Ten accomplished scholars working at the intersection of Christian faith and ecology were invited to respond to the following prompt: Identify ways in which Christian spirituality (as an integrally related, but distinct and vital complement to Christian beliefs and ethical imperatives) might helpfully resource a more harmonious and sustainable human relationship to an imperiled natural order. While diverse in perspective, and often autobiographical and evocative, the responses offered affirm the need among Christians for a more deeply motivating sense of personal connection to Earth's creatures and places. Collectively, these responses trace the contours of a potentially transformative Christian ecospirituality.
This essay treats the growing phenomenon of climate-related despair. It examines the emotional landscape of climate anxiety, grief, guilt, and paralysis as reported by both scholars and practitioners, and suggests that the Christian apophatic tradition can help us understand and process such strong climate-related emotions. Drawing on the work of Constance FitzGerald, Jonathan Lear, and certain Christian mystics, it likens climate despair to the experience of the via negativa, considering the "dark night of the planet" as potentially a site of creative possibilities we are not yet able to imagine.
Ecospirituality provides a disciplinary home for scholars and practitioners who value exploration and affirmation of the sacred experienced within our profound belonging as bodies in creaturely continuity with all that is and within an awe-inspiring Universe. This essay engages the question of how recent a phenomenon ecospirituality is, while identifying key thinkers working in this area in recent decades and today. Throughout, it shows that ecospirituality's main contribution to Christian spirituality studies is to provide material strategies for replenishing our sense of human identity as fundamentally belonging within our cosmic home.
Preachers attuned to the climate crisis have a vital role to play in fostering ecospiritual practices that can sustain communities in times of threat and catalyze action for change. This essay explores three vectors of spiritual formation beneficial for the healing of the planet: the practice of ecologically focused preaching, the development of an ethics of interspecies kinship, and the tending of networks for spiritual transformation. The essay describes the design and pedagogy of an eco-preaching course at Yale Divinity School, considers ways to foster interspecies kinship, and details a grant-funded initiative that supports eco-preaching and other ecospirituality programming.
This essay proposes that the medieval theology of the Franciscan friar Bonaventure and the spirituality of Francis of Assisi offer a Christian perspective that can ground dialogue with animistic cosmologies. In Laudato Si', devoted to care for our common home, the Earth, Pope Francis offers a spirituality that reflects beliefs found in Bonaventure and Francis of Assisi and is congruent with key animistic values. Indeed, the Pope convoked a synod on the Amazon that explored how the wisdom of Amazon tribes can contribute to a Christian ecospirituality.
