Appeals to the Bible in ecotheology and environmental ethics: a typology of hermeneutical stances

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Date
2008-08Author
Horrell, David G.
Hunt, Cherryl
Southgate, Christopher
Department
University of Exeter
Date issued
2008-08
Journal
Studies in Christian Ethics
Type
Article
Language
en
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Abstract
This article surveys and classifies the kinds of appeal to the Bible made in recent theological discussions of ecology and environmental ethics. These are, first, readings of ‘recovery’, followed by two types of readings of ‘resistance’. The first of these modes of resistance entails the exercise of suspicion against the text, a willingness to resist it given a commitment to a particular (ethical) reading perspective. The second, by contrast, entails a resistance to the contemporary ethical agenda, given a perceived commitment to the Bible. This initial typology, and the various reading strategies surveyed, are then subjected to criticism, as part of an attempt to begin to develop an ecological hermeneutic, a hermeneutic which operates between recovery and resistance with an approach that may be labelled ‘revision’, ‘reformation’, or ‘reconfiguration’.
Funders/Sponsor
AHRC
Description
© 2008 by SAGE Publications. Post-print version. 12 month embargo by the publisher. Article will be released August 2009.
Citation
21(2), pp.219-238
EISSN
1745-5235
ISSN
0953-9468