Creative Adaptations in an Interdependent World: Recent Studies in Religion and Ecology

The Earth in Gods Economy: Creation, Salvation and Consummation in Ecological Perspective. By Emst M. Conradie. Studies in Religion and the Environment. Wien: LIT Verlag, 2015. 368 pp. $69.95 (paper).The Future of Ethics: Sustainability, Social Justice, and Religious Creativity. By Willis Jenkins. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2013. 352 pp. $34.95 (paper).Preservation and Protest: Theological Foundations for an EcoEschatological Ethics. By Ryan Patrick McLaughlin. Emerging Scholars. Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 2014. 460 pp. $49.00 (paper).A Political Theology of Climate Change. By Michael S. Northcott. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing, 2013.345 pp. $30.00 (paper).Systematic Theology and Climate Change: Ecumenical Perspectives. Edited by Michael S. Northcott and Peter M. Scott. London: Routledge, 2014. 180 pp. $49.95 (paper).Earth-honoring Faith: Religious Ethics in a New Key. By Larry L. Rasmussen. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. 480 pp. $47.95 (paper).The relationship between human beings and the ecosystems that both threaten and sustain us has always been complex, but the thresholds that have been crossed by human technological intervention in the age of the Anthropocene (our current age in which human activity has become the leading influence on the environment) have turned that relationship into a "wicked" problem. Wicked problems are problems that cannot be treated with linear, analytic approaches. They are often difficult to clearly define, have many interdependencies, and are multi-causal. Attempts to address them often lead to unforeseen consequences. They are often unstable and have no clear solutions. They are socially complex and rarely the responsibility of a single organization. They involve changing behavior. For all of these reasons they are frequently characterized by chronic policy failure.1The challenges of managing the complex adaptive systems that make up the planet Earth are not only scientific, or only technological, philosophical, political, ethical, or theological. They are all of these. The truth of the Anthropocene is that the consequences of human actions have grown ever larger through the combination of population growth and advances in technology so that human action now must be understood to be a causal contributor to the functioning and malfunctioning of the systems that keep Earth habitable. This truth challenges modernity's assumptions about the relative stability of the natural world and the division between the realms of nature and culture. The crumbling worldview of modernity stands in need of something more than cosmetic repairs, and ecotheology is turning to the resources of the world's religions in search of an alternate worldview that can enable us to navigate the wicked problems we now face.Do we need a new politics? A new economy? A revised theology or a new religion? New practices or new ethics? This review of six recent contributions to the conversation indicates that the answer is "yes" to all of the above. These texts all offer their own improvisations on the themes of modernity, technology, climate change, religion, and ethics, developing different approaches to interrelated aspects of the problems we face. Although none possesses "the solution" to our current environmental challenges, the nature of wicked problems means that a single comprehensive solution does not exist. Instead, each offers a piece of the solution in their visions of the ethics, politics, economy, and theology that we need today.A Theological EnsembleIn Systematic Theology and Climate Change: Ecumenical Perspectives, editors Michael S. Northcott and Peter M. Scott bring together theologians from Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, and Reformed traditions to critically retrieve Christian doctrine in light of climate change. The main point of consensus among these theologians is that anthropogenic climate change is a real threat to the flourishing, and possibly the survival, of both human beings and other forms of life. …