Religion, Ethics, and Service
Religious Education and Laudato Si: Towards an Integration of Ecological Education in the Curriculum of a Catholic Tertiary School in the Philippines
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Reuel Rito Seno
Pope Francis published his second encyclical entitled Laudato Si: On Care For Our Common Home on the 18th of June 2015. Here he critiques unbridled consumerism and inauthentic human and economic development; laments environmental destruction and global warming; and calls everyone to take “swift and unified global action”. In the encyclical he speaks of “Ecological Education”, which is basically an education that promotes care for the environment. “Good education plants seeds when we are young, and these continue to bear fruit throughout life”. We have seen for ourselves that with technological advancements and innovations; problems with pollution and degradation; and even the depletion of our natural and human resources is already before us, happening before our very eyes. We are reaping the seeds of our abuse of these God-given gifts and resources. Is it really too late to do anything about it as what pessimists may say that the effects of climate change cannot be reversed anymore? Or can there still be hope for the future especially in our youth today? Thus, this research proposes a means of integrating reflections and insights from the encyclical Laudato Si towards a so-called “ecological education” that can be integrated into the curriculum of tertiary education.
Evangelizing Euthenics: Ellen Swallow Richards and the Quest for Social Betterment
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Emily Bailey
Ellen Swallow Richards, an American pioneer of sanitation and the home economics movement, created a unique brand of feminist environmentalism that influenced nineteenth-century Christian ideals of social betterment. This project focuses on archived collections of Richards’ writings, as they relate to her development a new field of study--euthenics--which evangelized about the betterment of society through the improvement of environmental conditions. She often applied this to food, as in The Chemistry of Cooking and Cleaning (1882), and Food Materials and Their Adulterations (1885), and helped to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act in New England. I contend that her work took a fascinating turn when its feminist environmentalism dovetailed with the ideals of Christian social betterment from religious thinkers like Seventh-day Adventist health reformer, John Harvey Kellogg, and the Beecher sisters. Richards' work helped seemingly disparate social causes to align, revealing the ties between quests for social betterment in an era of great cultural and religious change.
Demands on Hospital-Based Chaplains: An Observational Study
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Alla Adams, Harold Ray Griffin
Chaplains provide spiritual care to aid people of all faiths faced with illness and loss while seeking comfort and meaning. The central questions guiding this study was what are the demands on chaplains at a large, secular, academic medical center located in Southeast Texas? This study also examined the time the chaplains spend meeting these demands and the barriers they experience as members of interdisciplinary team. It was conducted with a team of trained data collectors who gathered quantitative and qualitative data associated with 9 core processes, which included initial visits, pre-operative visits, follow-up visits, death visits, actively dying visits, withdrawal of life support visits, code visits, staff visits, and interdisciplinary rounds. The results revealed a number of notable findings, some of which were consistent with previously published studies, and some were unique discoveries. For example, despite concealing their feelings from the public, many of the chaplains expressed feeling devalued and under-appreciated by members of multidisciplinary team based on a perceived disregard for their spiritual contributions to the care of patients, their families and friends, and staff members. This study benefits healthcare chaplaincy in that it draws attention to issues that can impede quality of service and decrease operational efficiency.
Between Thankfulness and Use: William Desmond's Philosophy of Use for a Religious Ecological Ethic
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ethan Vanderleek
This paper offers an analysis and interpretation of William Desmond's account of use. I begin with an examination of Martin Heidegger and Michel Henry, focusing on their analysis of technology. I affirm their different but related analyses and critiques of modern technology and how technology shapes human interaction with the material world, but point out inadequacies in their positions. I then turn to Desmond as a clear and thorough account of use, grounded in a robust metaphysics which offers resources both of critique of problematic use, but also an approach for redeeming use. For Desmond, we cannot but use things. Use is always subtended by a prior gift of things before they are made useful for us. However, we are always tempted to neglect this dimension of gift and make everything useful without recognition of this gifting source (for Desmond, this source is God). When everything is made useful without reference to gift, we become implicated in what Desmond calls the "network of serviceable disposability." This network is pernicious and brings everything into its abusive orbit. Desmond provides resources for expanding beyond the network. Use is a term which should, for Desmond, be suspended between two poles: thankfulness for the gift which is used, and love oriented towards an end beyond use. Both the gift and the end are, ultimately, God. I conclude the paper with practical suggestions for applying Desmond’s ethic and metaphysics of use to particular religious communities faced with the challenge of the network of serviceable disposability.
