Bronislaw Szerszynski’s Nature, Technology and the Sacred (Oxford: Blackwell,
2005) offers a highly original argument that seeks to reorient our
understanding of the emergence of the distinctive meanings of technology
and nature in the West. More specifically, Szerszynski argues for the primacy
of the sacred in the interpretation of nature and technology. Refusing
the omnipresence of ‘desacralisation’ and ‘the secular’ in discourse on
ecology and technological development, Szerszynski sees in the disenchantment
of nature and the restlessness of technological innovation one
more alteration in the theme of the sacred.
Although not offered as a theological argument, the primacy of the
sacred in Szerszynski’s account suggests that his wide-ranging interrogation
of nature and technology is amenable to theological analysis.
Shortly after the publication of Nature, Technology and the Sacred, Ecotheology
Guest Editor, Peter Manley Scott, interviewed its author, Bronislaw
Szerszynski, most especially to explore what ecotheologians interested in
technology might learn from his thesis.