Religion and Ecology 2026

      A concept that I found quite intriguing and wanted to take further was how the technocratic paradigm is found within the digital world.  The digital world has allowed for the technocratic paradigm to find its home, resulting in its most recent and pervasive expression to date. When looking at Andrea Spina’s analysis of “augmented reality” and the “online experience", it highlights the blurring lines between what is physical and what is virtual, which is considered to be a new challenge for integral ecology. If we begin to spend our lives living within these digital environments, which were created solely for our convenience in day-to-day life and tailored to our personal preferences, we begin to lose the ability to encounter the “otherness” of nature (Spina). To some, nature can be seen as an inconvenient and messy aspect of our desires. However, in contrast to this messy incontinence, the digital paradigm is built on the logic of the algorithm, considered the ...

  The Destination of Goods and the Global Commons The theological principle of the “universal destination of goods” is the central claim regarding the social justice aspect of integral ecology. This concept ultimately challenges the very notion of absolute private property rights when they conflict with the dignity and survival of the human family. Looking at Vincent Miller’s work, he notes that Laudato si’ applies this traditional Catholic principle to what is known as the “global commons,” which includes things like the atmosphere and the oceans. These “global commons” are often seen as unowned resources at risk of exploitation within the technocratic framework. However, in their work, Holden and Mansfield point out that, in its theological position, the church insists that “the earth is essentially a shared inheritance." This part of the theological position then creates a direct link between both the “Option for the Poor” and environmental stewardship. When the theological fr...

  The “Throwaway Culture” The concept of the "throwaway culture” has been thrown around more frequently, but it is also a practical consequence of the technocratic paradigm. The concept of the “throwaway culture” is when either people or things are no longer useful, they are discarded. This is where the modern-day economic systems are the most challenged by the environmental position of Laudato si’ . In their work, Holden and Mansfield highlight how the church must confront climate change because the poor are the first to suffer the consequences of environmental degradation caused by the wealthy. The technocratic paradigm often suggests that technology, in itself, will eventually solve some of the world’s greatest problems, such as poverty and pollution. However, Francis argues that if a person's underlying heart does not change, this is only a “false promise” with no real benefits. Integral ecology requires an “ecological conversion,” a kind of shift we refer to as “the good ...

  Integral Ecology In his work, Francis offers a theological antidote called the “integral ecology.” This antidote focuses on protecting the “wilderness” as something completely separate from human civilization and posits that “everything is connected,” unlike secular environmentalism as a whole. When viewed this way, an individual's relationship with the environment is intertwined with their relationships with other individuals and with the divine. Ryszard Sadowski, an ecophilosopher, has noted that Pope Francis has expanded the term “ecology” to include the human, social, and cultural dimensions. The human spirit and social structures simultaneously begin to degrade as the technocratic paradigm degrades the environment. This can be most evidently found in what Francis calls “the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor." Within this theological framework, it is nearly impossible to address climate change without also addressing global poverty.  These two issues both stem fro...

 Continuing on with the trend of the ecology of Eden, chapter 4 begins to take a look at the origins of humans as the great hunter. In this chapter, Eisenberg argues that the human transition from scavenger to Hunter was a fundamental shift in our consciousness and in our relationship to the mountain.    An idea that stood out to me, was that of a Sacramento kill? Which Eisenberg explains that with early humans, hunting was not an act of violence, but a profound exchange. furthermore when a human kills and eats a wild animal, it is them taking the mountain in for themselves. In this example, there was a deep sense of gratitude, and more specifically how the hunter respected the prey as an equal, and also a fellow inhabitant of the wild source. Furthermore, he begins to contrast this with the tower approach, we have to animals which is domestication. We as humans have moved from the idea of hunting animals to herding them, which began the shift of an animal to stop being a...

Moving on into further chapters of the ecology of Eden, Evan Eisenberg, in chapter 3, discusses the grand archetypes that the mountain and the tower are, and into the space where they collide, which is called the garden. In this chapter, he then challenges, the popular thought that the wilderness is only something that can be found in untouched areas, such as the Amazon, or the deep Arctic. rather, Eisenberg believes that wilderness can actually be found everywhere. Something that I found fascinating, while reading chapter 2 is how he guards humans as edge creatures. He depicts how we tend to thrive in the boundaries between ecosystems, and specifically where the land meets the sea (funny because this is what we say almost every day when we do not understand each other). Discard the Isenberg introduces is our attempt to make that edge everywhere we go. however something that Eisenberg does warn us about is that if we begin to turn the entire planet into a garden and into that edge then...