Focused Discussion
For work that is best discussed or debated, rather than reported on through a formal presentation, these sessions provide a forum for an extended “roundtable” conversation between an author and a small group of interested colleagues. Summaries of the author’s key ideas, or points of discussion, are used to stimulate and guide the discourse.
Religious Care Ethics for the More-than-Human World
Focused Discussion Kimberley Parzuchowski
The precariousness of the human condition, felt more acutely with the threat of climate change, reveals to us our dependence on nature. Ancient religions cultivated virtuous habits that deepened human awareness of our vulnerability and dependence, such as piety for Hestia, Greek goddess of the hearth. Perhaps the loss of such practices aided our forgetting that dependence. Today, the problems of climate change overwhelm and frighten us into inaction. The truth is, we cannot heal our planet without learning first how to care for it. Care Ethics claims that caring is demanding work for particular others. I argue that the other in need of care is our planet. The overwhelming challenges of such care, requires a religious devotion and moral courage. We need profound spiritual strength to turn away from consumerism and to fulfill the demands of a life committed to caring for a weakened natural world. As ancient Christians sacrificed material wellbeing to care for the poor and hungry, so we today must learn to see our world through the eyes of caritas for a beloved other. As Native American theorist George Tinker claims, the world is alive. Our Euro-scientific worldview has blinded us to its subjectivity. In order for us to learn how to care for creation, we will need to develop our empathic perception to include non-human others. Through communities of care, we can cultivate the values, visions, and virtuous practices necessary for healing our mother earth, creating the potential for a future of sustainable, interdependent thriving.
