Where
This is an online event.Contact
EventsCenter for Religion and Environment
University of the South
931-598-1243
cre@sewanee.edu
Deep Green Faith Webinar:
Beyond “Stewardship”: Redefining Our Godly Place on the Planet
How exactly should we envision and describe our relation, as human beings, to other creatures and the larger world we inhabit? And what distinctive contribution might Christianity and other faith traditions contribute to that endeavor?
No words available to us qualify as totally adequate to capture the reality of our relationship to God and all of creation.
How we address such questions in our own age depends crucially on the terms, metaphors, and thought-patterns we choose to adopt. It’s worth asking what strengths and liabilities the various eco-spiritual terms we might invoke along the way bring to our understanding of these relationships.
In this Deep Green Faith webinar, the second of a series offered by the Center for Religion and Environment of the University of the South (Sewanee), John Gatta, PhD, professor of English emeritus, will help us to look both critically and appreciatively at terms like “stewardship,” now a favored idiom for Christian faith-communities to express our ideal response to God’s Creation. What competing descriptive language also warrants our use and attention? Might other terms prove more helpful?
During the session we’ll look to draw inspiration for this inquiry not only from theologians and biblical texts, but also and especially from the imaginative works of noted American environmental writers.
Participants will be able to address these questions:
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How, from the standpoint of Christian faith, how might we best understand and describe our relation as humans to the natural environment we inhabit?
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What scriptural and other texts might help to inspire that understanding?
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In naming our place in Nature as Creation, what particular value—or limitation—might we find in language such as “stewardship of creation, “care for creation,” “membership in the community of creation,” “nonhumans as neighbors,” “the transfiguration of the world,””dominion,” and “the sacramentality of earth”?
Details
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Thursday, September 24, 7:00pm CDT
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This is an online event that will be delivered through the Zoom platform
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Although participation is free, registration is required
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Donations are welcome (suggested minimum donation, $25)(visit https://www.givecampus.com/campaigns/13866/donations/new)
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Login information will be sent to registrants by September 23
Speakers
John Gatta, Ph.D., Presenter
John is a professor of English emeritus both at the University of Connecticut and at the University of the South, where he has also served as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. In his academic teaching and research, he has long reflected on theological topics, on the interplay between imaginative literature and religious faith, and on American environmental literature—addressing works by authors such as Henry Thoreau, John Muir, Rachel Carson, Wendell Berry, and Marilynne Robinson. His many publications include three books that highlight environmental concerns: Making Nature Sacred: Literature, Religion, and Environment in America from the Puritans to the Present (Oxford UP), The Transfiguration of Christ and Creation (Wipf and Stock), and Spirits of Place in American Literary Culture (Oxford UP). He is currently under contract to complete a new book exposing the graces of “green jeremiad” discourse—that is, of writings meant to inspire a response to threatened environmental catastrophe, especially in our own era of climate change.
Robert (Robin) Gottfried, Ph.D., Moderator
Robin serves as the director of the Center for Religion and Environment. Long known for his passion for environmental economics and sustainable development, he has conducted research on land use change and forest policy, as well as the economic impacts of development and other economic activity in the U.S., Costa Rica, and elsewhere. Gottfried helped spearhead the creation of Sewanee’s environmental studies program and served as its first chair. He also helped start the College’s Landscape Analysis (GIS) Lab. Author of Economics, Ecology and the Roots of Western Faith: Perspectives from the Garden, Living in an Icon: A Program for Growing Closer to Creation and to God, and numerous articles on land use change, forest policy, and sustainable development as well as the interface of social science, ecotheology and spirituality Robin also blogs on religion and environment.