Abstract
A self-chosen five-year project by an ordained theologian committed to eco-feminism has resulted in a major prize-winning publication from the Netherlands, and, in translation, it alerts its readers not only to the author’s particular branch of European theological tradition but also to the ways in which theology, ecology and sustainability are discussed worldwide. One of Van Montfoort’s objectives is to stir up attention and discussion of the issues from their own local, historical and religious backgrounds (now, apparently, somewhat in abeyance in Europe).
The first chapter (‘Theology and sustainability’) picks apart our inherited ‘people-only’ mistaken perspective, expecting too much from ‘tech’ and economic growth rather than rethinking the ‘interconnectedness’ of everything in our ecosystem, not least ‘the inalienable worth of non-human nature’, which should lead us to theology as relating the whole to God (after much critical rethinking of whatever tradition one may inhabit). Chapter 2 (‘The different worldview of the Bible’) is invaluable in the way it draws together texts from Genesis, Isaiah, Psalms and Job – and from the ‘Lady Wisdom’ of Proverbs – and in revealing the importance of that last strand of tradition in particular for understanding Jesus (pp. 112–22). This chapter concludes by offering a constructive biblical theology of God’s intimate, continuous, creative and liberating presence in the universe (p. 165).
Chapter 3 (‘Issues in eco-theology’) sketches what both Protestant and Roman Catholic theologians and ecclesial institutions in the Netherlands have contributed to the discussion. Inevitably, it includes Pope Francis’s major contribution in Laudato Si’, drawing on the opening of St Francis of Assisi’s ‘Song of creation’. However, even this excellent document lacks ‘gender awareness’ – that is, attention to the insights of Latin American feminist theologians about the lamentable interconnections of environmental problems with women, particularly among the poor (p. 195). Hence, the importance of Chapter 4 (‘Insights from eco-feminist theology worldwide’). The key theologian here is Elizabeth Theokritoff, a most distinguished Greek Orthodox writer who does not explicitly criticize her tradition, but who necessarily draws on the writing of the ‘fathers’ and on liturgical texts. Crucially, ‘[t]he praise in the liturgy makes people into a part of the cosmic hymn of praise of all creatures’ (p. 288), the liturgical year patterning the linking of creation, sacrament and salvation, making human creatures capable of serving creation (p. 293). Readers may well find it especially helpful to read the work of Theokritoff in tandem with the case made in Chapter 2 for a constructive biblical theology.
It is interesting and important to notice both that the book’s author explicitly concludes that the dogma of Nicaea–Constantinople is key for ‘an ecological theology in the heart of church and belief’ (p. 303), which makes possible conversation both with theologians such as Theokritoff and with those whose liturgies are comprehensively and profoundly biblical in character. Eco-theologians of one sort or another alert to their own particular inheritance may wish to take note!