Religion and Ecology
- LAST REVIEWED: 06 May 2016
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 August 2013
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199830060-0103
- LAST REVIEWED: 06 May 2016
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 August 2013
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199830060-0103
Introduction
Spiritual or religious ecology refers to attitudes, values, and practices regarding nature within the world’s religions and outside of those traditions. Spiritual or religious 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 an emerging 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 World Religions and Ecology at the Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions from 1996 to 1998. During this period and in the ensuing years, scholars 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 and of ethically using nature is seen as a complement to the empirical investigation of nature from a scientific perspective. This work has been encouraged by the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale University where there is a joint master’s program between the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and the Divinity School. 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, and toxicities; and (5) drawing on the insights of artists and nature writers articulating the complexity of nature. This work in spiritual and religious 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
Jones 2005 contains fourteen articles on ecology and religion by leading historians of religion and theologians such as Vasuda Narayanan, Christopher Chapple, Donald Swearer, James Miller, Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, John Cobb, John Grim, and ethicists such as Baird Callicott. The effort of religious scholars to speak to the challenge of sustainability is the goal of Jenkins 2009, while Taylor and Kaplan 2008 represents many years of effort to draw together researchers and practitioners focused on environmental issues.
Jenkins, Willis, ed. The Spirit of Sustainability: Religion, Ethics and Philosophy. Vol. 3. The Encyclopedia of Sustainability. Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire, 2009.
This encyclopedic collection draws from appropriate religious, philosophical, and ethical resources to engage the theme of “sustainability.” In collaboration with the Forum on Religion and Ecology, manifold scholars address issues related to ecological integrity, economics, value theory, social justice, and more.
Jones, Lindsay, ed. Encyclopedia of Religion. 2d ed. New York: Macmillan, 2005.
This fifteen-volume encyclopedia, originally edited by Mircea Eliade, is the definitive work in the field of religious studies. The 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 covered the ecological worldviews and practices of the Abrahamic traditions, the Asian religions, and indigenous traditions. They also included articles on: environmental ethics; science, religion, and ecology; and ecology and nature religions.
Taylor, Bron, and Jeffrey Kaplan, eds. The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature. 2 vols. New York: Continuum, 2008.
This landmark resource covers a vast and impressively interdisciplinary range of topics related to religion and ecology. The Encyclopedia of Nature and Religion is an essential reference for scholars in the field and contains introductory entries covering an incredible 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
- Aquatic Conservation
- Aquatic Nutrient Cycling
- Archaea, Ecology of
- Assembly Models
- Autecology
- Bacterial Diversity in Freshwater
- Benthic Ecology
- Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning
- Biodiversity Patterns in Agricultural Systms
- Biofuels
- Biogeochemistry
- Biological Chaos and Complex Dynamics
- 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
- Braun, E. Lucy
- Bryophyte Ecology
- Butterfly Ecology
- Carson, Rachel
- Chemical Ecology
- Classification Analysis
- Coastal Dune Habitats
- Coevolution
- 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 Engineering
- Ecological Forecasting
- Ecological Informatics
- Ecological Relevance of Speciation
- Ecology, Microbial (Community)
- Ecology of Emerging Zoonotic Viruses
- Ecology of the Atlantic Forest
- 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
- 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
- Introductory Sources
- 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
- Mathematical Ecology
- Mating Systems
- Maximum Sustainable Yield
- Metabolic Scaling Theory
- Metacommunity Dynamics
- Metapopulations and Spatial Population Processes
- Microclimate Ecology
- Mimicry
- 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
- Odum, Eugene and Howard
- Old Fields
- Ordination Analysis
- Organic Agriculture, Ecology of
- Paleoecology
- Paleolimnology
- Parental Care, Evolution of
- Pastures and Pastoralism
- Patch Dynamics
- Peatlands
- Phenotypic Selection
- Philosophy, Ecological
- Phylogenetics and Comparative Methods
- 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
- Predator-Prey Interactions
- Radioecology
- Reductionism Versus Holism
- Religion and Ecology
- Remote Sensing
- Restoration Ecology
- Rewilding
- Ricketts, Edward Flanders Robb
- Secondary Production
- Seed Ecology
- 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...
- Stochastic Processes
- 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
- Trophic Levels
- Tropical Humid Forest Biome
- Urban Ecology
- Vegetation Classification
- Vegetation Mapping
- Vicariance Biogeography
- Weed Ecology
- Wetland Ecology
- Whittaker, Robert H.
- Wildlife Ecology