In this intimate conversation between Krista and one of her beloved teachers, we ponder the world and our place in it, through sacred text, with fresh eyes. We’re accompanied by the meditative and prophetic poetry of Wendell Berry, read for us from his home in Kentucky: “Stay away from anything / that obscures the place it is in. / There are no unsacred places; / there are only sacred places / and desecrated places. / Accept what comes of silence.”
Soul Search explores contemporary religion and spirituality from the inside out — what we believe, how we express it, and the difference it makes in our lives.
To mark World Environment Day, on June 5, we begin a new series on religion and ecology.
From the church forests of Ethiopia to the mountains of Chinese Daoism, the sea-scapes of Pacific theology to the forest monasteries of Theravadin Buddhism, the three-part series of sacred landscapes will explore how religion and spirituality might matter in the Anthropocene. How do the places we love shape our sense of the sacred? And how are our spiritual lives nurtured by the bush, the mountains —or even the sea?
In the first episode, Mary Evelyn Tucker, co-founder and director of the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale University introduces us to the series.
We also hear from Rev Dr Jione Havea, a pastor from Tonga about what it means to belong to the islands and to their seas. Rev Havea works at the forefront of postcolonial hermeneutics and Pasifika theology. His books include ‘Indigenous Australia and the Unfinished Business of Theology’.
In this podcast, Jessica Locke begins her talk about the intersectionality of Buddhist religion and environmental engagement by describing how upholding tradition while trying to address modern issues is difficult. There are different Buddhisms, as the original religion has been interpreted differently over the years; however there are commonalities throughout such as the idea of karma. Locke states that the unit of analysis for Buddhist ethics is changing from an individualistic perspective to larger scale in order to analyze environmental problems.
