
- Ethics, Ecological
- European Natural History Tradition
- Evolutionarily Stable Strategies
- Facilitation and the Organization of Communities
- Fern and Lycophyte Ecology
- Fire Ecology
- Fishes, Climate Change Effects on
- Flood Ecology
- Food Webs
- Foraging Behavior, Implications of
- Foraging, Optimal
- Forests, Temperate Coniferous
- Forests, Temperate Deciduous
- Freshwater Invertebrate Ecology
- Genetic Considerations in Plant Ecological Restoration
- Genomics, Ecological
- Geoecology
- Geographic Range
- Gleason, Henry
- Grazer Ecology
- Greig-Smith, Peter
- Gymnosperm Ecology
- Habitat Selection
- Harper, John L.
- Harvesting Alternative Water Resources (US West)
- Heavy Metal Tolerance
- Heterogeneity
- Himalaya, Ecology of the
- Host-Parasitoid Interactions
- Human Ecology
- Human Ecology of the Andes
- Human-Wildlife Conflict and Coexistence
- Hutchinson, G. Evelyn
- Indigenous Ecologies
- Industrial Ecology
- Insect Ecology, Terrestrial
- Invasive Species
- Island Biogeography Theory
- Island Biology
- Keystone Species
- Kin Selection
- Landscape Dynamics
- Landscape Ecology
- Laws, Ecological
- Legume-Rhizobium Symbiosis, The
- Leopold, Aldo
- Lichen Ecology
- Life History
- Limnology
- Literature, Ecology and
- MacArthur, Robert H.
- Mangrove Zone Ecology
- Marine Fisheries Management
- Marine Subsidies
- Mass Effects
- Mathematical Ecology
- Mating Systems
- Maximum Sustainable Yield
- Metabolic Scaling Theory
- Metacommunity Dynamics
- Metapopulations and Spatial Population Processes
- Microclimate Ecology
- Mimicry
- Movement Ecology, Modeling and Data Analysis in
- Multiple Stable States and Catastrophic Shifts in Ecosyste...
- Mutualisms and Symbioses
- Mycorrhizal Ecology
- Natural History Tradition, The
- Networks, Ecological
- Niche Versus Neutral Models of Community Organization
- Niches
- Nutrient Foraging in Plants
- Ocean Sprawl
- Oceanography, Microbial
- Odum, Eugene and Howard
- Old Fields
- Ordination Analysis
- Organic Agriculture, Ecology of
- Paleoecology
- Paleolimnology
- Parental Care, Evolution of
- Pastures and Pastoralism
- Patch Dynamics
- Patrick, Ruth
- Peatlands
- Phenotypic Plasticity
- Phenotypic Selection
- Philosophy, Ecological
- Phylogenetics and Comparative Methods
- Physics, Ecology and
- Physiological Ecology of Nutrient Acquisition in Animals
- Physiological Ecology of Photosynthesis
- Physiological Ecology of Water Balance in Terrestrial Anim...
- Physiological Ecology of Water Balance in Terrestrial Plan...
- Plant Blindness
- Plant Disease Epidemiology
- Plant Ecological Responses to Extreme Climatic Events
- Plant-Insect Interactions
- Polar Regions
- Pollination Ecology
- Population Dynamics, Density-Dependence and Single-Species
- Population Dynamics, Methods in
- Population Ecology, Animal
- Population Ecology, Plant
- Population Fluctuations and Cycles
- Population Genetics
- Population Viability Analysis
- Populations and Communities, Dynamics of Age- and Stage-St...
- Predation and Community Organization
- Predation, Sublethal
- Predator-Prey Interactions
- Radioecology
- Reductionism Versus Holism
- Religion and Ecology
- Remote Sensing
- Restoration Ecology
- Rewilding
- Ricketts, Edward Flanders Robb
- Sclerochronology
- Secondary Production
- Seed Ecology
- Senescence
- Serpentine Soils
- Shelford, Victor
- Simulation Modeling
- Socioecology
- Soil Biogeochemistry
- Soil Ecology
- Spatial Pattern Analysis
- Spatial Patterns of Species Biodiversity in Terrestrial En...
- Spatial Scale and Biodiversity
- Species Distribution Modeling
- Species Extinctions
- Species Responses to Climate Change
- Species-Area Relationships
- Stability and Ecosystem Resilience, A Below-Ground Perspec...
- Stoichiometry, Ecological
- Stream Ecology
- Succession
- Sustainable Development
- Systematic Conservation Planning
- Systems Ecology
- Tansley, Sir Arthur
- Terrestrial Nitrogen Cycle
- Terrestrial Resource Limitation
- Territoriality
- Theory and Practice of Biological Control
- Thermal Ecology of Animals
- Tragedy of the Commons
- Transient Dynamics
- Trophic Levels
- Tropical Humid Forest Biome
- Urban Ecology
- Urban Forest Ecology
- Vegetation Classification
- Vegetation Dynamics, Remote Sensing of
- Vegetation Mapping
- Vicariance Biogeography
- Weed Ecology
- Wetland Ecology
- Whittaker, Robert H.
- Wildlife Ecology