Abstract
Many of the elements of this fiftieth-anniversary release of John Cobb Jr.’s pioneering work in ecological theology stand as an enduring testament to his prescience. Originally published in 1972, this work was among the first by North American Christian theologians to articulate both the perils of the unfolding ecological crisis and the ambiguous legacy of Western Christianity with regards to environmental concern. In conversational and accessible prose, C. argues for a reimagined Christian worldview that conceives of God’s reign in terms of “an ecological civilization” (x) in which concern for the human person amidst creation is decentered but still affirmed.
Employing a Whiteheadian-informed process metaphysics, which he helped to popularize within contemporary theological discourse, C. argues against a modernist dualistic vision that both separates the categories of history and nature and places the human over and against the ecological communities comprising the Earth. While process theology is by no means the only avenue into this ecologically sensitive framework, C. develops it to good effect here. C.’s pluralistic inclinations also resonate with present-day calls for environmental movements to cultivate solidarities across religious and cultural lines.
Although C.’s work anticipated several of the issues that Christian ecological theology and environmental ethics would take up in the subsequent half century, there is also much that remained unanticipated, or at least uncommented upon, in this text. Concerns regarding environmental justice, and the intersections of race, gender, and the environment remain unexplored here. Indeed, given the Western environmental movement’s history of white supremacist leanings, particularly with respect to the issues of population growth and the configuration of space, C.’s consideration of the issue of overpopulation might have been critically revised in this edition to move beyond his defense of abortion as a means to curb population growth.
This text would be best suited for undergraduate courses aimed at surveying the development of Christian environmental thought over recent decades.