No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 June 2025
Science and technology are not enough in addressing the climate emergency. In his critique of Western Christianity, Lynn White challenged to rethink our religion. Pope Francis in Laudato Si’ underlined the importance of ecological education in ecological conversion. I propose that a change in the way we read, interpret, and teach biblical, religious, and other authoritative texts will help us in meaning-making amid the planetary crisis. In this contribution, I will first examine the interrelation of climate change, psychospiritual health, and meaning-making through the Scriptures. Second, I will succinctly present some simple methodological advances in ecological biblical hermeneutics that can facilitate generating new ideas on the interrelationships between and among the divine, the humans, and the nonhuman/beyond-human creation in biblical and other texts. Finally, I will apply these methodologies on Romans 8:18-30 as a test case for alternative ecological insights and their practical implications as we navigate this post-COVID-19 world.
1 Fernando F. Segovia, “Criticism in Critical Times: Reflections on Visions and Task,” Journal of Biblical Literature 134, no. 1 (2015): 20; Ma. Maricel S. Ibita, “Changing World, Transforming God’s Word: Narrative, Ecological and Future-Oriented Approaches to Scriptures,” Concilium: International Journal for Theology, no. 3 (2022): 55.
2 John P. Rafferty, “Anthropocene Epoch: Definition & Evidence,” in Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/science/Anthropocene-Epoch.
3 Rafferty, “Anthropocene Epoch: Definition & Evidence.”
4 Jonathan Amos, “Anthropocene Unit of Geological Time Is Rejected,” Bbc.Com, https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68632086.
5 Amos, “Anthropocene Unit of Geological Time Is Rejected.”
6 Amos, “Anthropocene Unit of Geological Time Is Rejected.”
7 Jason W. Moore, “The Capitalocene, Part I: On the Nature and Origins of Our Ecological Crisis,” Journal of Peasant Studies 44, no. 3 (2017): 594–630.
8 Kathryn Yusoff, “Anthropogenesis: Origins and Endings in the Anthropocene,” Theory, Culture & Society 33, no. 2 (2016): 6.
9 Glenn Albrecht, “Chronic Environmental Change: Emerging ‘Psychoterratic’ Syndromes,” in Climate Change and Human Well-Being: Global Challenges and Opportunities, ed. Inka Weissbecker, International and Cultural Psychology (New York: Springer, 2011), 43–56, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9742-5_3.
10 Mary Doak, “On Studying and Teaching Religion in Dark Times,” Horizons 48, no. 2 (2021): 477–89, https://doi.org/10.1017/hor.2021.57.
11 See Francis, Laudato Si’ (May 24, 2015), §34, §195, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html. On his hesitancy to and warning about turning only to scientific interventions, see also §105, §193.
12 See Francis, Laudato Si’, §§202–32.
13 Susan Clayton and Bryan T. Karazsia, “Development and Validation of a Measure of Climate Change Anxiety,” Journal of Environmental Psychology 69 (2020): 101434, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2020.101434.
14 Susan Clayton et al., “Mental Health and Our Changing Climate: Impacts, Implications, and Guidance” (Washington, D.C: American Psychological Association and ecoAmerica, 2017), https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2017/03/mental-health-climate.pdf.
15 Clayton et al., “Mental Health and Our Changing Climate,” 6.
16 Clayton et al., “Mental Health and Our Changing Climate,” 6, 22–30.
17 Clayton et al., “Mental Health and Our Changing Climate,” 6, 31–38.
18 Clayton et al., “Mental Health and Our Changing Climate,” 22–24.
19 Clayton et al., “Mental Health and Our Changing Climate,” 24–27.
20 Clayton et al., “Mental Health and Our Changing Climate,” 6–7.
21 In this contribution, the use of the term “depression” does not pertain to “depressive mood” but rather to the clinically diagnosed mental health condition or “major depressive disorder” (MDD). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) outlines both symptoms and additional criteria that patients experienced during the same two-week period that result in change in the person’s functionality in daily life. Diagnosis should include depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure in people in which other signs and symptoms from other medical conditions are ruled out. Some of the other symptoms include unexplained weight loss, sleep disturbance, psychomotor changes, fatigue, feeling of worthlessness, difficulty in decision making, decreased concentration, and suicidal ideation, among others. Some risk factors are biochemistry, family predisposition, personality, exposure to trauma, and other environmental factors. For more on the clinical definition, symptoms, and management of depression, see Elizabeth Millard, “Depression: DSM-5 Criteria, Prevalence, Risk and Treatment,” MedCentral, April 14, 2022, https://www.medcentral.com/behavioral-mental/depression/assessment-diagnosis-adherence-depression.
22 Clayton et al., “Mental Health and Our Changing Climate,” 27.
23 Steven Taylor, “Anxiety Disorders, Climate Change, and the Challenges Ahead: Introduction to the Special Issue,” Journal of Anxiety Disorders 76 (2020): 102313, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2020.102313; Marianne Hrabok, Aaron Delorme, and Vincent I. O. Agyapong, “Threats to Mental Health and Well-Being Associated with Climate Change,” Journal of Anxiety Disorders 76 (2020): 102295, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2020.102295.
24 Yumiko Coffey et al., “Understanding Eco-Anxiety: A Systematic Scoping Review of Current Literature and Identified Knowledge Gaps,” Journal of Climate Change and Health 3 (2021): 100047, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joclim.2021.100047.
25 See Coffey et al., “Understanding Eco-Anxiety”; Clayton et al., “Mental Health and Our Changing Climate,” 37–38. See also Christy Lang Hearlson, “Ecological Conversion as Conversion to the Child: Becoming Caregivers, Becoming Childlike,” Horizons 47, no. 2 (December 2020): 232–55, https://doi.org/10.1017/hor.2020.105.
26 The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Ring of Fire,” in Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/place/Ring-of-Fire.
27 Clayton et al., “Mental Health and Our Changing Climate,” 68.
28 Clayton and Karazsia, “Development and Validation of a Measure of Climate Change Anxiety.”
29 Taylor, “Anxiety Disorders, Climate Change, and the Challenges Ahead”.
30 Bas Verplanken, Elizabeth Marks, and Alexandru I. Dobromir, “On the Nature of Eco-Anxiety: How Constructive or Unconstructive is Habitual Worry about Global Warming?,” Journal of Environmental Psychology 72 (2020): 101528, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2020.101528.
31 Clayton and Karazsia, “Development and Validation of a Measure of Climate Change Anxiety”; Taylor, “Anxiety Disorders, Climate Change, and the Challenges Ahead”.
32 Clayton and Karazsia, “Development and Validation of a Measure of Climate Change Anxiety”; Per Espen Stoknes, What We Think about when We Try Not to Think about Global Warming: Toward a New Psychology of Climate Action (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2015).
33 Andrea Y. J. Mah et al., “Coping with Climate Change: Three Insights for Research, Intervention, and Communication to Promote Adaptive Coping to Climate Change,” Journal of Anxiety Disorders 75 (2020): 102282, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2020.102282.
34 Taylor, “Anxiety Disorders, Climate Change, and the Challenges Ahead”.
35 See Rose Ingutia, “The Impacts of COVID-19 and Climate Change on Smallholders through the Lens of SDGs, and Ways to Keep Smallholders on 2030 Agenda,” International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology 28, no. 8 (2021): 693–708, https://doi.org/10.1080/13504509.2021.1905100. For Ingutia, the COVID-19 pandemic increased demands for energy and food triggering greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and for water resulting in widespread famines. See also Ian Christopher Naungayan Rocha et al., “Typhoons during the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Philippines: Impact of a Double Crises on Mental Health,” Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness 16, no. 6 (December 2022): 2275–78, https://doi.org/10.1017/dmp.2021.140. Rocha and colleagues argue that at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic between 2020 and 2021, at least twenty-two tropical typhoons battered the Philippines resulting in hundreds of thousands losing loved ones, their homes, and collateral assets to flood and landslides. In addition, the lack of physical distancing at the evacuation centers also led to more COVID-19 cases. Consequently, the simultaneous threats of the pandemic and ecological disasters caused detrimental effects to the mental health of the Filipinos.
36 Scott Berinato, “That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief,” Harvard Business Review, March 23, 2020, https://hbr.org/2020/03/that-discomfort-youre-feeling-is-grief.
37 Emily Esfahani Smith, The Power of Meaning (London: Penguin Random House, 2017). For more information, see also her website, https://www.emilyesfahanismith.com/.
38 Lynn White, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,” Science 155, no. 3767 (1967): 1206, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.155.3767.1203.
39 Walter Brueggemann, “Formfulness of Grief,” Int 31, no. 3 (1977): 267–70.
40 Brueggemann, “Formfulness of Grief,” 267.
41 Brueggemann, “Formfulness of Grief,” 268.
42 Brueggemann, “Formfulness of Grief,” 268.
43 Brueggemann, “Formfulness of Grief,” 268.
44 Brueggemann, “Formfulness of Grief,” 269.
45 Brueggemann, “Formfulness of Grief,” 269.
46 Brueggemann, “Formfulness of Grief,” 270.
47 Brueggemann, “Formfulness of Grief,” 270. For some scholars, Psalm 88 is an exception because it ends with either the psalmist’s companions are in darkness (New Revised Standard Version) or darkness itself being the psalmist’s companion or friend (New American Bible). For me, however, Psalm 88 still ends in hope as it introduces the Lord as “God of my salvation.” Moreover, although an immediate response is hoped for, God allowed the psalmist here an unhurried mourning or grief (emotion) and an unhurried morning (time and process). The experience of the psalmist is too tough that it necessitates an accompanying presence though silent instead of a consoling cheap grace. See Ma. Maricel S. Ibita, “‘Learn How to Weep’: The Contemporary Challenge of Lament in Today’s World.” Louvain Studies 41, no. 4 (2018): 377–91, https://doi.org/10.2143/LS.41.4.3285585, esp. 382–84.
48 Walter Brueggemann, “Psalms and the Life of Faith: A Suggested Typology of Function,” JSOT 5, no. 17 (1980): 3–32, https://doi.org/10.1177/030908928000501701.
49 Sandra M. Schneiders, The Revelatory Text: Interpreting the New Testament as Sacred Scripture, 2nd ed. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999). For the world behind the text, see pages 97–131; for the world of the text, see pages 132–56; and for the world before the text, see pages 157–79. For an overview of these important terms, see pages 110–14.
50 Schneiders., The Revelatory Text, 111.
51 Megan McKenna, Not Counting Women and Children. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994), 225.
52 See David J. A. Clines, “Story and Poem: The Old Testament as Literature and as Scripture,” in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1967-1998, vol. 1, 2 vols., JSOTSup 292 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 225–38.
53 Robert Alter, “From Line to Story in Biblical Verse,” Poetics Today 4, no. 4 (1983): 615–37, https://doi.org/10.2307/1772317.
54 Bruce W. Longenecker, “The Narrative Approach to Paul: An Early Retrospective,” Currents in Biblical Research 1, no. 1 (2002): 88–111, https://doi.org/10.1177/1476993X0200100105; Ma. Marilou S. Ibita, “‘If Anyone Hungers, He/She Must Eat in the House’ (1 Cor 11:34) A Narrative-Critical, Socio-Historical and Grammatical-Philological Analysis of the Lord’s Supper in Corinth (1 Cor 11:17-34)” (PhD diss., Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 2012).
55 See David Rhoads, “Narrative Criticism and the Gospel of Mark,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 50, no. 3 (1982): 417, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/L.3.411.
56 Norman C. Habel, “Introducing Ecological Hermeneutics,” in Exploring Ecological Hermeneutics, ed. Norman C. Habel and Peter L. Trudinger (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008), 3–8.
57 Norman C. Habel and Peter L. Trudinger, “Preface,” in Exploring Ecological Hermeneutics, ed. Norman C. Habel and Peter L. Trudinger (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008), vii.
58 The Earth Bible Team, “Guiding Ecojustice Principles,” in Readings from the Perspective of Earth, ed. Norman C. Habel, The Earth Bible 1 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 38.
59 Habel, “Introducing Ecological Hermeneutics,” 2.
60 Ernst M. Conradie, “Towards an Ecological Biblical Hermeneutics: A Review Essay on the Earth Bible Project,” Scriptura 85 (2004): 123–35; David G. Horrell, Cherryl Hunt, and Christopher Southgate, “Appeals to the Bible in Ecotheology and Environmental Ethics: A Typology of Hermeneutical Stances,” Studies in Christian Ethics 21, no. 2 (2008): 219–38, https://doi.org/10.1177/0953946808094343.
61 Hilary Marlow, Biblical Prophets and Contemporary Environmental Ethics: Re-Reading Amos, Hosea, and First Isaiah (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 90–95, 110–11.
62 Marlow, Biblical Prophets and Contemporary Environmental Ethics, 90–95, 110–11.
63 Marlow, Biblical Prophets and Contemporary Environmental Ethics, 90–95, 110–11.
64 Marlow, Biblical Prophets and Contemporary Environmental Ethics, 90–95, 110–11.
65 Marlow, Biblical Prophets and Contemporary Environmental Ethics, 90–95, 110–11.
66 Marlow, Biblical Prophets and Contemporary Environmental Ethics, 90–95, 110–11.
67 Ma. Maricel S. Ibita, “Micah 6:1–8: Rereading the Metaphors for YHWH, Israel and Non-Human Creation” (PhD diss., Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 2015), 183–86.
68 Clayton and Karazsia, “Development and Validation of a Measure of Climate Change Anxiety”.
69 See Mary Elsbernd and Reimund Bieringer, “The Ecological Crisis and the Future of Creation,” in Normativity of the Future: Reading Biblical and Other Authoritative Texts in an Eschatological Perspective, ed. Reimund Bieringer and Mary Elsbernd, Annua Nuntia Lovaniensia 61 (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 281–95.
70 This additional insight comes from an email discussion with R. Bieringer, December 28, 2023.
71 Reimund Bieringer, Carine Devogelaere, and Martijn Steegen, “Tobias,” Godsdienstonderwijs.be, March 14, 2017, https://www.kuleuven.be/thomas/page/tobias-eng/.
72 Reimund Bieringer and Mary Elsbernd, “Introduction: The ‘Normativity of the Future’ Approach: Its Roots, Development, Current State and Challenges,” in Normativity of the Future: Reading Biblical and Other Authoritative Texts in an Eschatological Perspective, ed. Reimund Bieringer and Mary Elsbernd, Annua Nuntia Lovaniensia 61 (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 19–22.
73 Bieringer and Elsbernd, “Introduction: The ‘Normativity of the Future’ Approach: Its Roots, Development, Current State and Challenges,” 19–22.
74 Cherryl Hunt, David G. Horrell, and Christopher Southgate, “An Environmental Mantra? Ecological Interest in Romans 8:19–23 and a Modest Proposal for Its Narrative Interpretation,” The Journal of Theological Studies 59, no. 2 (2008): 576; emphasis in original.
75 Longenecker, “The Narrative Approach to Paul,” 104–05.
76 Longenecker, “The Narrative Approach to Paul,” 88–111; Bruce W. Longenecker, ed., Narrative Dynamics in Paul: A Critical Assessment (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002).
77 David G. Horrell, Cherryl Hunt, and Christopher Southgate, Greening Paul: Rereading the Apostle in a Time of Ecological Crisis (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2010), 187.
78 See for example, A. Katherine Grieb, The Story of Romans: A Narrative Defense of God’s Righteousness (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002); Corneliu Constantineanu, The Social Significance of Reconciliation in Paul’s Theology: Narrative Readings in Romans (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2010); Julia Snyder, “Paul as a Character in Early Christian Narratives,” in The Oxford Handbook of Pauline Studies, ed. Matthew V. Novenson and R. Barry Matlock (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), 109–25.
79 Klaus Haacker, The Theology of Paul’s Letter to the Romans (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 14, https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511615467.
80 Grieb, The Story of Romans, 14–16. See also Reimund Bieringer, “Das Evangelium für die Römer und Sein Kosmischer Horizont: Eine Exegetische Untersuchung zu Röm 1,1-17,” in God’s Power for Salvation: Romans 1,1-5,11, ed. Cilliers Breytenbach, Colloquium Oecumenicum Paulinum 23 (Leuven: Peeters, 2017), 7–41.
81 Grieb, The Story of Romans, 17.
82 Jae Hyun Lee, “Rom 8:1-39: The Holy Spirit and Believers in God’s Salvation,” in Paul’s Gospel in Romans (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 413, https://brill.com/display/book/9789047443933/Bej.9789004179639.i-575_010.xml.
83 See Lee, “Rom 8:1-39,” 414.
84 Grieb, The Story of Romans, 17.
85 See Lee, “Rom 8:1-39,” 406.
86 Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, ed. Frederick W. Danker, 3rd ed. (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000), BibleWorks, v. 8.
87 Hunt, Horrell, and Southgate, “An Environmental Mantra,” 565.
88 Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature.
89 Hunt, Horrell, and Southgate, “An Environmental Mantra,” 570.
90 Laurie J. Braaten, “The Groaning Creation: The Biblical Background for Romans 8:22,” Biblical Research 50 (2005): 24, 25; Saul M. Olyan, Biblical Mourning: Ritual and Social Dimensions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
91 Braaten, “The Groaning Creation,” 24, 25; Olyan, Biblical Mourning.
92 Braaten, “The Groaning Creation,” 25. Examples are Psalms 6:6, 12:5, and 38:8-9.
93 Braaten, “The Groaning Creation,” 28.
94 Braaten, “The Groaning Creation,” 28.
95 Braaten, “The Groaning Creation,” 29–37.
96 Braaten, “The Groaning Creation,” 38.
97 Klaus Nürnberger, “The ‘Spirit’ and the ‘Groaning of Creation’ in Romans 8 Seen Against the Background of Modern Science,” Scriptura: Journal for Contextual Hermeneutics in Southern Africa 109, no. 1 (2012): 62, https://doi.org/10.10520/EJC130721.
98 Nürnberger, “The ‘Spirit’ and the ‘Groaning of Creation’ in Romans 8 Seen Against the Background of Modern Science,” 62.
99 Nürnberger, “The ‘Spirit’ and the ‘Groaning of Creation’ in Romans 8 Seen Against the Background of Modern Science,” 62.
100 Nürnberger, “The ‘Spirit’ and the ‘Groaning of Creation’ in Romans 8 Seen Against the Background of Modern Science,” 63.
101 Nürnberger, “The ‘Spirit’ and the ‘Groaning of Creation’ in Romans 8 Seen Against the Background of Modern Science,” 63.
102 Hunt, Horrell, and Southgate, “An Environmental Mantra,” 567.
103 Elsbernd and Bieringer, “The Ecological Crisis and the Future of Creation,” 288.
104 Hunt, Horrell, and Southgate, “An Environmental Mantra,” 570.
105 Christopher Steck, “What’s the Plan? Deciphering the Shifts and Ambiguities in Recent Papal Teachings on Creation’s Eschatological Destiny and Its Temporal Care,” Horizons 48, no. 2 (December 2021): 267, https://doi.org/10.1017/hor.2021.59.
106 Elsbernd and Bieringer, “The Ecological Crisis and the Future of Creation,” 291–94.
107 Nürnberger, “The ‘Spirit’ and the ‘Groaning of Creation’ in Romans 8 Seen Against the Background of Modern Science,” “‘Spirit,’” 64.
108 Nürnberger, “The ‘Spirit’ and the ‘Groaning of Creation’ in Romans 8 Seen Against the Background of Modern Science,” 65.
109 Katelin Crane et al., “Climate Change and Mental Health: A Review of Empirical Evidence, Mechanisms and Implications,” Atmosphere 13, no. 12 (2022): 2096. https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13122096.
110 Maria Ojala et al., “Anxiety, Worry, and Grief in a Time of Environmental and Climate Crisis: A Narrative Review,” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 46, no. 1 (2021): 48, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-012220-022716.
111 Nürnberger, “The ‘Spirit’ and the ‘Groaning of Creation’ in Romans 8 Seen Against the Background of Modern Science,” 65.
112 Special Assembly for the Pan-Amazonian Region Synod of Bishops, “The Amazon: New Paths for the Church and for an Integral Ecology: Final Document,” (October 26, 2019), §82, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/synod/documents/rc_synod_doc_20191026_sinodo-amazzonia_en.html.
113 Steck, “What’s the Plan?,” 301.
114 Thomas A. Vollmer, “Creation and God’s Dream: Reading Rom 8:18-27 in Normativity of the Future Perspective,” in Normativity of the Future: Reading Biblical and Other Authoritative Texts in an Eschatological Perspective, ed. Reimund Bieringer and Mary Elsbernd, Annua Nuntia Lovaniensia 61 (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 182, 185, Other aspects of NF hermeneutics are discussed at length in this work.
115 Jan Lambrecht, “The Groaning Creation: A Study of Rom 8:18-30,” Louvain Studies 15, no. 1 (1990): 17.
116 “Laudato Si’ Goals,” www.laudatosi.org, 2023, https://www.laudatosi.org/laudato-si/laudato-si-goals/.
117 Francis, Laudato Si’, §207.
118 Rudd Lubbers, Alide Roerink, and Lavinia Warnars, “Article on the Earth Charter as the Foundation for the SDGs,” Earth Charter (blog), June 25, 2015, https://earthcharter.org/article-on-the-earth-charter-as-the-foundation-for-the-sdgs/.
119 “Sustainable Development Goals,” un.org, https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/.
120 Elsbernd and Bieringer, “The Ecological Crisis and the Future of Creation,” 290.