Beschreibung
The understanding of nature is at the heart of European
self – understanding, while in Asia the terms of life and energy play a
similar central role. Globally, many institutions and movements have made
the protection of the environment and climate a top policy priority. Given
the urgency of environmental problems the lack of reflections about the
human and especially the spiritual dimension of environmental problems is
striking.
Environmental – and – climatic change transforms not only culture, politics,
and economy, but also religion. Religious traditions have on the one hand
always been dependent on human ecologies; on the other hand they vibrantly
affect our perceptions of nature and sociocultural practices with(in)
it.
If life and religion change dramatically at present, how could
religion make a change? How are religious and ecologic processes gendered, and how
can ecofeminism deepen our understanding of justice? What are the
life – enhancing spiritual resources in the East and the West? How can
Christian theology contribute to the necessary eco – cultural revolution
ahead of us? And how can Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian and Christian
spiritualities cooperate in a common space and future?
Questions like these are reflected upon by scholars of religion and
theology from Korea, Canada and Scandinavia. Their chapters emerge from an
international workshop, which was arranged and convened by the editors
2007 in Yecheon on the Korean countryside and in Seoul. The book offers
the 1st volume in a new series established by the European Forum for the
Study of Religion and the Environment.
Siugurd Bergmann ist Professor am Institut für Archaologie und
Religionswissenschaft an der Universität Trondheim.
