Search Results (19)

This study aims to explore aspects of religion and spirituality within the Hungarian permaculture movement, demonstrating that while permaculture is first and foremost a rational and pragmatic practice grounded in ecological principles, its ethical and holistic approach remains open to various forms of spirituality. In the author’s view, religion and spirituality within the Hungarian community remain largely unseen at present: regarded as a private matter, the topic has not yet made its way into the movement’s dominant discourse. The author demonstrates how permaculture can be linked to Buddhist, Christian, esoteric, and natural spiritual (neo-pagan) worldviews through the medium of four practitioners following four different religious/spiritual traditions. The case studies illuminate how, for some, the practice of permaculture helps deepen spirituality, while for others, the pursuit remains limited to a more rational ecological framework. In general, however, the observation of nature and ‘co-operation with life’ inherent in the permaculture approach frequently result in a reinterpretation of the human–nature relationship. This study emphasises that there is no single permaculture spirituality, but rather a range of individual worldviews existing side by side. The movement’s strength lies in its diversity, openness, and tolerance for worldviews. Full article

In the face of escalating ecological crises, this study explores the ecological wisdom embedded in Laozi’s concept of “Dao” and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s belief in the “Over-Soul,” conducting a systematic comparative analysis of their views on nature within the framework of ecological religion. Laozi’s “Dao” serves as the cornerstone of Daoist thought, emphasizing the unity of heaven, earth, and humans as the origin and governing law of the universe. It advocates “Dao follows nature” (道法自然), urging humans to relinquish excessive interference and utilitarian desires, humbly integrating into nature’s inherent rhythms for harmonious coexistence while inspiring reverence for nature’s sacredness and inherent worth. Emerson’s “Over-Soul,” central to New England Transcendentalism, posits a universal spirit permeating all existence, with nature as its outward manifestation and symbolic expression of the divine. Through direct engagement with nature, individuals access spiritual elevation, moral insight, and reverence for all life forms. Despite distinct cultural origins, both Laozi and Emerson sacralize nature, foster opposition to anthropocentric exploitation, and envision harmonious human–nature relations—albeit through different pathways: Wuwei and surrender for Laozi; intuitive communion for Emerson. While their metaphysical visions do not fully align with modern ecocentric notions of objective intrinsic value (as articulated in contemporary environmental ethics), they offer profound resources for reverent coexistence. This comparative study deepens cross-cultural understanding of ecological wisdom, challenging modernity’s instrumental worldview and providing philosophical insights for constructing a rational, reverent ecological ethic. By bridging Eastern and Western mystical traditions, it highlights their shared potential to inspire sustainable development, spiritual renewal, and a transformative shift toward coexistence with the non-human world. Full article

The contribution of faith organisations to public discourse on the ecological crisis appears to be intensifying, leading some to conjecture that Christians are becoming more concerned with the environment. In social science research, this observation is generally understood as the greening of religion hypothesis. Empirical studies have tried to confirm this hypothesis for over three decades, but have generally returned the same, negative results. In this paper, we argue that the ill-fated preoccupation with quantifying the extent of Christian environmental concern has overlooked the more substantive investigation of how environmentally engaged Christians think, feel about, and perform the relationship between Christianity and the environment. The purpose of this study was to investigate environmental attitudes within a parish community. We surveyed 254 parishioners in the Catholic diocese of Salford, U.K. We used cluster analysis to identify groups of parishioners within the sample who exhibited especially pro-environmental attitudes. We then conducted a regression analysis on the relationships between the individuals’ beliefs and the number of pro-environmental actions they performed. We found that, on the one hand, belief in the importance of caring for the environment to the Catholic faith does not result in parishioners being more ecologically active, consistent with existing findings in the literature. On the other hand, however, the importance of care for the environment to one’s own religious practice results in parishioners being more ecologically active, consistent with the greening of religion hypothesis. These results point to the need for a much subtler analysis that considers the precise meaning of faith for Christian parishioners. We conclude with recommendations for further investigation of the greening of religion that can generate more detailed hypotheses from the greater level of detail afforded by this study. Full article

The polychrome statues of the Sage Mother Hall at the Jinci Temple in Taiyuan city are recognized as one of the three masterpieces of the Jinci Temple. They are also regarded as an outstanding representative of ancient Chinese temple statues. These statues possess great historical, artistic, scientific, cultural and social values, and they are an important physical material for the study of ancient Chinese history, culture, religion, politics and economy, as well as science and technology. The internal structure, plaster layer samples and surface pigments of the polychrome statues of the Sage Mother Hall were analyzed by optical microscope (OM) scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry (SEM–EDS), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy (Raman), X-radiography and other analytical methods in order to gain an understanding of the production process and pigment composition of the polychrome statues of the Sage Mother Hall. According to the findings, the following steps were taken during the production of the polychrome statues that decorate the Sage Mother Hall at Jinci Temple: building a wooden skeleton, fixing the skeleton with rivets or twine, shaping the clay form with coarse clay, shaping the appearance with fine clay, refining the molded appearance, and white substrate layer painting. The majority of the pigments are inorganic mineral pigments: the red pigments include cinnabar and minium; the blue pigments include ultramarine; the green pigments include lavendulan; the yellow pigments include yellow ochre; the black pigments include carbon black; and the white pigments and substrate layers include white lead and lead sulfate. Some of the pigment layers can be seen in multiple layers, which indicates that over the history of the painted statues of the Sage Mother Hall, they have been subject to a series of repainting, with the more recent repainting time perhaps having taken place during the late Qing Dynasty and the following time period. Full article

This article presents a pilot study investigating the multidimensional diversity of cemeteries as an important element of cultural heritage and green infrastructure within the urban landscape. We studied the state and diversity of nature, perceptions, and activities of visitors. As religion is an important aspect that differentiates cemeteries from each other, we studied a sample of four multi-confessional urban cemeteries in Łódź (Poland) and Leipzig (Germany) by using site observation and a questionnaire survey. We found that cemeteries are far undervalued as public green resources that can perform important functions in sociocultural life and the mental well-being of the general public, as the perceptions of silence- and contemplation-seeking visitors tell us. The perception of cemeteries depends on the level of secularization, varying from a sacrum sphere up to specific recreational and touristic opportunities; findings that should be considered by town planners when optimizing the cultural ecosystem services of green spaces. Full article

Scholars of Japanese religion have recently drawn attention to the global repositioning, “greening”, and international popularization of Shinto. However, research on Shinto ritual practice and material religion continues to focus predominantly on cases located within the borders of the Japanese state. This article explores the globalization of Shinto through transnational practitioners’ strategic glocalization of everyday ritual practices outside of Japan. Drawing upon digital ethnographic fieldwork conducted in online Shinto communities, I examine three case studies centering on traditional ritual offerings made at the domestic altar (kamidana): rice, sake, and sakaki branches. I investigate how transnational Shinto communities hold in tension a multiplicity of particularistic understandings of Shinto locality and authenticity when it comes to domestic ritual practice. While relativistic approaches to glocalization locate the sacred and authentic in an archetypical or idealized form of Japanese tradition rooted in its environment, creolization and transformation valorize the particularities of one’s personal surroundings and circumstances. Examining these strategies alongside recent and historical cases in Shinto ritual at shrines within Japan, I propose that attending to processes of “parallel glocalization” helps to illuminate the quasi-fictive notion of the religious “homeland” and close the perceived gap in authenticity between ritual practices at home and abroad. Full article

Islam is the second-largest religion on a global scale. All around the world Muslims are estimated to comprise more than 1.9 billion people. Therefore, the demand for Halal commodities is expected to reach a high growth rate: thus, it is crucial to increase its global market’s reliability and traceability. Based on these grounds, the scope of this paper is to assess Halal food sustainability, examining the barriers and opportunities offered by the certification and blockchain tools. To this purpose, the authors carried out an integrative literature review, selecting 54 contributions in the Web of Science platform. Despite several limitations, such as the lack of a standardized framework or universally accepted and reliable certifying authorities, the implementation of blockchain technology has emerged as an interesting instrument to increase the trustworthiness and traceability of Halal foods. This tool could also help the development of protocols and standard procedures, ensuring hygienic and permitted products that may boost food safety and security. Besides, the enhancement of the Halal certification and the blockchain tool, even if several efforts are required in terms of innovation and cooperation by local authorities, industrial associations and leading consumers, could enhance fair trade, ethical business, green animal breeding and environmental economics, and hence sustainable development. Full article

Collecting neighborhood data can both be time- and resource-intensive, especially across broad geographies. In this study, we leveraged 1.4 million publicly available Google Street View (GSV) images from Utah to construct indicators of the neighborhood built environment and evaluate their associations with 2017–2019 health outcomes of approximately one-third of the population living in Utah. The use of electronic medical records allows for the assessment of associations between neighborhood characteristics and individual-level health outcomes while controlling for predisposing factors, which distinguishes this study from previous GSV studies that were ecological in nature. Among 938,085 adult patients, we found that individuals living in communities in the highest tertiles of green streets and non-single-family homes have 10–27% lower diabetes, uncontrolled diabetes, hypertension, and obesity, but higher substance use disorders—controlling for age, White race, Hispanic ethnicity, religion, marital status, health insurance, and area deprivation index. Conversely, the presence of visible utility wires overhead was associated with 5–10% more diabetes, uncontrolled diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and substance use disorders. Our study found that non-single-family and green streets were related to a lower prevalence of chronic conditions, while visible utility wires and single-lane roads were connected with a higher burden of chronic conditions. These contextual characteristics can better help healthcare organizations understand the drivers of their patients’ health by further considering patients’ residential environments, which present both risks and resources. Full article

The Francigena Way (Via Francigena) is a long international itinerary that was awarded recognition as a Culture Route of the Council of Europe. It starts in Canterbury (UK), touches 13 European regions and ends in Rome. An ancient track of this route is in Sicily (Southern Italy), and its name is Magna Via Francigena (Great Francigena Way). This track is a pilgrimage route that connects two ancient port cities, Palermo and Agrigento, passing through internal rural territories that now deal with the exodus of population from rural to urban areas. The route passes through the Sicilian territory named “Upper-Belìce corleonese”, a rural area around the city of Corleone (a little village known worldwide for the sad Mafia events) that includes a number of municipalities. In the past, this religious pilgrimage was a fundamental part of the expression of faith for Christians and now still represents for Sicilians a strong symbol of Christian identity. In recent decades, pilgrimage tourism around the world has grown significantly each year. The aim of the study is to know the pilgrims’ motivations for choosing the Magna Via Francigena pilgrimage as a vacation and any possible similarities between pilgrimage tourism and food and wine tourism, in the wider context of sustainable and slow tourism. The Policy Delphi method was applied to collect the opinions of the stakeholders involved. The study highlighted the strong link between religious motivations and local enogastronomy, culture, art and nature. Results will support policy-making in the development of integrated territorial tourist marketing strategies. Full article

The promulgation of the encyclical letter Laudato si’ by Pope Francis in 2015 has been interpreted as the final phase in the integration of sustainability concerns into Catholic Social Teaching. In this recent historical development, academic research has paid particular attention to how different eco-theological traditions, sociocultural developments, and local advocacy practices influenced the Church’s ecological turn. However, the key role played by non-magisterial, intermediate institutions, particularly highly qualified interlocutors such as the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (PAS), has not been studied in depth. This article argues that, over the past 60 years, the PAS has been instrumental in this development: Raising awareness on socio-environmental issues, promoting environmental literacy, fostering ethical reflection, and catalyzing interdisciplinary dialogue in order to orient policy. Full article

Background: Due to the current environmental crisis, sustainable consumption (SC) behaviour and its drivers has gained significant attention among researchers. One of the potential drivers of SC, religion, have been analysed in the last few years. The study of the relationship between religion and adoption of SC at the individual level have reached mixed and inconclusive results. Methods: Following the PRISMA guidelines, a systematic review of articles published between 1998 and 2019 was conducted using the Web of Science and Scopus databases. Search terms included sustainable consumption, green consumption, ethical consumption, responsible consumption, pro-environmental behaviour and religion. Results: This systematic review reveals that contradictory results are due to methodological and theoretical reasons and provides a unifying understanding about the influence of religion on SC practices. Results highlight the role of religion as a distal or background factor of other proximal determinants of environmental behaviour. Conclusions: This paper contributes to the literature concerning SC by synthesising previous scholarship showing that religion shapes SC indirectly by affecting attitudes, values, self-efficacy, social norms and identity. The review concludes with a research agenda to encourage scholars the study of other unexamined mediating constructs, such as beliefs in after life, cleansing rituals and prayer, moral emotions, moral identity, the role of virtues and self-restrain. Full article

In this article, we study politics as domination. From our point of view, domination, especially in the Anthropocene, has had two vital components—power and supremacy. In order to dominate, one has to have power over others. In addition, the politics of domination, such as colonial oppression of Latin America, has required reasoning, justification, and legitimation, often connected to superiority (because of religion, society, or civilization) from the oppressor’s end. Past and present political ideologies and programs, such as colonialism, imperialism, but also welfare state capitalism, neoliberalism and increasingly popular Green New Deal are examples of what we call “anthropolitics”, an anthropocentric approach to politics based on domination, power, and supremacist exploitation. In contrast to the prevailing anthropolitics, this article discusses post-Anthropocene politics, characterized by localization and decentralization, as well as a steep reduction of matter–energy throughput by introducing a theoretical frame called ecological realism. Full article

Since 1995, the Chinese Daoist Association (CDA) has pursued a green agenda through the publication of declarations, statements and an eight year plan. This agenda has been aided in part by its engagement with global environmental discourse as mediated in particular by the Alliance for Religions and Conservation (ARC). Through its collaboration with ARC and a Dutch businessman, Allerd Stikker, the CDA built its first “ecology temple” in Shaanxi Province and convened its first ecological conference there. Analysis of these declarations and activities reveals an increasing globalization and juridification of environmental discourse in Chinese Daoist temples. In this way the issue of ecology presents further opportunities for the CDA, and by extension the Communist Party of China (CPC), to enhance their supervision of local religious activities. Full article

This paper analyzes the theoretical and pragmatic implications for international relations and world politics of the new holistic approach to climate change articulated by Pope Francis in the Encyclical Laudato Si’, particularly through the notion of “integral ecology”. It is not my intention to offer an exegesis of the Papal document. I will rather try to illustrate and discuss its planetary hermeneutics. I emphasize that the Encyclical’s perspective is not exclusively normative, and that, within the dynamic interplay between social structure and human agency, it can also be considered as a call to action. In this context, I suggest that both International Relations Theory and global politics have much to learn from the fundamental claims of contemporary religions in relation to climate disruption. In particular, Pope Francis’ document, far from being just a new chapter in the unfolding process of the “greening” of religions, raises the issue of the sustainability of the present world system. Therefore, I contend that the perspective of the Encyclical calls for a radical transformation of international relations, since it emphasizes the deep implications of environmental issues on the entire spectrum of security, development, economic and ethical challenges of contemporary world politics. Against this backdrop, my objective is to connect the main tenets of the Encyclical to the environmental turn in International Relations Theory and to the new epistemological challenges related to the paradigm shift induced by the new planetary condition of the Anthropocene and the relevant questions arising for a justice encompassing the humanity-earth system. The Encyclical seems to suggest that practicing sustainable international relations means exiting the logic of power or hegemony, while simultaneously operationalizing the concept of care. Full article

Christian monasticism has an ancient land-based foundation. The desert fathers and later reform movements appealed to the land for sustenance, spiritual metaphor, and as a marker of authentic monastic identity. Contemporary Roman Catholic monastics with this history in mind, have actively engaged environmental discourse in ways that draw from their respective monastic lineages, a process sociologist Stephen Ellingson calls ‘bridging’. Though this study is of limited scope, this bridging between monastic lineages and environmental discourse could cautiously be identified with the broader phenomenon of the ‘greening’ of Christianity. Looking to the future, while the footprint of North American monastic communities is quite small, and their numbers are slowly declining, a variety of conservation-minded management schemes implemented since the 1990s by some communities suggests that the impact will remain for many decades to come. Full article