The book seeks to ethnographically analyse and explore what could be termed religious ecotopias, ... more The book seeks to ethnographically analyse and explore what could be termed religious ecotopias, different religious visions of nature (and humanity and the human-nature interaction), as expressed in the 'field of religion and ecology', a new religious-environmental movement that seeks to challenge modern secular views that it sees as leading to environmentally destructive thought and actions and create new ones based in religious traditions. In this sense, the book also explores the re-imagination and possible re-vitalisation of religion in the modern world. It analyses and explores the idea that the environmental crisis is a moral and spiritual issue at heart, the result of a hegemonic, modern, secular, Western worldview - a mechanical model - that is dualist, materialist, and objective, separating humanity from nature, fact from value, spirit from matter, seeing nature in a disenchanted, passive way, as a commodity. The book analyses responses to this view - an emerging ecological model - providing a contestation or politicisation of nature (which is argued as a diverse process); ones that stress holistic, organic, spiritual visions, seeing humanity and nature as inter-dependent, combining fact/value, spirit/matter, seeing nature as active and meaningful, re-enchanting it. The book also explores the means to this, metaphors and myths, cosmogonies and cosmologies, that are seen as needed to evoke and inspire ecological thought and action and, in particular, religion, which is argued as able to provide these. It analyses the perceived need for religion to re-imagine nature as well as the need for it to re-imagine itself in doing so, arguing for it also as a process, analysing the place and role of religion in the modern world and its possible re-vitalisation in the face of secularisation, environmental issues in this sense being argued as providing an arena for religious traditions to address the discontents of the modern world, realigning human boundaries. In particular, the book analyses a greening of religion within the field of religion and ecology that is encouraging, inspiring, assessing, comparing, and combining, religious traditions to explore and express ecological ideas. The main body of the book thus analyses different religious ecotopias, different visions of nature (and humanity) expressed in the field of religion and ecology - Indian (Hindu and Jain), Chinese (Confucian and Daoist), and Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic - exploring the ecological metaphors and myths expressed, arguing for these as new religious forms, new ecological interpretations of religious traditions (it is not religious traditions, per se, that are analysed, then, but particular new ecologically aware or inspired forms of them, although these may influence the traditions). The book argues that ecological issues and the religious-ecotopian expressions they stimulate, critiquing the present and imagining alternative worlds, may act as compass points for learning and change, critically and reflexively bringing to light and engaging problematic issues of the modern world, as well as demonstrating religious creativity and innovation.
Publisher Blurb: "The field of religion and ecology is an emerging and growing movement that is becoming relevant and influential in the world. It seeks to analyze, encourage, inspire, use, compare, and combine religious traditions to engage and shape environmental issues.Tony Watling seeks to ethnographically analyze this important field and its expressions. In particular, he analyzes and compares its explorations of different world religions for ecological themes and the resulting expressions of ecological visions, in what he terms 'religious ecotopias' - idealized, environmentally-friendly re-imaginings of nature and humanity, and correspondingly religion, which seek to influence environmental attitudes."
Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction 1
Ch 1. The Modern World-View, the Ecological Model and the
Reimagination of Nature 14
Ch 2. Religious Environmentalism: Reimagining and Revitalizing Nature and Religion 38
Ch 3. Indian (Hindu and Jain) Visions 64
Ch 4. Chinese (Confucian and Daoist) Visions 85
Ch 5. Buddhist Visions 105
Ch 6. Jewish Visions 123
Ch 7. Christian Visions 140
Ch 8. Islamic Visions 158
Ch 9. Conclusion 175
Bibliography 198
Index 223
This thesis examines religious identity formation in the Netherlands. It concentrates on the dial... more This thesis examines religious identity formation in the Netherlands. It concentrates on the dialectical negotiation of individual faith and religious orthodoxy and examines the implications of pluralism and ecumenism. Recent global changes in economics or politics are suggested as leading to individualism and fragmentation of religion. The aim of the thesis is to analyze if and how this is occurring and explore whether it signals religious conflict, decline, or reformation. Faced with rapid social and technological developments religious beliefs may be secularizing. However, they may also be reclaiming tradition and engaging in mutually beneficial discussion to combat secular society, something that suggests religious survival.
The Netherlands has been chosen as the ethnographic site because it has developed a distinctive religious co existence that legitimates a variety of beliefs within an encompassing national discourse. This was consolidated in the political system of verzuiling, or `pillarization', whereby different social groups constructed segregated communities, co ordinated within the nation. The system has declined but its effects may remain culturally; disparate groups develop within a national `identity' based on accommodation and dialogue. Dutch religion is developing in co ordinated orthodox and liberal ways. In this way division and conflict may be accepted and resolved by mutual agreement, something that in other `divided' societies may not occur.
The ethnography is concerned with the negotiation of faith among four churches in the village of Aalten in East Gelderland. It analyses how they construct different `moralities' and address wider society, and either coexist or conflict, unite or schism. This involves exploring developments in authority, gender, organization, and symbolism. This thesis argues that religious celebration may involve critical thought and social activism as much as dependency on traditional images and analyses the development of the critical facilities needed to engage with changes taking place in the world today.
Concentrating on the conjunction of `religious orthodoxy' and `popular belief’, this article exam... more Concentrating on the conjunction of `religious orthodoxy' and `popular belief’, this article examines developments in Reformed Protestant religion in the Netherlands. Dutch Reformed beliefs and practices show an interrelation of `orthodoxy' and `popular', public and private, through the concepts of roeping, or `calling', whereby individuals look inwards for moral guidance, and ambt, or `office', essentially the social manifestation of the calling, where individuals demonstrate their inward morality through responsibly serving the church community and wider society. This highlights the interrelation of social discipline and individual freedom. Reformed individuals are encouraged to think and act independently but are encouraged to express this `in common’. Reformed `orthodoxies', therefore, are dependent on a diversity of `popular' beliefs, something that may allow them `flexibility'; they change as individuals change. In this way they may be dynamic, possibly able to negotiate change by accommodating diversity and allowing for many possibilities, negotiating ‘common’ resolutions. These ideas may be particularly relevant as recent developments have been seen to challenge ‘traditional’ religion, causing secularisation. Understanding how `popular' beliefs interrelate with ‘religious `orthodoxies’ may highlight different possibilities for religion to negotiate this change. The first section of the article, therefore, provides an initial analysis of Dutch Reformed beliefs and practices, while the second locates them specifically within a qualitative ethnographic analysis, examining ‘orthodox’, ‘liberal’, and ‘ecumenical’ forms, using these as concrete examples of issues raised (and extending them).
This article is concerned with religion, science and ecology: religious and ‘religio-scientific’ ... more This article is concerned with religion, science and ecology: religious and ‘religio-scientific’ perceptions of the environment and the human-environment relationship. It explores how a number of world religions and new science based cosmologies (as represented in a ‘field of religion and ecology’) understand and interact with the environment (particularly in response to the environmental crisis) and in particular analyzes how they use cosmogonic and cosmological, metaphors and myths, to ‘re-imagine’ it, and how in doing so may express and promote different (possibly more environmentally ‘friendly’; bio-centric, organic, spiritual) ways of relating to it than a ‘modern’ worldview (and associated environmentally ‘unfriendly’ – anthropocentric, mechanical, secular - metaphors and myths) that may be causing environmental degradation. The paper qualitatively and ethnographically explores two ‘eastern’ (Buddhism, and Chinese Religions) and two ‘western’ (Judaism and Christianity) religious traditions, as well as two new ‘religio-scientific’ cosmological visions (Deep Ecology and Gaia) (as stressed in the field of religion and ecology). It analyses their distinctive views on ecology, exploring metaphors and myths stressed, as well as commonalities between them and what they may mean for religion, the environment, and the human-environment relationship.
The book seeks to ethnographically analyse and explore what could be termed religious ecotopias, ... more The book seeks to ethnographically analyse and explore what could be termed religious ecotopias, different religious visions of nature (and humanity and the human-nature interaction), as expressed in the 'field of religion and ecology', a new religious-environmental movement that seeks to challenge modern secular views that it sees as leading to environmentally destructive thought and actions and create new ones based in religious traditions. In this sense, the book also explores the re-imagination and possible re-vitalisation of religion in the modern world. It analyses and explores the idea that the environmental crisis is a moral and spiritual issue at heart, the result of a hegemonic, modern, secular, Western worldview - a mechanical model - that is dualist, materialist, and objective, separating humanity from nature, fact from value, spirit from matter, seeing nature in a disenchanted, passive way, as a commodity. The book analyses responses to this view - an emerging ecological model - providing a contestation or politicisation of nature (which is argued as a diverse process); ones that stress holistic, organic, spiritual visions, seeing humanity and nature as inter-dependent, combining fact/value, spirit/matter, seeing nature as active and meaningful, re-enchanting it. The book also explores the means to this, metaphors and myths, cosmogonies and cosmologies, that are seen as needed to evoke and inspire ecological thought and action and, in particular, religion, which is argued as able to provide these. It analyses the perceived need for religion to re-imagine nature as well as the need for it to re-imagine itself in doing so, arguing for it also as a process, analysing the place and role of religion in the modern world and its possible re-vitalisation in the face of secularisation, environmental issues in this sense being argued as providing an arena for religious traditions to address the discontents of the modern world, realigning human boundaries. In particular, the book analyses a greening of religion within the field of religion and ecology that is encouraging, inspiring, assessing, comparing, and combining, religious traditions to explore and express ecological ideas. The main body of the book thus analyses different religious ecotopias, different visions of nature (and humanity) expressed in the field of religion and ecology - Indian (Hindu and Jain), Chinese (Confucian and Daoist), and Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic - exploring the ecological metaphors and myths expressed, arguing for these as new religious forms, new ecological interpretations of religious traditions (it is not religious traditions, per se, that are analysed, then, but particular new ecologically aware or inspired forms of them, although these may influence the traditions). The book argues that ecological issues and the religious-ecotopian expressions they stimulate, critiquing the present and imagining alternative worlds, may act as compass points for learning and change, critically and reflexively bringing to light and engaging problematic issues of the modern world, as well as demonstrating religious creativity and innovation.
Publisher Blurb: "The field of religion and ecology is an emerging and growing movement that is becoming relevant and influential in the world. It seeks to analyze, encourage, inspire, use, compare, and combine religious traditions to engage and shape environmental issues.Tony Watling seeks to ethnographically analyze this important field and its expressions. In particular, he analyzes and compares its explorations of different world religions for ecological themes and the resulting expressions of ecological visions, in what he terms 'religious ecotopias' - idealized, environmentally-friendly re-imaginings of nature and humanity, and correspondingly religion, which seek to influence environmental attitudes."
Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction 1
Ch 1. The Modern World-View, the Ecological Model and the
Reimagination of Nature 14
Ch 2. Religious Environmentalism: Reimagining and Revitalizing Nature and Religion 38
Ch 3. Indian (Hindu and Jain) Visions 64
Ch 4. Chinese (Confucian and Daoist) Visions 85
Ch 5. Buddhist Visions 105
Ch 6. Jewish Visions 123
Ch 7. Christian Visions 140
Ch 8. Islamic Visions 158
Ch 9. Conclusion 175
Bibliography 198
Index 223
This thesis examines religious identity formation in the Netherlands. It concentrates on the dial... more This thesis examines religious identity formation in the Netherlands. It concentrates on the dialectical negotiation of individual faith and religious orthodoxy and examines the implications of pluralism and ecumenism. Recent global changes in economics or politics are suggested as leading to individualism and fragmentation of religion. The aim of the thesis is to analyze if and how this is occurring and explore whether it signals religious conflict, decline, or reformation. Faced with rapid social and technological developments religious beliefs may be secularizing. However, they may also be reclaiming tradition and engaging in mutually beneficial discussion to combat secular society, something that suggests religious survival.
The Netherlands has been chosen as the ethnographic site because it has developed a distinctive religious co existence that legitimates a variety of beliefs within an encompassing national discourse. This was consolidated in the political system of verzuiling, or `pillarization', whereby different social groups constructed segregated communities, co ordinated within the nation. The system has declined but its effects may remain culturally; disparate groups develop within a national `identity' based on accommodation and dialogue. Dutch religion is developing in co ordinated orthodox and liberal ways. In this way division and conflict may be accepted and resolved by mutual agreement, something that in other `divided' societies may not occur.
The ethnography is concerned with the negotiation of faith among four churches in the village of Aalten in East Gelderland. It analyses how they construct different `moralities' and address wider society, and either coexist or conflict, unite or schism. This involves exploring developments in authority, gender, organization, and symbolism. This thesis argues that religious celebration may involve critical thought and social activism as much as dependency on traditional images and analyses the development of the critical facilities needed to engage with changes taking place in the world today.
Concentrating on the conjunction of `religious orthodoxy' and `popular belief’, this article exam... more Concentrating on the conjunction of `religious orthodoxy' and `popular belief’, this article examines developments in Reformed Protestant religion in the Netherlands. Dutch Reformed beliefs and practices show an interrelation of `orthodoxy' and `popular', public and private, through the concepts of roeping, or `calling', whereby individuals look inwards for moral guidance, and ambt, or `office', essentially the social manifestation of the calling, where individuals demonstrate their inward morality through responsibly serving the church community and wider society. This highlights the interrelation of social discipline and individual freedom. Reformed individuals are encouraged to think and act independently but are encouraged to express this `in common’. Reformed `orthodoxies', therefore, are dependent on a diversity of `popular' beliefs, something that may allow them `flexibility'; they change as individuals change. In this way they may be dynamic, possibly able to negotiate change by accommodating diversity and allowing for many possibilities, negotiating ‘common’ resolutions. These ideas may be particularly relevant as recent developments have been seen to challenge ‘traditional’ religion, causing secularisation. Understanding how `popular' beliefs interrelate with ‘religious `orthodoxies’ may highlight different possibilities for religion to negotiate this change. The first section of the article, therefore, provides an initial analysis of Dutch Reformed beliefs and practices, while the second locates them specifically within a qualitative ethnographic analysis, examining ‘orthodox’, ‘liberal’, and ‘ecumenical’ forms, using these as concrete examples of issues raised (and extending them).
This article is concerned with religion, science and ecology: religious and ‘religio-scientific’ ... more This article is concerned with religion, science and ecology: religious and ‘religio-scientific’ perceptions of the environment and the human-environment relationship. It explores how a number of world religions and new science based cosmologies (as represented in a ‘field of religion and ecology’) understand and interact with the environment (particularly in response to the environmental crisis) and in particular analyzes how they use cosmogonic and cosmological, metaphors and myths, to ‘re-imagine’ it, and how in doing so may express and promote different (possibly more environmentally ‘friendly’; bio-centric, organic, spiritual) ways of relating to it than a ‘modern’ worldview (and associated environmentally ‘unfriendly’ – anthropocentric, mechanical, secular - metaphors and myths) that may be causing environmental degradation. The paper qualitatively and ethnographically explores two ‘eastern’ (Buddhism, and Chinese Religions) and two ‘western’ (Judaism and Christianity) religious traditions, as well as two new ‘religio-scientific’ cosmological visions (Deep Ecology and Gaia) (as stressed in the field of religion and ecology). It analyses their distinctive views on ecology, exploring metaphors and myths stressed, as well as commonalities between them and what they may mean for religion, the environment, and the human-environment relationship.
This essay is concerned with “religion and ecology,” or religious environmentalism. It analyzes h... more This essay is concerned with “religion and ecology,” or religious environmentalism. It analyzes how religious traditions are used to understand and interact with the environment and environmental issues, suggesting wass of relating to these that are different from and possibly less destructive and ecologically harmful than those of the modern secular worldview. It argues that religious traditions may thereby be gaining new private and public relevance, while perhaps also being changed in the process, becoming more envrionmentally friendly and ecumenical. The article ethnographically and qualitatively analyzes a “field of religion and ecology” comprising ecologically minded academics ansd representatives of various religious traditions who promote such ideas, stimulating new eco-spiritualities and theologies, possibly even a new eco-religious movement. It also explores the environmental reintepretation of several religious traditions within the field, highlighting not only some influential images and views but also any commonalities or convergences that may be arising or are being encouraged between them.
Journal for the scientific study of religion, Jan 1, 2001
This article examines the Dutch Catholic Church. It is based on a qualitative ethnographic analys... more This article examines the Dutch Catholic Church. It is based on a qualitative ethnographic analysis of a particular Dutch Catholic Community. It seeks to demonstrate that despite a decline in the church since the 1960's, many Dutch parishioners are becoming active in redefining it and attempting to revitalise Catholicism, creating democratically organised local communities, where laity and local clergy, women and men, work together as equals in negotiating change, but argues that this may involve unofficial practices, possibly at odds with official church hierarchy controlled doctrine, which may resist acknowledging them and resist change. By examining these issues, the article aims to understand the dialectic and tension between what could be termed popular and orthodox, private and public, beliefs and to examine the constraints or possibilities this may place on the church. In this sense it also aims to understand how religion, thought to be vulnerable to recent change encouraging individual independence from social institutions, may negotiate (or reject) new developments. Although challenged, Catholic identity may still be valued and provide individuals with resources for negotiating new developments. However, the success or failure of this may depend on the nature of the struggle for authority and influence between official and unofficial versions of Catholicism.
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Publisher Blurb: "The field of religion and ecology is an emerging and growing movement that is becoming relevant and influential in the world. It seeks to analyze, encourage, inspire, use, compare, and combine religious traditions to engage and shape environmental issues.Tony Watling seeks to ethnographically analyze this important field and its expressions. In particular, he analyzes and compares its explorations of different world religions for ecological themes and the resulting expressions of ecological visions, in what he terms 'religious ecotopias' - idealized, environmentally-friendly re-imaginings of nature and humanity, and correspondingly religion, which seek to influence environmental attitudes."
Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction 1
Ch 1. The Modern World-View, the Ecological Model and the
Reimagination of Nature 14
Ch 2. Religious Environmentalism: Reimagining and Revitalizing Nature and Religion 38
Ch 3. Indian (Hindu and Jain) Visions 64
Ch 4. Chinese (Confucian and Daoist) Visions 85
Ch 5. Buddhist Visions 105
Ch 6. Jewish Visions 123
Ch 7. Christian Visions 140
Ch 8. Islamic Visions 158
Ch 9. Conclusion 175
Bibliography 198
Index 223
The Netherlands has been chosen as the ethnographic site because it has developed a distinctive religious co existence that legitimates a variety of beliefs within an encompassing national discourse. This was consolidated in the political system of verzuiling, or `pillarization', whereby different social groups constructed segregated communities, co ordinated within the nation. The system has declined but its effects may remain culturally; disparate groups develop within a national `identity' based on accommodation and dialogue. Dutch religion is developing in co ordinated orthodox and liberal ways. In this way division and conflict may be accepted and resolved by mutual agreement, something that in other `divided' societies may not occur.
The ethnography is concerned with the negotiation of faith among four churches in the village of Aalten in East Gelderland. It analyses how they construct different `moralities' and address wider society, and either coexist or conflict, unite or schism. This involves exploring developments in authority, gender, organization, and symbolism. This thesis argues that religious celebration may involve critical thought and social activism as much as dependency on traditional images and analyses the development of the critical facilities needed to engage with changes taking place in the world today.
Papers
Publisher Blurb: "The field of religion and ecology is an emerging and growing movement that is becoming relevant and influential in the world. It seeks to analyze, encourage, inspire, use, compare, and combine religious traditions to engage and shape environmental issues.Tony Watling seeks to ethnographically analyze this important field and its expressions. In particular, he analyzes and compares its explorations of different world religions for ecological themes and the resulting expressions of ecological visions, in what he terms 'religious ecotopias' - idealized, environmentally-friendly re-imaginings of nature and humanity, and correspondingly religion, which seek to influence environmental attitudes."
Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction 1
Ch 1. The Modern World-View, the Ecological Model and the
Reimagination of Nature 14
Ch 2. Religious Environmentalism: Reimagining and Revitalizing Nature and Religion 38
Ch 3. Indian (Hindu and Jain) Visions 64
Ch 4. Chinese (Confucian and Daoist) Visions 85
Ch 5. Buddhist Visions 105
Ch 6. Jewish Visions 123
Ch 7. Christian Visions 140
Ch 8. Islamic Visions 158
Ch 9. Conclusion 175
Bibliography 198
Index 223
The Netherlands has been chosen as the ethnographic site because it has developed a distinctive religious co existence that legitimates a variety of beliefs within an encompassing national discourse. This was consolidated in the political system of verzuiling, or `pillarization', whereby different social groups constructed segregated communities, co ordinated within the nation. The system has declined but its effects may remain culturally; disparate groups develop within a national `identity' based on accommodation and dialogue. Dutch religion is developing in co ordinated orthodox and liberal ways. In this way division and conflict may be accepted and resolved by mutual agreement, something that in other `divided' societies may not occur.
The ethnography is concerned with the negotiation of faith among four churches in the village of Aalten in East Gelderland. It analyses how they construct different `moralities' and address wider society, and either coexist or conflict, unite or schism. This involves exploring developments in authority, gender, organization, and symbolism. This thesis argues that religious celebration may involve critical thought and social activism as much as dependency on traditional images and analyses the development of the critical facilities needed to engage with changes taking place in the world today.