Religion and Ecology Focus Area
The goal of this focus area is to offer students an opportunity to work out an integration of their faith tradition and their experience of the natural world— bringing the perspectives and resources of both to bear on their lives and their work. We have a new sense of the systemic nature of life—its interrelatedness and interdependence. We have a new story of the universe and deeper appreciation for the uniqueness and richness of the planet earth. We grapple with the implications of the most revolutionary paradigm in human historical consciousness, one that asserts the human as a subsystem within the larger life context. This shift in perspective and awakened consciousness introduces the need to set our social concerns and efforts in larger perspective. We cannot address the needs of humans without addressing the needs of the context that bestows and sustains their existence.
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The Universe as Divine Manifestation
This course engages students in a process of discernment, interpretation, and response to the natural world as revelatory, as a primary mediation and distinctive locus of divine presence and activity. Our exploration begins with searching out this revelation in the cosmological order through scientific insights into the structure and function of the universe. From this macrophase perspective, the course shifts to the more proximate witness to the divine as this finds expression in and through the planet Earth. Out of this experience and insight we will articulate the meaning of this revelation for ourselves and for people of faith in our times.
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The Emergent Universe: Our Sacred Story
The course asks participants to immerse themselves in contemporary discoveries and understandings of the emergent universe and to reflect on its spiritual dimensions and significance. As we become familiar with this new story, this sacred story, we will also attend to the data that describes the urgency of the ecological issue with an eye to discerning its implications for the physical, psychic, and spiritual dimensions of our lives.