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The Greening of Protestant Thought traces the increasing influence of environmentalism on American Protestantism since the first Earth Day, which took place in 1970. Robert Booth Fowler explores the extent to which ecological concerns permeate Protestant thought and examines contemporary controversies within and between mainline and fundamentalist Protestantism over the Bible's teachings about the environment. Fowler explores the historical roots of environmentalism in Protestant thought, including debates over God's relationship to nature and the significance of the current environmental crisis for the history of Christianity. Although he argues that mainline Protestantism is becoming increasingly 'green,' he also examines the theological basis for many fundamentalists' hostility toward the environmental movement. In addition, Fowler considers Protestantism's policy agendas for environmental change, as well as the impact on mainline Protestant thinking of modern eco-theologies, process and creation theologies, and ecofeminism.
The theory and data of environmental science suggest that growth in rates of population, consumption and environmental degradation, as a result of the activities of industrialized societies, has created an ecological crisis to which modern societies must adapt. However, adaptation is problematic. Max Weber studied adaptive social change during the industrial revolution. The evolution of this new way of life was initially problematic because individuals who established industrialism were socialized under feudalism. In this dissertation, I consider The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism as a theoretical treatise framed by modern human ecology in order to study social change in the context of the ecological crisis of industrialism. The Protestant Ethic is known for describing how religious ideas influenced the unfolding of modern capitalism in the West. However, there is nothing inherent in Protestantism that requires linkage to industrialism. I argue that Protestantism has evolved, and that it need not necessarily promote environmental exploitation, although under industrialism it has. I identify a "green" subculture within Protestantism, and consider how Protestantism's weakness may also be its strength. The very sociological structure that, in the absence of ecologically realistic norms, permits widespread ecosystem degradation by industrial capitalism may also generate ecologically realistic norms for a natural capitalism. Weber contended that rationality was problematic because it paradoxically results in a dual crisis of management and meaning where human agency becomes "imprisoned" as if in an "iron cage." The irrational continuation of environmentally degrading social practices eventually contributes to a legitimation crisis. People turn to religion as an alternative authority. If science and religion converge on environmental values, they might catalyze social change, unless they are too distorted by ideological bias. Adaptive social change only occurs if ethical and ecological values are in accordance with the sustainability of ecosystems. Hence, to adapt to the ecological crisis, sociocultural systems require socialization into ecological realism, because ecologically rational societies may still be maladaptively organized around environmentally unsustainable trajectories.
Congregationalists, the oldest group of American Protestants, are the heirs of New England's first founders. While they were key characters in the story of early American history, from Plymouth Rock and the founding of Harvard and Yale to the Revolutionary War, their luster and numbers have faded. But Margaret Bendroth's critical history of Congregationalism over the past two centuries reveals how the denomination is essential for understanding mainline Protestantism in the making. Bendroth chronicles how the New England Puritans, known for their moral and doctrinal rigor, came to be the antecedents of the United Church of Christ, one of the most liberal of all Protestant denominations today. The demands of competition in the American religious marketplace spurred Congregationalists, Bendroth argues, to face their distinctive history. By engaging deeply with their denomination's storied past, they recast their modern identity. The soul-searching took diverse forms--from letter writing and eloquent sermonizing to Pilgrim-celebrating Thanksgiving pageants--as Congregationalists renegotiated old obligations to their seventeenth-century spiritual ancestors. The result was a modern piety that stood a respectful but ironic distance from the past and made a crucial contribution to the American ethos of religious tolerance.
How we come to our conclusions about ethical issues matters as much as the specific policies or practices we commend. This book argues that four key doctrines form a theological perspective for environmental ethics. They are the key ideas upon which people build their ethics of the environment. By looking at the doctrines of revelation, creation, anthropology, and eschatology, we can find points of contact to work together more effectively for the common good and have more meaningful debates when our positions differ. This book uses examples from four different theological positions—ecotheology, theological liberalism, fundamentalism, and evangelicalism—to show that a creation-positive ethic is possible from all of these positions, and it explores why people who stand within various theological streams may engage in environmental issues in diverse ways.
"Enduring Liberalism pursues two objectives. One, it explores the political thought of public intellectuals and the general public since the 1960s. Two, it assesses contemporary and classic interpretations of American political thought in light of the study's findings."--BOOK JACKET.
Controversial megachurch pastor Mark Driscoll proclaimed from a conference stage in 2013, “I know who made the environment and he’s coming back and going to burn it all up. So yes, I drive an SUV.” The comment, which Driscoll later explained away as a joke, highlights what has been a long history of religious anti-environmentalism. Given how firmly entrenched this sentiment has been, surprising inroads have been made by a new movement with few financial resources, which is deeply committed to promoting green religious traditions and creating a new environmental ethic. To Care for Creation chronicles this movement and explains how it has emerged despite institutional and cultural barriers, as well as the hurdles posed by logic and practices that set religious environmental organizations apart from the secular movement. Ellingson takes a deep dive into the ways entrepreneurial activists tap into and improvise on a variety of theological, ethical, and symbolic traditions in order to issue a compelling call to arms that mobilizes religious audiences. Drawing on interviews with the leaders of more than sixty of these organizations, Ellingson deftly illustrates how activists borrow and rework resources from various traditions to create new meanings for religion, nature, and the religious person’s duty to the natural world.
Traditionally, Protestant theology between Luther's early reforming career and the dawn of the Enlightenment has been seen in terms of decline and fall into the wastelands of rationalism and scholastic speculation. In this volume a number of scholars question such an interpretation. The editors argue that the development of Post-Reformation Protestantism can only be understood when a proper historical model of doctrinal change is adopted. This historical concern underlies the subsequent studies of theologians such as Calvin, Beza, Olevian, Baxter and the two Turrentini. The result is a significantly different reading of the development of Protestant Orthodoxy, one which both challenges the older scholarly interpretations and clichŽs about the relationship of Protestantism to, among other things, scholasticism and rationalism, and which demonstrates the fruitfulness of the new, historical approach. Contributors: D. V. N. Bagchi, David C. Steinmetz, Richard A. Muller, Frank A. James III, John L. Farthing, Lyle D. Bierma, R. Scott Clark, Donald Sinnema, Paul R. Schaefer, W. Robert Godfrey, Carl R. Trueman, Philip G. Ryken, John E. Platt, Joel R. Beeke, James T. Dennison Jr., Martin I. Klauber, Lowell C. Green, and David P. Scaer.
This Encyclopedia is the definitive reference to the history and beliefs that continue to exert a profound influence on Western thought.
Despite three decades of scientists' warnings and environmentalists' best efforts, the political will and public engagement necessary to fuel robust action on global climate change remain in short supply. Wilkinson shows that faith-based efforts are emerging and strengthening to address this problem.
This book develops a Pentecostal ecological theology (ecotheology) by utilizing key pneumatological themes that emerge from the Pentecostal tradition. It examines the salient Pentecostal and Charismatic voices that have stimulated ecotheology in the Pentecostal tradition and situates them within the broader context of Christian ecumenical ecotheologies (Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, and Ecofeminist). The author advances a novel approach to Pentecostal ecotheology through a pneumatology of the Spirit-baptized creation, the charismatic creational community, the holistic ecological Spirit, and the eschatological Spirit of ecological mission. Significantly, this book is the first substantive contribution to a Pentecostal pneumatological theology of creation with a particular focus on the Pentecostal community and its significance for the broader ecumenical community. Furthermore, it offers a fresh theological approach to imagining and sustaining earth-friendly practice in the twenty-first century Pentecostal church.