Good evening my brothers and sisters in Christ :),
I am currently taking a religion course as an elective in university. The course is entitled “Religious ethics and the environment”. It explores the effect that different religions have on our environment. I need to write a research paper for this course. I want to focus on Coptic Christianity, I also want this paper to help me grow and gain new knowledge about our church and Christ’s teachings. I am having problems narrowing down my research topic. Does anyone have any suggestions? Anything will help!! I need to write on a topic in which there is abundant information about. Does anyone have any ideas? I would appreciate anything that comes to mind. Thank you in advance, please pray for my weaknesses. Here are some of the guidelines the teacher has given us:
“The paper is intended to be a BALANCED AND CRITICAL EVALUATION of a topic at the intersection of religion and the environment.
The paper requires you to do additional research aside from the course readings.
Please keep in mind that while this assignment asks you to have an opinion, it should not simply be an opinion piece. In other words, you are free, and in fact encouraged, to defend your convictions, but you must back up your position with outside academic sources and logical argumentation. This is not the place to proselytize. Please don’t give us, for example, an impassioned defense of the truthfulness of Christian doctrines or (even worse) a damning critique of the wrongheadedness of Islam based on your own personal feelings or subjective experiences.
Structure your paper accordingly:
Examine how the belief systems, rituals, and concepts of a religious tradition* might be used to solve a real environmental problem (such as overpopulation, water pollution, loss of biodiversity, global warming, or the unethical treatment of animals, for instance). What does the religion say about this problem? Does it give counsel (to its members) on how to go about facing this problem? How feasible is its practical ethic? Why is this religion (as opposed to, say, a secular philosophy or movement) particularly valuable in solving this problem? You might also consider how this religion works well for some issues, but perhaps not so well for others. Finally, you could also suggest how this religion might reinterpret or extend its teachings in certain ways so that it could better meet these challenges (after all, this is what ecotheologians do). Make sure that your paper contains an argument and a critical evaluation, not just a survey of ideas.
*Be specific. Narrow your study down to a particular confession/branch/denomination instead of generalizing an entire religion. For example, instead of writing a paper on what Christians think about animals, one could analyze Roman Catholicism vis-à-vis the use of animals in biomedical experimentation OR Greek Orthodoxy vis-à-vis the use of animals for human consumption . . . “
Comments
and we have the examples of the monks etc who lived in harmony with nature.
then, if you want a catholic example, you could read up on st francis of asissi, a great saint.
i don't know any famous protestant eco-warriors but if you put 'protestant', 'Christian' and 'ecologist' in an internet search engine, you may find one.
Here is one page for instance...
http://www.patriarchate.org/environment
God bless your studies
Father Peter
The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has written extensively on the subject of Orthodoxy and various ecological concerns. It might we worth Googling him and seeing what approaches he takes, and seeing what sources and subjects he addresses.
Here is one page for instance...
http://www.patriarchate.org/environment
God bless your studies
Father Peter
With all respect due to my Patriarch, I feel he improperly uses his position in issues that, while we should be aware of them and choose eco-friendly habits, are issues he truly does not have the authority to drive. While we Greek Orthodox understand that he is not in any sort of position in the Church comparable to the Roman Pope in Western Christianity, he behaves in such a fashion that the rest of the world will assume he is in such a place of power. While his influence is across his entire jurisdiction, his power truly does not reach beyond the walls of Constantinople. He is our "first among equals," but is not our head as too much of the world leans to believe and as he tends to portray.
He also associates himself to closely with secularists in his self-proclaimed quest, often participating in events that no respectable Orthodox Christian would take part in, such as the celebration of the "secular" Turkish state, which, to this day, persecutes Greeks, Armenians, Lebanese, and even other muslims who are minorities. This almost seems a political play to suck up to other nations' leaders and even push political views on wholeheartedly good Orthodox Christians. Furthermore, while we should work to help our environment, he is jumping the controversial bandwagon of "global warming" that no Orthodox man should be forced to accept unless he so personally sees fit.
We Greeks have prided ourselves in maintaining the original language, the original traditions, the original music even, and most of our priests just so happen to be quite conservative. I am not the only Greek who will be so indifferent upon the Patriarch's passing; but I shall still pray for him nevertheless.
Thank you
Father Peter