What is it about?
Scholars searching for the origins of the eco-crisis blame the classical Greek roots of dualism; others Enlightenment ideas for a theology becoming anthropology, disconnected from creation and the Creator. Environmental historians point to the new science and technology, to the growth of industrial production, and a global market in natural resources. Others blamed the Renaissance affirmation of ‘man’ as the measure of all; the loss of respect for the creator of the providentially ordered creation; the rise of western individualism and materialism. Today, earth faces an environmental crisis that threatens the life of the planet. By formulating plans to deal with the large-scale problems, we lay the foundations for peace and justice.
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Why is it important?
Τhe task of Christ’s believers is to follow his steps, working for the well being of the suffering ‘non beings in non-places.’ We must discern who the sinners, the sick, the blind, the poor, the exploited, the marginalized, the non beings are in our own city, or bioregion and with whom Christ is identifying and participating in today’s context of the ecological crisis.
Perspectives
The interrelatedness and interdependence of all cosmic beings uncover the dualism: soul/body. The idea of creatio ex nihilo promotes the desecration of the created world, lying at the root of the eco-crisis. The patristic idea of creation ‘ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων’ [‘out of non-being’] refers to what in God is envisaged as the pre-ontological nihil from which all proceed, deconstructing the dualism of a spiritual and a materialistic cosmos.
Dr Ioanna Sahinidou
GEC Greek Evangelical Church
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Roots of the Ecological Crisis and the Way Out: Creation Out of ‘no thing’ God Being ‘no thing’, Feminist Theology, April 2016, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0966735015627971.
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