Ecotheology is of relatively recent origin. Traditional Christian theologies have often been pre-occupied with questions about God from a purely metaphysical perspective. The emergence of process theology in the 1950s was a breakthrough in that. It contained liberative, ecologically sensitive insights. Due to its largely philosophical orientation, process theology could not exert much influence in the Third World context. Christian theology continued to be predominantly anthropocentric, even in its modern progressive forms of liberation theologies. Although liberation theologies succeeded in shifting the focus of theology from a metaphysical God to the concerns of the oppressed, the rest of the creation, nature, was by and large, neglected. The problems which the earth faces today and its impact on the poor, women, and indigenous people who are more vulnerable to ecological crises than any other sections of a society, have seldom been addressed in a concrete manner in theological thinking, until quite recently.
Lynn White's critique of the Judeo-Christian concept of creation, attributing the blame of the current ecological impasse to an unholy alliance between modern science and the anthropocentric Genesis creation account, was ground breaking. Ever since this criticism, there have been various attempts to redeem Christian theology from anthropocentrism. An ecotheological perspective began to be adopted in the areas of biblical interpretation and doctrine. This, indeed, marked a paradigm shift a shift from anthropocentrism to cosmocentrism in theology. A new movement in theology called 'ecotheology' or 'green theology' began to emerge.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) took a lead in responding to the ecological challenges facing theology. In the 1970s, the WCC provided Christian churches with a vision of a 'Just, Participatory, and Sustainable Society. In 1990, there was again a radical shift in emphasis when the WCC adopted the theme of 'Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation' (JPIC) as one of its central thrusts which was forcefully articulated in the Seoul Conference (1990) and in the Canberra Assembly (1991).
While the WCC continues to keep this focus on 'eco-development', there has been development in the form of an emerging ecotheology or green theology in the West. In the United States, for example, ecological expressions of faith and theological convictions took a post-modern twist and culminated in the foundation of the Creation Spirituality Movement, mostly associated with Matthew Fox (his Original Blessing had a sweeping impact in the West) and others. Although it continues to be a powerful influential movement in the West, Creation Spirituality, nonetheless, represents an eclectic and rather too romantic a vision of the 'New Age' where social justice issues of the South are not taken seriously. Finding Creation Spirituality wanting in social justice, feminist theologians like Sallie McFague and Rosemary Radford Ruether in the States and Anne Primavesi in Britain developed eco-feminist theologies where the interrelation between social justice and ecological concerns are well focused. Sean McDonagh and Ian Bradley have given specific attention to the neo-colonial dimensions of ecological problems in the Third World in their writings. On the Continent, Jürgen Moltmann's God in Creation: An Ecological Doctrine of Creation has also been an influential work in this regard.
While these voices of ecotheology were being articulated in the West, they were heard less often in India. The latter half of this century has witnessed the strong impact of indigenous theologies like liberation theology and its variant forms like feminist theology and more recently Dalit theology, in India. Unlike the traditional theologies, these liberation theologies concentrated almost entirely on the concrete problems of the oppressed sections of the society. Feminist theology, after realizing that the concerns of women cannot be subsumed under the broad Marxist category of economic class, which liberation theology used for its social analysis, developed its own theology with a focus on gender. More recently, in India, the 'Dalits' (those who are considered to be outside the four castes within the Hindu caste system) also found liberation theology's Maxist class analysis inadequate to focus attention on the specific reality of oppression on the basis of caste. This led to the formulation of Dalit theology. All these three forms of liberation theology exert great impact on the theological scene in India today.
The early years of my theological education had been characterised by a passion for articulating liberation theology, albeit the Latin American version of it. Fr. Sebastian Kappan, himself a renowned liberation theologian, was one of my greatest intellectual influences. Some ten years ago, during an informal chat with him, on 'the future of liberation theology', Fr. Kappan said: "Liberation theology has become stale". Those words did come to be as a real shock. Not because I did not agree with him. On the contrary, contra I could not agree more with him on that point. It shocked me because he was probably the first theologian to admit that liberation theology had certain serious problems to sort out. I was myself beginning to think along those lines and look at some areas within liberation theology in a critical manner. One of the concerns I always had was the total neglect of the cosmic (ecological) dimension and the exclusive anthropocentric thrust in liberation theology. My own involvement, then, in the anti-Nuclear plants in Karnataka convinced me that it was, indeed, a serious overlook in liberation theology, as environmental concerns in the Third World countries have always been, in a real sense, social justice concerns. I drew the attention of Fr. Kappan to this aspect of the absence of ecological concerns in liberation theology. Agreeing with my observation, and once again, to my pleasant surprise, he told me that he was already working on an 'Indian ecotheology' from a liberationist perspective which, in his own words, would "transcend Marxist analysis of society and anthropocentric treatment of theological doctrines". Encouraged by those words, I invited him to share his views on ecotheology at a meeting in the United Theological College, Bangalore. Fr. Kappan brought out the limitations of liberation theology when he dwelt on anthropocentrism and the uncritical use of and overreliance on Marxist class analysis in liberation theology. I followed every bit of his presentation with much excitement because his views struck a harmonious chord with my own thinking. Perhaps, the only thing which I missed in his talk was some discussion on hermeneutics in liberation theology. The biblical interpretation, particularly the exodus hermeneutics in liberation theology, although it was a ground breaking experiment, betrayed shallowness in exegesis. Unfortuna-tely, Fr. Kappan was called back to Mother Earth a few years ago, rather prematurely, leaving the task of developing an integral ecotheology still undone. I thought I could pay my humble tribute to Fr. Kappan by venturing to undertake the task of developing an integral ecotheology, which would in essence be a green version of liberation theology. I was fully aware that I was entering a path which angels would fear to tread. This was the motivation for me to do by Ph.D on "Towards an integral ecotheology relevant for Indía". As the dissertation comes out in a book form, it is my sincere hope that the book will at least be regarded as a step forward as far as the future of liberation theologies is concerned, particularly in the Indian context.
This book is an attempt to redeem liberation theologies from some of their pitfalls such as exclusive anthropocentrism in the treatment of theological themes, shallow exegesis of biblical texts, and rather too general a social analysis. I have attempted to embark on this task out of my passion for liberation theologies, as it is my firm conviction that only contextual theologies can be of relevance and that liberation theologies cannot afford to fail or become redundant. However, for liberation theologies to be resurrected, they need to assume a green face. As the concerns of the marginalised sections of society are integrally interwoven with the concerns of nature, an ecojustice perspective will go a long way in evolving a green version of liberation theology. This is precisely what is attempted here by suggesting possible changes in the areas of doctrines, hermeneutics and social analysis in liberation theologies. No more can liberation theologies operate from a traditional leftist (Marxist), modernist, anthropocentric and androcentric framework. A new perspective where ecological dimension becomes an integral part of the concerns of the marginalised is the need of the hour. This is the perspective offered in this book and from this view point, a fresh look at Latin American liberation, Dalit and Ecofeminist theologies is made. It is also an effort to take liberation theologies beyond the confines of modernity and equip them to face the challenges of postmodernism.
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Visual Search
Manage Wishlist