The use of apocalyptic and post apocalyptic narratives to interpret the risk of environmental degradation and climate change has been criticized for too often making erroneous predictions on the basis of too little evidence, being ineffective to motivate change, leading to a discounting of present needs in the face of an exaggerated threat of impending catastrophe, and relying on a pre-modern, Judeo-Christian mode of constructing reality. Nevertheless, “Apocalypse,” whether understood in its technical sense as “revelation” or in its popular sense (...) as “end of the world as we know it,” remains a powerful way of creatively reimagining the world and of introducing questions of value and significance into discussions of climate change. (shrink)

Saint Augustine said, in a certain place: "I know what Time is, but when anybody asks me to explain what it is, I cannot answer." I make it my own, this humble confession of one of the greatest thinkers in the early Christian West, when I am asked now to speak and reflect on "The Time of Heaven in Chinese Ancient Philosophy." With this Augustinian reservation, I will try to respond to Dr. Zhang's inspiring presentation of this theme. For philosophers, (...) it does indeed contain, as he suggestively underscored "a subtle tiding." The subtlety comes from the claimed originality of "original time," more original and more subtle indeed than the physical time of the four seasons, and essentially different from teleological time. What is this "subtle tiding" of Original Time? (shrink)

White, Robert; Moo, Jonathan In an age when many have begun to consider widespread environmental collapse inevitable, the certain hope held out in the Christian gospel rules out both complacency and despair. Scripture's vision of a future for all of creation that is secure in Christ and given by God's grace challenges Christians to a radical environmental ethos that is marked by wisdom, self-sacrifice, perseverance, love and joy.