The Bible and the Environment
I have been thinking about developing a course to complement, in some ways, my Sexuality and Christianity course, in which I bring in feminist and queer biblical criticism. I thought one important critical hermeneutic which I am less familiar with and most interested in is ecological. Since I have been largely ignorant of it, I asked a friend for some book ideas. The first I have read is The Bible and the Environment by David G. Horrell. It is a nice slim volume that provides a good primer for who is out there debating the Bible's role, positively and negatively, on shaping people's perspectives when it comes to environmental policies and more private choices and interests, what reading strategies (hermeneutics) are used on the different sides, and what biblical passages are the primary ones typically used to oppose or promote environmental policies and actions. Interestingly, ecological criticism has had a fairly similar trajectory as feminist biblical crit...