In this present work, the matter of faith based cultures is addressed as a developmental cultural stage corresponding to adolescence during which ideologies compete in violent confl icts which, with the present state of armament, promise human annihilation. The path towards an evolution towards a spiritual ecological maturity is discussed at length with particular emphasis on the relevance of spiritual teachings from both the Eastern and the Christian traditions. The work is an attempt to relate the spiritual teaching associated with transpersonal psychology to the social and political context of our existence.

An Ecology of Communication addresses an ecological and communicative dilemma: the universe, earth, and socio-cultural life world are resoundingly dialogic, yet we have created modern and postmodern cultures largely governed by monologue. This book is indispensable reading for scholars and students of communication, ecology, and social sciences, as it moves readers beyond the anthropocentric bias of communication study toward a listening-based model of communication, an essential move for discerning fitting responses and the call to responsibility in an age of ecocrisis.

A prominent scientist and scholar documents and explains the thoughts, actions, and legacies of spiritual ecology's pioneers from ancient times to the present, demonstrating how the movement may offer the last chance to restore a healthy relationship between humankind and nature. An internet search for "Spiritual Ecology" and related terms like "Religion and Nature" and "Religion and Ecology" reveals tens of millions of websites. Spiritual Ecology: A Quiet Revolution offers an intellectual history of this far-reaching movement. Arranged chronologically, it samples major developments in the thoughts and actions of both historic and contemporary pioneers, ranging from the Buddha and St. Francis of Assisi to Wangari Maathai's Green Belt Movement and James Cameron's 2010 epic film Avatar. This foundational book is unique in that it provides a historical, cross-cultural context for understanding and advancing the ongoing spiritual ecology revolution, considering indigenous and Asian religious traditions as well as Western ones. Most chapters focus on a single pioneer, illuminating historical context and his/her legacy, while also connecting that legacy to broader concerns. Coverage includes topics as diverse as Henry David Thoreau and the Green Patriarch Bartholomew's decades-long promotion of environmentalism as a sacred duty for more than 250 million members of the Orthodox Church worldwide. For more information, visit www.spiritualecology.info.

In view of the destruction of the sources of life, ecology is no longer a marginal issue. In "Creation Set Free," Sigurd Bergmann creatively rethinks the discipline of theology in light of the ecological crisis. He is concerned throughout to see the cosmos as something involved in redemption rather a mere stage for the human salvific drama. After critically and constructively summarizing previous initiatives toward an ecological theology, Bergmann opens up an extraordinary dialogue between these initiatives and church father Gregory of Nazianzus. Through the neglected topics of sociality, motion, suffering, and the Spirit, the author brings to light Gregorybs thought on the liberation of creation. Finally, Bergmann connects ecological issues and patristic tradition with contemporary liberation theology.

Can Orthodox Christianity offer spiritual resources uniquely suited to the environmental concerns of today? This book makes the case emphatically that it can indeed. In addition to being the first substantial and comprehensive collection of essays, in any language, to address environmental issues from the Orthodox point of view, this volume (with contributions from many of the most influential theologians and philosophers in contemporary world Orthodoxy) will engage a wide audience, in academic as well as popular circles—resonating not only with Orthodox audiences but with all those in search of a fresh approach to environmental theory and ethics that can bring to bear the resources of ancient spirituality, often virtually unknown in the West, on modern challenges and dilemmas.

What is the place and vocation of human beings in the earth community? This is the central question that this contribution towards a Christian ecological anthropology addresses. In ecological theology this question is often answered by the affirmation that 'We are at home on earth'. This affirmation rightly responds to the widespread sense of alienation from nature, to the anthropocentrism that pervades much of the Christian tradition and to concerns about the scope of environmental devastation. This book challenges the affirmation that we are at home on earth, examining natural suffering, anxieties concerning human finitude and especially the pervasiveness of evil. The book investigates contributions to ecological theology, South African and African theology, reformed theology and contemporary dialogues between theology and the sciences in search of a thoroughly ecological Christian anthropology.

In this volume, Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski examines the experiences of domestic and quotidian space that contributed to the extant form of many foundational early Jewish and Christian scriptures. His analytical approaches are derived from diverse sources including modern psychological science, Gaston Bachelard's critical theories of domestic space, and Henri Lefebvre's observations regarding “spatial practice.” The result of this attention to textual “ecology” or “home-logic” is an innovative exploration of classic texts yielding exciting new interpretive possibilities for the Gospel of John, the undisputed Pauline letters, the Parables of Enoch, the Book of Revelation, the History of the Rechabites, and Augustine's De Trinitate. Experiences of loss, homelessness, imprisonment, and marginal dwelling lie behind these texts and contributed to their authors' re-imagination and re-establishment of home. Pruszinski proves inescapably that while the most familiar of experiences are often overlooked, they are also among the most important of formative influences on the early Jewish and Christian literary imagination.

Paul Tillich is exceptional in modern theologians that his distinctive and abundant understanding of the concept of life and spirit has the potential to engage with other disciplines, such as biology, psychology, cosmology and social science; and that his ontological understanding of “life as spirit” which is so crucial in the ecological consideration, is so complex and subtle that enables powerful and critical inter-religious dialogue in environmental ethics. This book argues that, despite the fact that Tillich did not engage in ecological and environmental theology directly, his abundant personal experience of nature-mysticism and intellectual understanding of the idea of nature rooted in his Lutheran and German idealist heritages and, more importantly, his ontological-pneumatological holistic and multi-dimensional conception of unifying and differentiated reality, perfectly and organically coupled with the theonomous vision of theology of culture, nature and morality is profoundly ecologically oriented.

Spirit of the Enivironment provides a much needed alternative to exploring human beings' relationship to the natural world through the restrictive lenses of 'science', 'ecology' or even 'morality'.

"A Sheed & Ward book." Includes bibliographical references and index. A society of their own (1953-1964) -- College theology as academic discipline (1923-1964) -- The CTS (1965-1974) -- Theology as liberation, revolution, freedom (1965-1974) -- Defining membership, defending members of the college theology society (1975-1984) -- The hermeneutical circle : location! location! location! (1975-1984) -- Maintaining identity; drawing boundaries; fighting battles (1985-1994) -- Theology in local and global perspective (1985-1994) -- Negotiating the golden years (1995-2004) -- Nos quedamos (1995-2004).