Environmental Stewardship
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Hardback
£180.00
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Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN: 9780567030177
Number of Pages: 320
Published: 09/02/2006
Width: 15.6 cm
Height: 23.4 cm
Is stewardship a useful way of regarding our relationship with our environment - or is it a dangerous excuse for plunder? Is it possible for us to be effective stewards? Or are we irrelevant parasites? Or foolish virgins unprepared for the Master's return? The notion that God has appointed us to care for creation has a long history and has been taken over into secular thinking. But can we be responsible for something if we do not acknowledge an Owner? This book gathers together classical expositions of stewardship with criticisms of the concept and adds other contributions written especially for this collection, linked by a critical commentary from the editor, R. J. Berry. The authors include both religious thinkers and practical conservationists. The questions faced were sparked by a conference of scientists and theologians organized by the John Ray Initiative and continued in a consultation at St George's House, Windsor Castle, with papers from Robin Attfield (philosopher), Murray Rae (theologian), Calvin DeWitt (environmental biologist), and Jim Lovelock (biogeochemist).
The essays presented here are not simply an intellectual pastiche; they are a distillation of ideas to challenge us how to treat our environment - whether or not we call it 'Creation'.
Foreword, Sir Ghillean Prance (former Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew); Introduction and Background, R.J. Berry (University College London, UK); I. History of the Idea; 1. Having Dominion: Genesis and the mastery of nature, Peter Harrison (Bond University, Western Australia); 2. The Concept of Stewardship, John Black (University of Edinburgh, UK). 3. Why St Francis?, Jan Boersema (Free University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands); 4. Environmental sensitivity and critiques of stewardship, Robin Attfield (Cardiff University, UK); 5. Human authority in creation, Richard Bauckham (University of St Andrews, UK); 6. A theology for the Earth, Joseph Sittler (University of Chicago, USA); II. Application and Criticism; 7. The fallible concept of the stewardship of the Earth, Jim Lovelock (independent scientist); 8. Religion and the environment, Crispin Tickell (Director of the Climate Change Institute, Green College, Oxford, UK); 9. The significance of evolutionary theory for environmental ethics, Lisa Sideris (McGill University, USA); 10. Ethics and the environment, Chris Patten (European Commissioner); 11. The stewardship of creation, Alister McGrath (University of Oxford, UK); III. Theological Debate; 12. Stewardship: a case study in environmental ethics, Clare Palmer (Lancaster University, UK); 13. Stewardship as a key to a theology of nature, Douglas Hall (McGill University, USA); 14. Partnership with nature according to the scripture: beyond the theology of stewardship, Paul Santmire (Akron, Ohio, USA); 15. Tensions in a stewardship paradigm, Bruce Reichenbach (Augsburg College, Minneapolis, USA) and Elving Anderson (University of Minnesota, USA); 16. To render praise: humanity in God's world, Murray Rae (King's College London, UK); 17. From ecological lament to a sustainable oikos, Anne Clifford (Duquesne University, USA); 18. Stewardship and its competitors: a spectrum of relationships between humans and the non-human creation, Chris Southgate (University of Exeter, UK); 19. The fellowship of all creation, Ruth Page (University of Edinburgh, UK); IV. Relevance; 20. Caring for the Earth, Martin Holdgate (International Union for the Conservation of Nature). 21. Soil, stewardship and spirit in the era of chemical agriculture, Michael Northcott (University of Edinburgh, UK); 22. Sauce for the goose, Derek Osborn (UK Environmental Stakeholders Forum); 23. Sea stewards and the sabbath, Susan Bratton (Baylor University, USA); 24. Stewardship: responding appropriately to the consequences of human action in the world, Calvin DeWitt (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA); 25. Preserving God's creation, Metropolitan John of Pergamon [Zizioulas]; 26. Steward, Larry Rasmussen (Union Theological Seminary, USA); Conclusion, John Houghton (formerly Director of the Meteorological Office); Index.
"Many of the articles are nuanced, carefully crafted, and clearly advance specific arguments in the field of environmental ethics...The text will appeal to undergraduate students in ecology and religion classes or to seminarians searching for general synopsis of this conversation." Daniel McFee, Religious Studies Review, Vol. 33, No. 3, July 2007--Sanford Lakoff