About the Ecological Crisis, Trauma and Theology course
Recent work in Christian trauma theology has offered profound insights into the nature of human suffering and appropriate theological responses. But what about the nonhuman? What about the suffering of the natural world? Can other species, or even the planet itself, be said to be capable of experiencing trauma? What might it mean to view climate change and mass extinction as traumatic events for creation?
In this short course, we will think theologically about the possibility of ecological trauma. Drawing on the methods and approaches of several leading trauma theologians, we will examine how we might mourn, lament, accompany, and bear witness to the trauma of the Earth. This is an approach to ecotheology that is acutely aware of the severity and scale of current ecological suffering, and resolutely refuses naive or simplistic solutions, but still holds fast to the possibility of hope.
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