We recommend that the future of religion and science involve more partnerships between scholars, amateurs, and artists. This reimagines an underdeveloped aspect of the history of religion and science. Case studies of an undergraduate course examining religious ritual and technology, seminarians reflecting on memory and identity in light of Alzheimer's disease, environmentalists responding to their guilt and shame about climate change, and Chicagoans recognizing the presence of nature in the city show how these partnerships respect insights and experiences of our (...) varied partners, identify and resolve community problems, and advance scholarship. Sourdough starter, a new metaphor, describes these collaborative, nourishing partnerships. (shrink)

In Consecrating Science: Wonder, Knowledge, and the Natural World, Lisa H. Sideris makes a compelling case that a new cosmology movement advocates for a new, universal, creation story grounded in the sciences. She fears the new story reinforces elite power structures and anthropocentrism and thus environmental degradation. Alternatively, she promotes genuine wonder which occurs in experiences of the natural world. As Sideris focuses on the likely logical outcome of the assumptions and arguments of the new cosmologies, she does not investigate (...) whether and how people react to these new myths. I suggest that methods of documentary studies, applied to popular book reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, shed light on the ramifications of the new cosmologies among the general public. While many reviewers exhibit attitudes and behaviors that would concern Sideris, responses are far from univocal. Using this case as a guide, I suggest that attention to the experience of laypeople could contribute productively to religion and science research in general. (shrink)

Christian ethicists rarely study apology or forgiveness about climate change, possibly because it is just another sin that God may forgive. Yet apology between humans may be critical to avoiding paralysis after people realize the horror of their actions and enabling cooperative responses to climate change among its perpetrators and victims. Climate change challenges traditional ideas and practices of apology because it involves unintentional, ongoing acts of diffuse collectives that harm other diffuse collectives across space and time. Developing concepts of (...) collective agency and responsibility enable a reconceptualization of apology for an era of climate change. While more work is needed to understand and implement such ideas, this paper lays the groundwork for future studies of collective apology and forgiveness by identifying general features of climate apologies including their symbolic dimensions and connection to ongoing changed actions. (shrink)

Bloggers confessing that they waste food, non-governmental organizations naming corporations selling unsustainably harvested seafood, and veterans apologizing to Native Americans at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation for environmental and social devastation caused by the United States government all signal the existence of action-oriented guilt and identity-oriented shame about participation in environmental degradation. Environmental Guilt and Shamedemonstrates that these moral emotions are common among environmentally friendly segments of the United States but have received little attention from environmental ethicists though they can (...) catalyze or hinder environmental action. Concern about environmental guilt and shame among "everyday environmentalists"reveals the practical, emotional, ethical, and existential issues raised by environmental guilt and shame and ethical insights about guilt, shame, responsibility, agency, and identity. A typology of guilt and shame enables the development and evaluation of these ethical insights.Environmental Guilt and Shame makes three major claims: first, individuals and collectives, including the diffuse collectives that cause climate change, can have identity, agency, and responsibility and thus guilt and shame. Second, some agents, including collectives, should feel guilt and/or shame for environmental degradation if they hold environmental values and think that their actions shape and reveal their identity. Third, a number of conditions are required to conceptually,existentially, and practically deal with guilt and shame's effects on agents. These conditions can be developed and maintained through rituals. Existing rituals need more development to fully deal with individual and collective guilt and shame as well as the anthropogenic environmental degradation that may sparkthem."-- Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Although environmental ethicists often focus on applying ethics to policy, the ethics embedded in policy documents such as Agenda 21 are also significant. Though largely ignored by ethicists after early responses to the document focused on intrinsic value, Agenda 21's ethics are particularly valuable for their ability to resonate with many people and link politics, technical studies, and ethics. For instance, their use draws attention to the need to ethically evaluate sustainability indexes and identifies limitations of existing indexes. At a (...) broad level, this study of the ethics of Agenda 21 also suggests that the ethics of international environmental policy documents deserves more attention. (shrink)