Earth Month Reading
Some Suggested Titles from AAR's Reading Religion
Reading Religion is an openly accessible book review website published by the American Academy of Religion. The site provides up-to-date coverage of scholarly publishing in religious studies, reviewed by scholars with special interest and/or expertise in the relevant subfields. Reviews aim to be concise, comprehensive, and timely.
Below, the editors of Reading Religion have selected some books and reviews from the site and have shared some titles available to review. If you’re interested in reviewing books for Reading Religion, take a look at the guidelines. If there are any books missing from the Reading Religion site that you think should be there, email readingreligion@aarweb.org.
Reviews to Read
African Ecological Ethics and Spirituality for Cosmic Flourishing: An African Commentary on Laudato Si’
Edited by Stan Chu Ilo
From the review:
“At the heart of the book is the authors’ invitation to African readers to reclaim a legacy specific to the continent that will allow them to creatively bypass the destructive development practices so many other regions have already begun. . . . May this excellent volume initiate many more conversations about how the earth-based wisdom of African cultural traditions might transform Africa’s current ecological and social challenges, as well as provide guidance for the rest of us in contexts only beginning to feel the impacts of our privilege.” - Rachel Joy Wheeler
Religion and Nature in North America: An Introduction
Edited by Laurel D. Kearns and Whitney Bauman
From the review:
“Taken together, the essays present an academic narrative on the intertwined development of religion and nature in North America—spanning agriculture, national parks, petroleum, and hunting—while acknowledging that these experiences vary depending on one’s position within structures of discrimination and privilege. Consequently, addressing environmental challenges requires an understanding of the interconnected and intersectional dimensions of religion.” - Joseph R. Wiebe
A Theology of Creation: Ecology, Art, and Laudato Si'
By Thomas S. Hibbs
From the review:
“The most significant contribution of Hibbs’ book is how it demonstrates the poignancy and value of works of poetry and visual art for the work of articulating a sophisticated and compelling theological account of the place, and responsibilities, of humanity within God’s creation in our ecologically precarious situation. Hibbs shows how human creativity can serve as a balm for the wounds of our contemporary alienation.” – Joseph K. Gordon
Reconsider the Lilies: Challenging Christian Environmentalism's Colonial Legacy
By Andrew R. H. Thompson
From the review:
“Thompson’s volume is less about condemnation and more about reimagining. He warmly invites readers to envision environmentalism not as an issue set apart but as a calling interwoven within the Church’s expansive work of justice-making in the world. His work pushes back against the Church’s long-standing assumption that environmental care is distinct from other expressions of justice. Instead, he advocates for the position that environmentalism must be distinctively linked to the Church’s broader social and economic justice priorities.” – Ian Clark
Available for Review
Falling in Love with Nature: The Values of Latinx Catholic Environmentalism
By Amanda J. Baugh
From the publisher:
“In Falling in Love with Nature, Amanda J. Baugh tells the story of American environmentalism through a focus on Spanish-speaking Catholics, shedding light on environmental actors who have been hidden in plain sight. While dominant narratives about environmental activism include minorities, primarily in the realm of environmental racism and injustice, Baugh demonstrates that minority communities are not merely victims of environmental problems. They can be active agents who express love for nature based on inherited family traditions and close relationships with the land. Baugh shows that Spanish-speaking Catholics have values that have been overlooked in global discourses, grassroots movements, and the highest echelons of the US Catholic Church. By drawing attention to the environmental knowledge that is already abundant within Spanish-speaking Catholic communities, Falling in Love with Nature challenges readers to rethink their assumptions about who can be an environmental leader and what counts as environmentalism.”
Holy Ground: Climate Change, Preaching, and the Apocalypse of Place
By Jerusha Matsen Neal
From the publisher:
“The climate crisis' most difficult questions are not technological but relational. Environmental catastrophe reveals a world increasingly divided and inextricably linked, pressing questions of place. How do the places in which we stand relate to the places of others? What are the limits of our belonging and our power? To whom are we responsible, and what does that accountability require?
In Holy Ground, Jerusha Matsen Neal centers the sermons of displaced, Indigenous communities in the South Pacific and the proclamation of the displaced prophet Ezekiel to expose colonial specters in the contemporary environmental movement and the North American pulpit. Communities that have loved and lost land carry hard-fought wisdom about the renunciation of false hopes and false gods. Such wisdom crucially orients climate justice preaching in an unraveling world. Naming broken pasts and uncertain futures, the sermons this volume engages take seriously the question seared into the heart of the biblical text: can the creation and covenant of a good God come undone? The scriptural witness forecloses simple answers to that theological crisis, as do the contemporary witnesses of those who stand in rising tides. Instead, such witnesses call listeners to costly acts of repentance and covenantal solidarity, reclaiming preaching's role in the climate fight.”
Creation Care Discipleship: Why Earthkeeping Is an Essential Christian Practice
By Steven Bouma-Prediger
From the publisher:
“Although our planet faces numerous ecological crises, including climate change, many Christians continue to view their faith as primarily a ‘spiritual’ matter that has little relationship to the world in which we live. But Steven Bouma-Prediger contends that protecting and restoring our planet is part and parcel of what it means to be a Christian.
Making his case from Scripture, theology, and ethics and including insights from the global church, Bouma-Prediger explains why Christians must acknowledge their identity as earthkeepers and therefore embrace their calling to serve and protect their home planet and fellow creatures. To help readers put an ‘earthkeeping faith’ into practice, he also suggests numerous practical steps that concerned believers can take to care for the planet.
Bouma-Prediger unfolds a biblical vision of earthkeeping and challenges Christians to view care for the earth as an integral part of Christian discipleship.”
Meditations on Creation in an Era of Extinction
By Kate Rigby
From the publisher:
“Practicing an ancient form of theological reflection on creation — the hexameron — this book attends to the entangled crises of global climate change, toxic pollution, biodiversity loss, social inequity, and ecological unraveling. Rigby takes each day of the Genesis 1 creation narrative as the launching point for critical theological engagement with earlier commentators like Basil of Caesarea, Augustine, Abelard, and Thomas Traherne, in the contemporary horizon of planetary imperilment and ecological injustice. Informed also by both Western science and indigenous knowledge, this book highlights faith-based initiatives from around the world that are contributing to the healing of human relations with our fellow creatures and shared earthly environs. By attending to planetary well-being and eco-justice, Rigby’s unique and striking approach to the hexameron captures both the industrial-era devastation of our common home and the precious hope for salvific healing in Shalom.”
Refugia Faith: Seeking Hidden Shelters, Ordinary Wonders, and the Healing of the Earth
By Debra Rienstra
From the publisher:
“Refugia Faith: Seeking Hidden Shelters, Ordinary Wonders, and the Healing of the Earth explores how Christian spirituality and practice must adapt to prepare for life on a climate-altered planet.
Refugia (reh-FU-jee-ah) is a biological term describing places of shelter where life endures in times of crisis, such as a volcanic eruption, fire, or stressed climate. Ideally, these refugia endure, expand, and connect so that new life emerges.
Debra Rienstra applies this concept to human culture and faith, asking: In this era of ecological devastation, how can Christians become people of refugia? How can we find and nurture these refugia, not only in the biomes of the earth, but in our human cultural systems and in our spiritual lives? How can we apply all our love and creativity to this task as never before?
Rienstra recounts her own process of reeducation — beginning not as a scientist or an outdoors enthusiast but by examining the wisdom of theologians and philosophers, farmers and nature writers, scientists and activists, and especially people on the margins.
By weaving nature writing, personal narrative, and theological reflection, Rienstra grapples honestly with her own fears and longings and points toward a way forward — a way to transform Christian spirituality and practice, become a healer on a damaged earth, and inspire others to do the same.”
