Religious Perspectives on Ecological, Political, and Cultural Grief

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2025) | Viewed by 5980

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Meadville Lombard Theological School, Chicago, IL 60601, USA
Interests: theology; political theology; ethics; religion and the environment; grief
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue of Religions invites scholarly contributions exploring religious perspectives on ecological, political, and cultural grief.

Several theses motivate this Special Issue.

  • First, grief has become constitutive; for many people (religious and non-religious), grief has become a constitutive and pervasive, rather than intermittent, feature of life in the turbulence of the contemporary world.
  • Second, grief has become structural; as a result of various systemic and historical dynamics, grief has become structural, a response to socio-cultural, ecological, and political forces in the world, as well as a response to acute, personal loss and death. 
  • Third, structural grief is religiously significant; religious thinkers, communities, and traditions can uniquely contribute to our understanding of and response to ecological, political, cultural, and other forms of structural grief, and structural grief can generate new perspectives on religious life and experience.

These theses provoke clusters of questions that authors may want to address in their submissions, including but not limited to the following:

  • How are economic, ecological, political, and socio-cultural trends changing the character and causes of grief, and what can a religious perspective (e.g., historical, comparative, theological, psychological) contribute to our understanding of these changes? For example, what resources can scholars of religion bring to our understanding of and responses to ecological, political, and cultural grief? How might these or other forms of structural grief lead to new interpretations of contemporary religious life and experience?
  • Can grief in response to disruptive changes in the social and material conditions of life be adequately interpreted by existing theories of grief? Can grief theories, oriented primarily to acute personal loss or the death of loved ones, help us to understand persistent, diffused, and ambiguous loss? Are new theories of grief needed to understand the nature and consequences of a sense of loss resulting from changing social status and cultural norms, the persistence and intensification of racial injustice, the breakdown of religious worldviews and institutions, the demise of political projects and ideals, the decline of shared values and epistemic standards, the climate crisis, or the extinction of species?
  • How might analyses of grief's changing character and causes provide new ways of interpreting and understanding contemporary human religious, moral, and political life? In other words, what do new forms and expressions of grief tell us about what we care about, who we are becoming, and how the world is changing? 
  • How do religious beliefs, values, practices, or institutions influence, limit, enrich, and leverage our sense of who and what is grievable?

Submissions that engage one or more of the theses or questions articulated above are especially encouraged. In addition, submissions attentive to the pedagogical implications of grief, especially the forms of grief discussed above, are welcome. The Editorial Team will review all submissions examining the connections between religious thought/experience and ecological, political, or cultural grief.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Theology, ethics, theological ethics, religious ethics;
  • Religion and the environment;
  • Environmental and climate humanities;
  • Ecotheology;
  • Religion and politics;
  • Affect theory;
  • Thanatology;
  • Political theology;
  • Psychology of religion;
  • Political psychology;
  • Eco psychology;
  • Sociology of religion;
  • Religion and social sciences.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200-300 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editor, or to the Assistant Editor Ms. Violet Li (violet.li@mdpi.com) of Religions. Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the special issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Michael S. Hogue
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • grief
  • ecological grief
  • political grief
  • religion
  • theology
  • ethics
  • politics

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 524 KiB  
Article
Political Grief and the South Korean Church
by Sunkyo Park
Religions 2025, 16(5), 541; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16050541 - 23 Apr 2025
Viewed by 473
Abstract
On the morning of 16 April 2014, the passenger ship Sewol capsized off the coast of Jindo, South Korea. The sinking caused three hundred four deaths, including five missing persons, and one hundred seventy-two survivors. The tragedy triggered tremendous grief and loss for [...] Read more.
On the morning of 16 April 2014, the passenger ship Sewol capsized off the coast of Jindo, South Korea. The sinking caused three hundred four deaths, including five missing persons, and one hundred seventy-two survivors. The tragedy triggered tremendous grief and loss for the entire nation. Amid national mourning, the politically and ideologically biased discourses of several church leaders exacerbated the sorrow during this challenging period. This study argues that anti-communism is the primary source of their perspective. This study analyzed the anti-communism perspectives of the two churches with political grief. It concluded that the South Korean church has two distinct perspectives on anti-communism that have been consistently reinforced or challenged within their historical, theological, and socio-political aspects. These differences have influenced the formation of the new assumptive worlds of the two churches. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religious Perspectives on Ecological, Political, and Cultural Grief)
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31 pages, 2827 KiB  
Article
Ecological Grief and the Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement
by Panu Pihkala
Religions 2025, 16(4), 411; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16040411 - 24 Mar 2025
Viewed by 1391
Abstract
The Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement (DPM, by Stroebe and Schut) is a well-known framework in contemporary grief research and counselling. It depicts how mourners oscillate between various tasks and reactions. There is a need to engage more with the intense [...] Read more.
The Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement (DPM, by Stroebe and Schut) is a well-known framework in contemporary grief research and counselling. It depicts how mourners oscillate between various tasks and reactions. There is a need to engage more with the intense feelings of loss (Loss-Oriented tasks), but also with other things in life and other parts of the adjustment process after a loss (Restoration-Oriented tasks). This interdisciplinary article applies the framework to ecological grief and extends it to collective levels. While the DPM has been broadened to family dynamics, many subjects of grief are even more collective and require mourning from whole communities or societies. Religious communities can play an important role in this. This article provides a new application called the DPM-EcoSocial and discusses the various tasks named in it, which are ultimately based on the grief researcher Worden’s work. The particularities of ecological grief are discussed, such as the complications caused by guilt dynamics, climate change denial, attribution differences about climate disasters, and nonfinite losses. Grief and grievance are intimately connected in ecological grief, and (religious) communities have important tasks for remembrance, mourning, and witness. The collective processes can lead to meaning reconstruction, transilience, and adversarial growth. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religious Perspectives on Ecological, Political, and Cultural Grief)
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24 pages, 1526 KiB  
Article
The Role of Threat, Meaning, and Religion in Political Grief
by Darcy Harris
Religions 2025, 16(3), 321; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16030321 - 4 Mar 2025
Viewed by 697
Abstract
Grief is often seen as a personal response to losing a loved one, but it can also arise from the loss of deeply held values and identities linked to social, structural, and religious spheres. Political grief is a unique form of this, stemming [...] Read more.
Grief is often seen as a personal response to losing a loved one, but it can also arise from the loss of deeply held values and identities linked to social, structural, and religious spheres. Political grief is a unique form of this, stemming from political policies, laws, and social messaging that certain groups perceive as losses. As societies face political decisions and systemic failures, grief can emerge from losing trust in institutions, shared beliefs, and a sense of belonging. An outgrowth of political grief is a strain on relationships due to polarization, heightened by threat-activating events and resulting tensions. Many people turn to religion to counter feelings of vulnerability and incoherence in today’s political climate. While this may relieve anxiety and provide stability, it can also exacerbate some sources of grief. Understanding these dimensions is crucial for addressing political grief’s broader implications, as individuals and communities seek meaning and attempt to rewrite their narratives in adversity. This discussion includes defining grief beyond death-loss and exploring the interplay between social/political structures and culture. It also considers specific threats and responses, including religious alignment, focusing on recent events in the United States. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religious Perspectives on Ecological, Political, and Cultural Grief)
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14 pages, 209 KiB  
Article
Loss in Light of the Last Things: Christianity, Eschatology, and Grief in Inside Out
by Matthew John Paul Tan
Religions 2024, 15(8), 897; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080897 - 25 Jul 2024
Viewed by 1527
Abstract
With reference to the film Inside Out, we show how Christian eschatology helps us understand the personal experience of grieving loss, generated by capital’s demands for labor hypermobility and its resultant disjunctures in a person’s biography. Inside Out cinematically portrays, in seemingly [...] Read more.
With reference to the film Inside Out, we show how Christian eschatology helps us understand the personal experience of grieving loss, generated by capital’s demands for labor hypermobility and its resultant disjunctures in a person’s biography. Inside Out cinematically portrays, in seemingly unremarkable moments, an inbreaking of a redemptive eschatological moment. We organize our case around two eschatological themes, those of judgement and death. The first section links a person’s affective experience, the structures that generate those experiences, and the last things; we make our case using Merleau-Ponty’s account of the intervolved body and Affect Theory’s relationship to Foucauldian power. The second section investigates what becomes of loss and restoration when they are refracted eschatologically, using Guardini’s idea of biographical death, Critical Theory’s conception of the Messianic, and Bonaventure’s conception of the convergence of opposites. We ultimately propose that, seen in the light of the last things, grieving over loss and its opposite, the restoration of what was lost, converge into one and the same thing. A third section will circle back to Inside Out and highlight the contours of the restoration of that which was lost in light of the two eschatological themes above. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religious Perspectives on Ecological, Political, and Cultural Grief)
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