Climate Change and Christian Ethics
Abstract
What must a Christian ethic accomplish in order to adequately address climate change? A wide range of Christian churches have issued statements recognizing climate change as a matter of theological and ethical concern. But in the midst of chronically irresolvable global debates over fairness across inequalities, intergenerational obligations, and responsibilities to other species, those statements seem to offer little help or hope to a global public. Christian ethics should avoid the temptation, Jenkins argues, to content itself with general theological interpretations of the problem and work instead to foment moral and social creativity. Problems with unprecedented moral and physical dimensions challenge theological communities to show how their traditions of faith can generate unanticipated responsibilities.
Speaker Bio
Willis Jenkins听is the听Margaret Farley Assistant Professor of Social Ethics at Yale Divinity School, and holds a secondary appointment at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. Professor Jenkins' research focuses on environmental ethics, sustainable communities, global ethics, and theological ethics. He is author of听Ecologies of Grace: Environmental Ethics and Christian Theology听(Oxford, 2008), which won a Templeton Prize for Theological Promise, and editor of several other works. He is also editor of听The Spirit of Sustainability,听and co-editor of听Bonhoeffer and King: Receiving Their Legacies for Christian Social Thought听(Fortress Press 2010). Professor Jenkins previously taught at the University of Virginia and on the rural campus of Uganda Christian University. He has significant international experience in community development initiatives, was co-founder of the Episcopal Young Adult Service Corps, and served on the Episcopal Church鈥檚 Standing Commission on World Mission, 2000鈥�2006. He is currently at work on a book entitled听Sustainability and Social Justice.
Event Photos
Willis Jenkins spoke at a lunch colloquium presentation about Climate Change and Christian Ethics on February 23, 2011 at The Boisi Center.
Photos by Kerry Burke, MTS Photography
Event Recap
In an engaging lunch colloquium that packed our seminar room, Willis Jenkins, assistant professor of social ethics at Yale Divinity School, called for a new approach to climate change among Christian ethicists. Climate change, he argued, is an unprecedented moral problem because of its scope, duration, uncertainty and susceptibility to perverse incentives, yet the Christian community has mostly just issued broad blanket statements that do little to help Christians take concrete steps to address the problem. To maintain the relevance of their tradition to contemporary global issues, Christian communities must show how climate change is a theological problem, and how solutions to climate change fit into larger Christian moral commitments. Most importantly, Jenkins said, Christians must take actions to address specific proble