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This article deals with the role that religion has played in dealing with environmental issues. For many years, environmental issues were considered to be the concern of scientists, lawyers, and policy makers. Now the ethical dimensions of the environmental crisis are becoming more evident. Until recently religious communities have been so absorbed in internal sectarian affairs that they were unaware of the magnitude of the environmental crisis at hand. In this article, the authors present what religious leaders and local communities from different countries are doing regarding environmental issues.
"Today we know what no previous generation knew: the history of the universe and of the unfolding of life on Earth. Through the astonishing combined achievements of natural scientists worldwide, we now have a detailed account of how galaxies and stars, planets and living organisms, human beings and human consciousness came to be. And yet . . . we thirst for answers to questions that have haunted humanity from the very beginning. What is our place in the 14-billion-year history of the universe? What roles do we play in Earth's history? How do we connect with the intricate web of life on Earth? In Journey of the Universe Brian Thomas Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker tell the epic story of the universe from an inspired new perspective, weaving the findings of modern science together with enduring wisdom found in the humanistic traditions of the West, China, India, and indigenous peoples. The authors explore cosmic evolution as a profoundly wondrous process based on creativity, connection, and interdependence, and they envision an unprecedented opportunity for the world's people to address the daunting ecological and social challenges of our times. Journey of the Universe transforms how we understand our origins and envision our future. Though a little book, it tells a big story one that inspires hope for a way in which Earth and its human civilizations could flourish together. This book is part of a larger project that includes a documentary film, an educational DVD series, and a website. The film and the DVD series will be released in 2011. For more information, please consult the website, journeyoftheuniverse.org"–
A leading scholar, cultural historian, and Catholic priest who spent more than fifty years writing about our engagement with the Earth, Thomas Berry possessed prophetic insight into the rampantdestruction of ecosystems and the extinction of species. In this
book he makes a persuasive case for an interreligious dialogue that can better confront the environmental problems of the twenty-first century. These erudite and keenly sympathetic essays represent
Berry's best work, covering such issues as human beings' modern
alienation from nature and the possibilities of future,
regenerative forms of religious experience. Asking that we create a new story of the universe and the emergence of the Earth within it, Berry resituates the human spirit within a sacred totality.</p>
The author calls upon the world’s religions to assist in combating the destructive trends of our time, mobilizing a virtual "alliance of religion and ecology" against unlimited economic growth, rampant consumption, and unrestrained globalization. World religions have begun to move from a preoccupation with God-human relations and human-human relations to encompass human-earth relations. They are now entering their planetary or (Gaian) phase. In its new alliance with ecology, religion should move from isolated orthodoxy to interrelated dialogue, revivify its rituals and symbols in light of environmental crisis, align its moral authority with liberation rather than oppression, favor a this-worldly rather that other-worldly soteriology, and advance from anthropocentric to anthropocosmic ethics.