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A Greener Faith
Religious Environmentalism and Our Planet's Future
by Roger S. Gottlieb

Description

In a time of darkening environmental prospects, frightening religious fundamentalism, and moribund liberalism, the remarkable and historically unprecedented rise of religious environmentalism is a profound source of hope. Theologians are recovering nature-honoring elements of traditional religions and forging bold new theologies connecting devotion to God and spiritual truth with love for God's creation and care for the Earth. And religious people throughout the world are transforming the meaning of their faiths in the face of the environmental crisis. The successes and significance of religious environmentalism are manifest in statements by leaders of virtually all the world's religions, in new and "green" prayers and rituals, and in sophisticated criticisms of modern society's economy, politics, and culture. From the Evangelical Environmental Network to the Buddhist prime minister of Mongolia, the National Council of Churches to tree-planting campaigns in Zimbabwe, religious environmentalism has become a powerful component of the world environmental movement.

In A Greener Faith , Roger S. Gottlieb chronicles the promises of this critically important movement, illuminating its principal ideas, leading personalities, and ways of connecting care for the earth with justice for human beings. He also shows how religious environmentalism breaks the customary boundaries of "religious issues" in political life. Asserting that environmental degradation is sacrilegious, sinful, and an offense against God catapults religions directly into questions of social policy, economic and moral priorities, and the overall direction of secular society. Gottlieb contends that a spiritual perspective applied to the Earth provides the environmental movement with a uniquely appropriate way to voice its dream of a sustainable and just world. Equally important, it helps develop a world-making political agenda that far exceeds interest group politics applied to forests and toxic incinerators. Rather, religious environmentalism offers an all-inclusive vision of what human beings are and how we should treat each other and the rest of life.

Gottlieb deftly analyzes the growing synthesis of the movement's religious, social, and political aspects, as well as the challenges it faces in consumerism, fundamentalism, and globalization. Highly engaging and passionately argued, this book is an indispensable resource for people of faith, environmentalists, scholars, and anyone who is concerned about our planet's future.

Features:
- First comprehensive account on religious environmentalism
- Covers political activism, as well as theology and ethics

Reviews

"At last someone has not only noticed the extraordinary story of the rise of religious participation in the environemnetal movement, but has written a book which tells this story in an engaging way. Gottlieb chronicles the increasing role played by faith groups but is also very good at pinpointing the areas of disagreement and tension with an often dismissive secular world. This should be vital reading for anyone who thinks they know what the future of the environmentalmovement is. Gottlieb will show many people worlds they didn't even think existed! A timely book; a wonderful collection of stories; and some hard questions. Excellent."--Martin Palmer, Secretary General of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation

"Roger S. Gottlieb is the foremost voice in joining spirituality, environmentalism, and progressive politics. In this critically important book, he creates a needed sense of community, engenders hope, gives us direction, and impels us to act on behalf of the earth and all its beings."--David Landis Barnhill, editor of At Home on the Earth: Becoming Native to Our Place

"Roger S. Gottlieb's A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and Our Planet's Future offers a superb insight into the larger issues of an integral Earth-human survival...a most needed guide."--Father Thomas Berry, author of The Great Work: Our Way into the Future

"This should be vital reading for anyone who thinks they know what the future of the environmental movement is. Gottlieb will show many people worlds they didn't even think existed! A timely book; a wonderful collection of stories; and some hard questions. Excellent."--Martin Palmer, Secretary General of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation

"Gottlieb's depiction of globalization as a non-democratic system of commodification of humans and environment is incisive. Religious environmentalism needs to face both its profound diversity and the inequality which globalization produces. Eminently readable, this book would make student discussions far more knowlegable and sophisticated. It provides insights to religious environmentalists and helps broaden the views of the despirers of religion. Above all, this is a hopeful and wise book." --Environmental Ethics

"Roger S. Gottlieb has written a seminal book examining the emerging debate on environmental ethics among the world's great faith traditions and what that means for the future of environmental stewardship."--Carl Pope, Executive Director, The Sierra Club

"Roger S. Gottlieb presents a comprehensive view of the nexus of religion and the environment. The specific stories of faith-based environmentalism provide a bright picture of the faith community's capacity for caring for God's creation. If we actively follow his lead, we will go a long way toward being more effective stewards of our fragile planet."--Dr. Bob Edgar, General Secretary, National Council of Churches USA

About the Author:
Roger S. Gottlieb is Professor of Philosophy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Mass. Among his many books are This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, and Environment , now in its Second Edition, A Spirituality of Resistance: Finding a Peaceful Heart and Protecting the Earth and Joining Hands: Politics and Religion Together for Social Change .

The Power of Art by Simon Schama

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Schama presents eight remarkable artists who created their masterworks against a backdrop of personal and professional distress. From politically charged commentaries (David, Picasso, Turner and Rembrandt) to intensely personal visions of the world (van Gogh and Rothko) and the reinvention of the divine (Bernini and Caravaggio), Schama takes these masters' hallowed works off the museum wall and drags them through in the mud and muck that went into their creation: Bernini's savage attack on his mistress with a razor, Caravaggio's rapacious gutter lifestyle, Turner's hands-on (and more) approach to painting, David's willingness to follow his political allegiances no matter the cost. Schama's approach succeeds admirably in breaking away from conventional art history; throughout, he comes across like a cool British uncle talking about art late into the night. He renders these canonical works and their creators immediate and hip, conveying what it might have been like to be shocked by their audacity and sheer newness. This book should be of great value in a classroom, making an enormously appealing introduction for students encountering these artists for the first time. Though professional art historians will not find much new here in the way of research and analysis, anyone even remotely interested in art will find much to enjoy.
Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Book Description

"Great art has dreadful manners," Simon Schama observes wryly at the start of his epic and explosive exploration of the power, and whole point, of art. "The hushed reverence of the gallery can fool you into believing masterpieces are polite things; visions that soothe, charm and beguile, but actually they are thugs. Merciless and wily, the greatest paintings grab you in a headlock, rough up your composure, and then proceed in short order to re-arrange your sense of reality. . . ."

With the same disarming force, The Power of Art propels us on an eye-opening, breathtaking odyssey, zooming in on eight extraordinary masterpieces, from Caravaggio's David and Goliath to Picasso's Guernica. Jolting us far from the comfort zone of the hushed art gallery, Schama closes in on intense make-or-break turning points in the lives of eight great artists who, under extreme stress, created something unprecedented, altering the course of art forever.

The embattled heroes-Caravaggio, Bernini, Rembrandt, David, Turner, Van Gogh, Picasso and Rothko-each in his own resolute way, faced crisis with steadfast defiance, pitting passion and conviction against scorn and short-sightedness. The masterpieces they created challenged convention, shattered complacency, shifted awareness and changed the way we look at the world.

With vivid storytelling and powerfully evocative descriptive passages, Schama explores the dynamic personalities of the artists and the spirit of the times they lived through, capturing the flamboyant theatre of bourgeois life in Amsterdam, the passion and paranoia of Revolutionary Paris, and the carnage and pathos of Civil War Spain.

Most compelling of all, The Power of Art traces the extraordinary evolution of eight "eye-popping" world-class works of art. Created in a bolt of illumination, such works "tell us something about how the world is, how it is to be inside our skins, that no more prosaic source of wisdom can deliver. And when they do that, they answer, irrefutably and majestically, the nagging question of every reluctant art-conscript . . . 'OK, OK, but what's art really for?'"

From the Chomsky book discussion: Let's be clear about what Presidential elections really explain about the American people. The 2004 election panned out like this: Bush: 62,027,582 votes. Kerry: 59,026,003 votes. Number of eligible voters who didn't show up: 79,279,000 (NYT, Dec. 26, 2004). Almost 80 million eligible voters (almost 20 million more than the winning amount) did not vote: they stayed home. The majority of Americans did not support Bush in the 2004 elections. We don't know what they supported...other than something other than the candidates provided.