Beyond the Greening of Faith: Contemplative Practice in the Anthropocene
Toronto Journal of Theology December 1, 2022 DOI: 10.3138/tjt-2022-0043 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Meditation |
| Key points | Argues that Christian ecological engagement should move beyond justifying itself before prevailing environmental philosophies toward a dialogical, contemplatively transformative approach, and proposes that the Christian practice of reading the book of nature (theoria physike) exemplifies the contemplative formation needed in the Anthropocene. |
Abstract
Part of a special section on Creation Care, this essay argues that Christian responses to the ecological crisis ought to move beyond a conversation organized around the demands of prevailing environmental philosophies before which religious tradition seeks to justify itself, and towards a more dialogical, theoretically rigorous, heuristic, and contemplatively transformative exploration of the way Christian communities might deploy their spiritual and intellectual traditions in order to participate in the continuing effort to construct an integral ecological theory, practice, and politics. Drawing on the contemporary ecological criticism of writers such as Amitav Ghosh, Jan Zwicky, and Robert Bringhurst, the essay proposes that the Christian contemplative practice of reading the book of nature (theoria physike) provides a powerful example of what such Christian contemplative formation might look like in the Anthropocene.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mechanisms of mindfulness | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual and Neural Perspective | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness | 2012 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |