Editorial and Contents of Issue 1

Land

Communion with Spirits and Ancestors
Jay B. McDaniel

The Earth as a Common Treasury: The Diggers and the Land Question
Andrew Bradstock

Developing a Theological Basis for a Land Ethic
Euan McPhee

Land, Life and Death: The Bible and the Land in Brazil
James Penney

The Travail of Creation and the Daughters of God: Ecofeminism and Eschatology
Elizabeth E. Green

Acting with Compassion: Buddhism, Feminism and the Environmental Crisis
Stephanie Kaza

Eco-News from across the World: March for Peace
Mikhail Roshchin

Lifestyle: Glenaraneen, Dublin—Women’s Educational Project
Ann Louise Gilligan

The Church and the Earth after Rio—Is Creation Safe with Christians?
A Newman Association Conference
Brigid M. Boardman

Book Reviews

Tina Beattie
David Kinsley, Ecotheology and Religious Ecological Spirituality in Cross-Cultural Perspective.

Lucy Larkin
Elizabeth Green and Mary Grey (eds.), Ecofeminism and Theology

Celia Deane-Drummond
John Eaton, The Circle of Creation

Jonathan Clatworthy
Clive Hamilton, The Mystic Economist

James H Stewart
Ernest Braun, Futile Progress: Technology's Empty Promise

Gaynor Pollard
Eileen Conn and James Stewart (eds.), Visions of Creation

Chris Partridge
A. Race and R. Williamson (eds.), True to this Earth: Global Challenges and Transforming Faith

Editorial

This is the firrst issue of the new journal Ecotheology, which is itself the child of Theology in Green now to be published by Sheffield Academic Press. So we welcome both our faithful subscribers who have journeyed with us through this change, as well as the new readers who join us. Ecotheology, like its parent, focuses on ecological themes from a theological perspective but aims to offer a greater range of substantial articles and to develop a global focus and representation (as you will note from the enlarged Advisory Board). Thus we are able to develop and extend our reflection on the way in which ecotheology tries to burst the narrow parameters of academic theology, linking theory and praxis, intellectual, aesthetic and liturgical dimensions of theology, but always in a rigorous and critical manner. Hence we retain the more informal ‘Lifestyle’—which gives a more personal account of ecological praxis—and we are able to add ‘Eco-News from across the World’, together with reports from conferences. As always, we welcome suggestions, comments, letters, and of course, contributions from readers.

It is fitting that the chosen theme for the first number of this new venture is Land, combined with Ecofeminism. Land is recognized as the crucial theme for ecology, politics and the survival of life itself. The deprivation of land is the cause of death to countless numbers of indigenous peoples. Globally, we are surrounded with tragedies focusing on land—the Amazonian rain forest with the extinction of Yanomani Indians, and the Israel–Palestine conflict over their joint passionate identifiation with the same land, are just two examples.

We have all too many instances of ecological devastation caused by war, as is poignantly illustrated in this issue by Dr Mikhail Roshchin’s article on Chechnya. To concentrate on land is to reach the lowest rung of the ladder in terms of the great hierarchy of being. For, androcentrism (focus on men) is critiqued for its blindness to women. Yet anthropocentrism itself (focus on human beings) is also critiqued for its blindness with regard to animals and all creatures. And who will speak for the earth itself? The earth has no voice, no way of arguing its rights, its value, its worthiness of reverence. To link this focus with ecofeminism is to deepen the critique. Not only does ecofeminism link the devastation of the land with the plight of poor communities of women throughout the world who suffer with it, but ecofeminism also exposes the many connections between land, nature and the dualisms which continue to degrade land as inert matter, forming merely the background for human activity—and exploitation.

Ecologists, politicians, economists and social activists have clear responsibilities—not to mention vested interests—as regards issues of land. But where does the distinctive theological contribution lie? Whether Jewish and Christian theologies return to the first sentence of the Bible, ‘And God created the heavens and the earth’ or ‘The Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof’, there is a crystal-clear revelation for theology that relationship with the Divine Creator is intrinsically bound up with the land, what it produces, the seasons of its growth and decay, and the justice of relating with it. We in the twentieth century may be an urban and post-industrial people. We may have lost our roots in the land and have little first-hand knowledge of work on the land. To give a personal example: when my husband and I started up a small fruit farm thirteen years ago, one of our daughters was shocked: ‘you have brought us up to be culture-vultures and now you expect us to till the earth!’ was her understandably indignant reaction. She was certainly right; and it was far from easy for any of us to break our long established patterns of living.

But theology challenges us in the same way, a way which may break the impasse which we have reached. The media, the work of environmentalists, the campaigns to save trees for the ravages of new motorways deepen the conviction of many of us that we ought to be living simply, sustainably, and farming in a way which respects the health of the soil and the possibilities of the bioregion. But somehow theory and praxis are all too often separated and motivation is absent. The hope is that theology may provide this motivation.

First, there are many prophetic strands in Christian theology to be reclaimed or recycled. Thus Andrew Bradstock (‘The Earth as a Common Treasury: The Diggers and the Land Question’) recalls the inspiration of the seventeenth-century Winstanley and the Diggers, as an appropriate model for communal ownership of land, as we approach the millennium. This was a genuinely radical movement ‘back to basics’, which challenges the simplistic equation of basic morality with Victorian values, implied in the government’s use of the term. Secondly, theology also provides a strong ethical heritage of justice for the poorest of the poor—long before the more recent explicit option for the poor. So Euan McPhee searches for a theological land ethic (‘Developing a Theological Basis for a Land Ethic’) and James Penney (‘Land , Life and Death: The Land and Bible in Brazil’) makes it clear that the Church’s intervention on behalf of the poor against the ownership of land by a few rich people has meant the murder of priests and many layworkers—a testimony frequently corroborated by experience in Central America and Guatemala. Thirdly, the sacramental traditions of religion mean that land, trees and growing things are reverenced for their own sakes, as God’s creation, quite apart from their usefulness to human beings. There is just no other sphere—apart from poetry and art—where praise for the beauty of the land and what it produces is simply given back to God. So Jay McDaniel in ‘Communion with Spirits and Ancestors’ explores the potential of Christian Eucharist for widening communion to include both the spirits of ancestors and non-human creation.

But liturgy embraces other dimensions than adoration, thanksgiving and communion. It also offers the opportunity for repentance for humanity’s domination and exploitation of the land, a repentance which might mean the metanoia of theology itself. Accompanying this metanoia is a humility, grounded in a recognition that we do not have all the answers and need to learn from other traditions as to how to live sustainably with the land. So it can be no accident that both Jay McDaniel and Euan McPhee look to Native American traditions for help. We also include a moving contribution from Stephanie Kaza (‘Acting with Compassion: Buddhism, Feminism, and the Environmental Crisis’) on Buddhist resources of compassion from an ecofeminist perspective.

Not for trivial reasons does the main ecofeminist article (by Elizabeth Green) focus on eschatology. It is here that ecological theology stands in greatest tension with traditional theology precisely on the question of land. If eternal life is based in another world, then this world is ultimately expendable. The bottom is taken out of the ecological enterprise as, in the end, matter does not matter. To tackle how ‘this-wordly’ green eschatology could be coherent with traditional theology and provide the basis for a new revering for the land and its needs is a complex issue. But it is fitting that the successor of Theology in Green should begin right here: with the heart of the matter, the crux of the problem.

As we move into the season of growth in the northern hemisphere, may you all know the greenness, the viriditas of both land and Holy Spirit who wills the whole universe with the breath of life.