3 - Deep ecology: the return of nature

Summary

Introduction: ecocentric and anthropocentric approaches in political ecology

The issue for a political theology of nature is how to give an account of the content of the ecological relations operative in this world of creatures. The opening narratives in Genesis offer us, at a minimum, an account of the creation as a sequence of forms which culminates in a world of creatures. These are narratives of creation: the world of creatures emerges as a ‘consequence’ of divine action. However, holding to creation is not the same as articulating in theological form how the human creature is related to other creatures. Christianity knows, I think, of the deep and intimate relations that govern this world: the contingency and dependence of creatures on their God. The matter is to develop a rich Trinitarian ontology in ways that draw strength from, and clarify and correct, the situatedness of the human: a social creature in a common realm, oriented towards the triune God.

In the previous chapter, the tendencies of personalism and naturalism in ecological discourse were noted. The categories of existence and historico-natural emergence that I proposed are designed to move the present inquiry beyond the practical and theoretical differences within these tendencies. Such a move is by way of a critical yet dynamic articulation of Christian theology with various political ecologies. In this chapter, then, attention shifts to the political discourse of deep ecology which has sought a hearing in the last thirty years or so.