PREFACE
Sam C. King and Sam Mickey
During our time of proliferating ecological crises, the academic field and moral force of religion and ecology are matters of urgent importance for any effort to respond to the myriad challenges presented by these crises. It is a privilege and a pleasure for us to serve as guest editors for this special issue of The New Ecozoic Reader, focusing on exactly this urgent topic. We hope that this issue is a source of information and inspiration that can support anyone seeking integral community in our ecological age. Along with this brief introduction to the issue, as well as a preface from two esteemed leaders in the field, Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, we have gathered essays from twenty-one scholars representing the diversity and abundance of perspectives on the intersection of religion and ecology. The contents of this issue include perspectives from across multiple generations and across the religious traditions of the world. Our contributors look toward the past, present, and future of religion and ecology, so you will find a mixture of retrospective and prospective insights, exploring the taproots that nourished the emergence of this unique area of inquiry as well as new directions that are currently taking shape.
This issue of The New Ecozoic Reader covers a wide range of topics, including education, ritual, worldviews, democracy, nature immersion experiences, places, plants, wildness, future generations, and intersectional issues of gender, race, and socioeconomic class. Celebrating the variety of approaches to religion and ecology, we also decided to honor the variety of writing styles from our wonderful group of contributors. Writings are positioned between creative nonfiction and analytical prose. You will also note that the formatting for references varies somewhat from article to article. This is somewhat unconventional for academic writing, but we believe this highlights the importance of learning to welcome differences. Differences and diversity are crucial for bringing forth a more just and sustainable Earth community, transitioning away from the destructive presence of societies that view the Earth through lenses of homogenization, exploitation, and extractivism.
In recent decades, scholars and practitioners of religions have become increasingly engaged with ecological issues, while scientists, policymakers, and activists concerned with ecology have become increasingly engaged with the values of religious worldviews. To be sure, religions are not sufficient to respond to the ecological crises of our age, but it is clear that their moral force—as well as their ecological and cosmological understandings—are a necessary component of the task of transitioning to a vibrant and flourishing Earth community. This issue of The New Ecozoic Reader celebrates this empowering and exciting intersection of religion and ecology.
The issue opens with several essays that provide overviews of the historical and conceptual background of religion and ecology. Some contributors address ways that conferences and education have spurred the development of the field, while others look at connections between different ideas, terms, and contexts through which the field has been framed. Following these opening pieces, there are essays that focus on the practices involved in religion and ecology, including practices of cultivating placefulness, nature immersion experiences, and ecologically oriented rituals. Following that, we feature essays that delve into perspectives from specific traditions, covering Asian perspectives on the ecological dimensions of the world religions; Christian perspectives on wildness, creation, and intersectional dynamics of race, gender, and class; Islamic understandings of environmental ethics; and Indigenous perspectives from the Himalayas to North America. The final essays focus on future directions for religion and ecology, from ongoing renewals of animistic ways of life, deepening concerns for multispecies thinking and politics, the problem of extractivism in economies based in fossil fuel and in renewable energy, and the poignantly pressing problems facing the futures inhabited by today’s youth.
It is our hope that this special issue of The New Ecozoic Reader provides an accessible introduction for those who are new to the world of religion and ecology, while also providing several paths for deepening the hindsight, insight, and foresight of those who are already engaged in religion and ecology. Although this issue exhibits a wonderful breadth and depth of wisdom, it is only scratching the surface of unfathomable resources for tending to the possibilities facing humankind and the whole Earth community. Our individual and collective futures are precious and precarious, and the writings in this issue serve as robust reminders that we are active participants in facilitating the emergence of these futures. We are part of this unique moment together.
