Mutual Custodianship in the Landscapes of Guðlac A

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Courtney Catherine Barajas
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Environmental Stewardship ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Face

Guðlac A details the eponymous saint’s relationships with the holy landscape surrounding his hermitage and its other-than-human inhabitants. The poem suggests that the work of Guðlac’s sainthood is sustained devotion to the Earth community. As an exemplum of Old English ecotheological living, Guðlac’s legend offers a challenge to the concept of environmental “stewardship” of the Earth community in favor of a model of mutual custodianship calls for sustained and deliberate devotion to the created world for its own sake and as a manifestation of the Creator’s love and glory. It also suggests that sustained engagement with the natural world even in the face of environmental crisis or collapse will be rewarded, in this life or the next.

Economy, Environment and Environmental History: Case Notes from Agriculture

Rural History ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Turner
Keyword(s):  
International Symposium ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Great Work ◽  
Conservation Movement ◽  
Natural Agents ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Man And Nature ◽  
The Face

In 1956 in an international symposium at Princeton on the theme Man's role in changing the face of the Earth, one of the principal contributors, Carl Sauer, reflected that as much as anything it was a festival of remembrance to George Perkins Marsh. Marsh was perhaps the inspiration for viewing man within his natural world, within his ecological setting, but a setting which had evolved as much as anything by the actions of his own hand as it had been by natural agents. Marsh's great work Man and Nature, has been dubbed ‘the fountainhead of the conservation movement.’ Thus Sauer suggests that this study is based on man's:

THE LIMITATIONS OF RELIGIOUS ENVIRONMENTALISM FOR INDIA

2002 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Tomalin
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Intrinsic Value ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Use Value ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Nature Religion ◽  
Religious Systems

AbstractMany environmentalists draw upon religious teachings to argue that humanity ought to transform its relationship with the natural world. They maintain that religious systems teach that the earth is sacred and has an intrinsic value beyond its use value to humanity. However, whilst many cultures have religious practices or teachings associated with the natural world, such traditions of nature religion ought to be distinguished from religious environmentalism. This paper suggests that religious environmentalism is limited because it is a product of Western ideas about nature, in particular a 'romantic' vision of nature as a realm of purity and aesthetic value. Although in India, for example, people worship certain trees, this is not evidence of an inherent environmental awareness, if only because such practices are very ancient and pre-date concerns about a global environmental crisis. Moreover, many people in developing countries, such as India, are directly dependent upon the natural world and cannot afford radically to alter their behaviour towards nature to accommodate religious environmentalist goals.

scholarly journals Is Islam Pro- or Anti-Environmental? Interpretations and Implications

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peyman Hekmatpour ◽  
Thomas J. Burns ◽  
Tom W Boyd
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Significant Influence ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Environmental Stewardship ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Environmentally Conscious ◽  
Personal Lives ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Traditional Institution ◽  
Authoritarian Government

<p><em>Religion has, throughout the centuries, been a powerful institution on the macro level, yet also stands as a force having significant influence in people’s personal lives. This does, however, lead to questions of how a traditional institution such as religion may or may not be adequate to address problems of the Late Industrial Era, most notably the environmental crisis. In this paper, we inquire how various dimensions of Islamic literature and thought can contribute to preserving the natural environment. We find that concepts such as “dominion of men over the earth” and “specialness of humankind” can lead to anti-environmental interpretations of Islam. Nevertheless, other interpretations of Islamic teachings emerge that are compatible with environmental stewardship. However, a number of Islamic governments have shown a decided bias against environmental stewardship, particularly in cases where there is an authoritarian government and one placing an emphasis on economic “development”</em><em>.</em><em> In counterpoint, Islamic Mysticism, or Sufism, can provide a spiritual context for environmentally conscious action.</em><em></em></p>

scholarly journals How environmental stewardship is viewed and evidenced in the Uniting Reformed Church of Southern Africa: An appraisal of students’, lecturers’ and ministers’ perceptions

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheryl S Le Roux
Keyword(s):  
Southern Africa ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Environmental Stewardship ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Research Report ◽  
Seminary Students ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
The Church ◽  
Seminary Training

To care for the environment as part of a Christian believer’s Christian stewardship duty is biblically founded. The Church is consequently well-positioned to make a significant contribution in addressing the environmental crisis by developing, preaching and practising a holistic spirituality that promotes a custodial ethic towards the natural world. The research report discusses how seminary students, lecturers and practicing ministers in the Uniting Reformed Church of Southern Africa perceive and practise this custodial ethic as environmental stewardship. There is consensus amongst respondents that Christian stewardship and environmental stewardship are biblically mandated and should be addressed and practised in the Church. However, the findings provided evidence that the realisation of environmental stewardship is tentative, both within the ministry and within seminary programmes. It is concluded that the teaching and practice of environmental stewardship is generally neglected in the Church. Areas for improvement in the ministry and seminary training curricula to support environmental stewardship are suggested.

Epilogue: Ad Astra Per Aspera

2020 ◽  
pp. 188-200
Author(s):  
Adam Pryor
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
Imago Dei ◽  
World Today ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Existential Concerns

What happens when the Anthropocene and the imago Dei become corroborative symbols in the astrobiological contexts that shape our engagement with the world today? My argument has been that, in the face of various instances of ecological crises, the Anthropocene symbolizes the existential concerns at stake in this devastation so that we better understand that our way of meaningfully orienting our existence toward the natural world is askew. To remember that we are the imago Dei can give us courage to stay with the trouble of this disorientation a moment longer and imaginatively play out new realities that confront the inevitable ecological devastations that have been wrought upon the earth.

From Whale’s Road to Water under the Earth: Water in Anglo-Saxon Poetry

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill A. Frederick
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Figurative Language ◽  
English Poetry ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Old English Poetry ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Face

This chapter begins with the axiomatic premise that nature was no friend to the Anglo-Saxons: exile into the wilderness often equated with both physical and spiritual death and the power of water was equally frightening. We have only to look to the quintessential locus for the image of the Anglo-Saxons’ distrust and fear of the sea, lines 850-866 of Christ II, which presents life as a journey over difficult seas. In Beowulf, the mere of Grendel’s mother gapes as a kind of hell-mouth, while even the fragmentary description of the mysterious baths in The Ruin uses language reminiscent of the destructive flame of Beowulf’s dragon. On the face of it, Old English poetry provides no evidence of practical uses for water except as a method of transportation; nevertheless, the poetic manifestations of Anglo-Saxon antipathy towards water may well demonstrate the ways in which the figurative language can denote the physical realities of sea, mere, and river during the period.

Reinterpretasi Ayat-ayat “Kekerasan”

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-103
Author(s):  
Lina Aniqoh
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Textual Interpretation ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The People ◽  
Double Movement ◽  
The Face

This paper seeks to elaborate on the textual interpretation of Q.S Muhammad verse 4 and Q.S at Taubah verse 5. These two verses are often employed by the extremist Muslim groups to legitimize their destructive acts carried out on groups considered as being infidels and as such lawfully killed. The interpretation was conducted using the double movement hermeneutics methodology offered by Fazlur Rahman. After reinterpretation, the two verses contain moral values, namely the war ordered by God must be reactive, fulfill the ethics of "violence" and be the last solution. Broadly speaking, the warfare commanded in the Qur'an aims to establish a benefit for humanity on the face of the earth by eliminating every crime that exists. These two verses in the contemporary socio-historical context in Indonesia can be implemented as a basis for combating the issue of hoaxes and destructive acts of extremist Muslim groups. Because both are crimes and have negative implications for the people good and even able to threaten the unity of mankind.

Montaigne on Monsters and Monstrosity

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Long
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
Knowledge Systems ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Divine Omnipotence ◽  
Human Creativity ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face

Monsters take on many roles in Montaigne’s Essays, almost always in novel ways. They do not take on their usual roles as markers of other races, genders, or bodies, as threats or objects of repulsion. Rather, the authorial self and his work are seen as monstrous; Europeans and their culture are seen as monstrous; the knowledge systems that create monsters are themselves monstrous; man’s vanity is monstrous. But most of all, the monster is the provocation to meditation on man’s presumption, and on the limitations of human knowledge and power in the face of the world and the divine. As the sign of the diversity and mutability of the natural world and thus of divine omnipotence, the monstrous and unusual is valued by Montaigne over the normal or usual. It is also the mark of human creativity, dependent as it is on the vagaries of the imagination, new and radically different from the rhetorical, literary, and artistic norms. This is why the Essays themselves can be considered a monstrous work.

II. The Question of God in the Struggle for Racial Justice

Horizons ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 172-194
Author(s):  
Christopher Pramuk
Keyword(s):  
Human Freedom ◽  
Whole Body ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face

In March 1943, having narrowly escaped Europe three years earlier, Abraham Joshua Heschel published “The Meaning of This War,” his first essay in an American publication. The essay shows, quite remarkably, his full command of literary English. It also shows, as biographer Edward Kaplan remarks, that Heschel “had found his militant voice.” “Emblazoned over the gates of the world in which we live,” the essay begins, “is the escutcheon of the demons. The mark of Cain in the face of man has come to overshadow the likeness of God. There have never been so much guilt and distress, agony and terror. At no time has the earth been so soaked with blood.” Heschel's extraordinary life's witness, his whole body of work, traverses precisely this anthropological and theological knife's edge: The mark of Cain in the face of man has come to overshadow the likeness of God. Where is God? Or better, Who is God? in relation to the rapacious misuse and idolatrous distortion of human freedom? Or simply, Is God?

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