Updating Basket....

Sign In
0 Items

BASKET SUMMARY

There are currently no items added to the basket
Sign In
0 Items

BASKET SUMMARY

There are currently no items added to the basket

Climate Change and the Symbol Deficit in the Christian Tradition

Expanding Gendered Sources

Climate Change and the Symbol Deficit in the Christian Tradition

Expanding Gendered Sources

This item is a print on demand title and will be dispatched in 1-3 weeks.

Paperback / softback

£28.99

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN: 9780567705013
Number of Pages: 280
Published: 24/08/2023
Width: 15.2 cm
Height: 23.2 cm

Exploring how the climate crisis discloses the symbol deficit in the Christian tradition, this book argues that Christianity is rich in symbols that identify and address the failures of humans and the obstacles that prevent humans from doing well, while positive symbols that can engage people in constructive action seem underdeveloped. Henriksen examines the potential of the Christian tradition to develop symbols that can engage peoples in committed and sustained action to prevent further crisis. To do so, he argues that we need symbols that engage both intellectually and emotionally, and which enhance our perception of belonging in relationships with other humans, be it both in the present and in the future.

According to Henriksen, the deficit can only be obliterated if we can develop symbols that have some root or resonance in the Christian tradition, provide concrete and specified guidance of agency, engage people both emotionally and intellectually, and finally open up to visions for a moral agency that provide positive motivations for caring about environmental conditions as a whole.

Introduction: The Deficit Thesis and the Task It Presents

Part 1: Contexts for the Symbol Deficit

Chapter One:
From Acts of God to the Anthropocene

Chapter Two:
Culprits for the Predicament

Chapter Three:
Consumer Idolatry

Chapter Four:
Religion in Denial

Chapter Five:
To Empower Those Who Suffer and Give Voice to Those Who Lack It

Part 2: Conditions for symbolic practices

Chapter Six:
Symbols as Mediating Practice

Chapter Seven:
Conditions for Agency: A Critique of Modernity’s Detached Subject

Chapter Eight:
Symbols for Enhancing Moral Motivation and Avoiding Defection

Chapter Nine:
An Inductive, Experientially Oriented Theology

Part 3: Symbols for Practices

Chapter Ten:
God as Creator - A Critical Symbol?

Chapter Eleven:
From Anthropos to All of Creation

Chapter Twelve:
Symbolic Deficits in Apocalypticism – Towards a Presentist Eschatology

Chapter Thirteen:
Sin

Chapter Fourteen:
Symbols for Hope – A Critical Evaluation

Chapter Fifteen:
Sacrifice, Hope, and Grace

Bibliography
Index

Professor Dr. Jan-Olav Henriksen (MF Norwegian School of Theology, Norway)

Jan-Olav Henriksen is Professor of Philosophy of Religion in MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society, Norway.

Jan-Olav Henriksen has produced a valuable resource for the church as it struggles to bring Christian faith to bear fruitfully on the climate crisis. He offers a deep dive into the power of symbols to engender consistent action - including political action - for transformation toward ways of living that allow earth's climate systems to flourish. This book will be invaluable in the academy and in the church. -- Cynthia D. Moe-Lobeda, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary of California Lutheran University, USA The late Ursula K Le Guin argued that if we going to think ourselves out of the current problems of climate change and globalization, we are going to need more speculative fiction writers. This means we need new symbols with which to imagine our planetary futures. This book is important because it critiques the underlying theological symbols of western style democracies and economics that are, in the era of the Anthropocence, quite simply deficient. We need new, planetary ways of imagining human-God-Earth relations that suggest we (and all things human) are emergent from the process of planetary evolution. -- Whitney Bauman, Florida International University, USA