“Green is Where it’s At!” Cultivating Environmental Concern at an African American Church
Issued Date: 12 Oct 2015
Abstract
Since the 1990s much 'religion and ecology' scholarship has sought to identify theological, ethical, and scriptural resources that suggest all religions teach their followers to protect the earth. Case studies have focused primarily on success stories that demonstrate how religions can contribute to a more sustainable future, but religion and ecology scholarship has paid inadequate attention to cultural complexities involved with cultivating environmental concern in religious communities. This article aims to address some of those neglected factors. A bible study on food, faith, and the environment held at an African American church in Chicago offers a glimpse into a window for exploring how assumptions about ethnicity and class influence the presumed ‘greening’ of American religion. I argue that efforts to ‘green’ American religion have relied not only on religious teachings, but also on latent assumptions about ethnicity and class.
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References
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University of California Press).
———. 2011. ‘Editor's Introduction: Toward a Robust Scientific Investigation of the
“Religion” Variable in the Quest for Sustainability’, Journal for the Study of
Religion, Nature and Culture 5.3: 252-63. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.
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———. 2013. ‘Kenya’s Green Belt Movement: Contributions, Conflict, Contradictions,
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———. 2014. ‘The State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations: Mainstream
NGOs, Foundations, Government Agencies’, Green 2. Online: http://
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Foundations of Religion and Ecology’, in Bauman, Bohannon, and O’Brien 2011:
81-95.
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by the Voter Activation Network’. Faith in Place, internal document.
Witt, Doris. 2007. ‘From Fiction to Foodways: Working at the Intersections of African
American Literary and Culinary Studies’, in Bower 2007: 101-25
the Twentieth Century (New York: New York University Press).
Bauman, Whitney, Richard Bohannon, and Kevin J. O’Brien (eds.). 2011. Inherited
Land: The Changing Grounds of Religion and Ecology (Eugene, OR: Pickwick
Publications).
Bower, Anne (ed.). 2007. African American Foodways: Explorations of History and Culture
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press).
Brand, Stewart. 2009. Whole Earth Discipline: Why Dense Cities, Nuclear Power,
Transgenic Crops, Restored Wildlands, and Geoengineering Are Necessary (New York:
Penguin Books).
Bullard, Robert D. 1994. Unequal Protection: Environmental Justice and Communities of
Color (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books).
Clay, Elonda. 2011. ‘How Does It Feel to Be an Environmental Problem? Studying
Religion and Ecology in the African Diaspora’, in Bauman, Bohannon, and
O’Brien 2011: 148-70.
Chepkwony, Adam K. Arap. 2008. ‘The Environment in African Spirituality’, in Arri
Eisen and Gary Laderman (eds.), Science, Religion, and Society: An Encyclopedia of
History, Culture, and Controversy (New York: Routledge): 481-91.
Finfrock, Jesse. 2008. ‘Q&A: Van Jones’. Mother Jones. Online: http://www.
motherjones.com/environment/2008/10/qa-van-jones.
Finnegan, Eleanor. 2011. ‘What Traditions Are Represented in Religion and Ecology?
A Perspective from an American Scholar of Islam’, in Bauman, Bohannon, and
O’Brien 2011: 64-79.
Glave, Dianne D. 2010. Rooted in the Earth: Reclaiming the African American
Environmental Heritage (Chicago, IL: Lawrence Hill Books).
Glave, Dianne D., and Mark Stoll. 2006. ‘African American Environmental History:
An Introduction’, in Glave and Stoll 2006: 1-8.
Glave, Dianne D., and Mark Stoll (eds.). 2006. ‘To Love the Wind and the Rain’: African
Americans and Environmental History (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh
Press).
Griffith, R. Marie. 2004. Born Again Bodies: Flesh and Spirit in American Christianity.
(Berkeley: University of California Press). Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/
california/9780520217539.001.0001.
Gumo, Sussy, Simon O. Gisege, Evans Raballah, and Collins Ouma. 2012.
‘Communicating African Spirituality through Ecology: Challenges and
Prospects for the 21st Century’, Religions 3.2: 523-43. Doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel3020523.
Jackson, John L. 2001. Harlem World: Doing Race and Class in Contemporary Black
America (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press). Doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226390000.001.0001.
Johnson, Geoffrey. 2007. ‘Green Awards 2007 Honorees’. Chicago Magazine, 26 May.
Online: http://www.chicagomag.com/core/pagetools.php?pageid=4246&
url=%2FChicago-Magazine%2FApril-2007%2FGreen-Awards-Honorees%
2Findex.php& mode=print.
Jones, Van. 2009. The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest
Problems (New York: HarperOne).
Madden, Etta, and Martha Finch. 2006. ‘Introduction’, in Etta Madden and Martha
Finch (ed.), Eating in Eden: Food and American Utopias (Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press): 1-31.
McGurty, Eileen Maura. 2007. Transforming Environmentalism: Warren County, PCBS,
and the Origins of Environmental Justice (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University
Press).
Melosi, Martin V. 2006. ‘Environmental Justice, Ecoracism, and Environmental
History’, in Glave and Stoll 2006: 120-32.
Moses, Wilson Jeremiah. 1998. Afrotopia: The Roots of African American Popular History
(New York: Cambridge University Press). Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/
CBO9780511582837.
Ostrow, Marty, and Terry Kay Rockefeller (dirs.). 2008. Renewal. DVD. Cambridge,
MA. Fine Cut Productions.
Patillo, Mary. 2007. Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City (Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press). Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.7208/chicago/
9780226649337.001.0001.
Schrock, Jennifer Halteman. 2005a Just Eating? Practicing Our Faith at the Table.
Presbyterian Hunger Program [PCUSA]). Online: http://practicingourfaith.
org/pdf/Just%20Eating%20Participant%20Book.pdf
———. 2005b. Just Eating? Practicing Our Faith at the Table: African American
Congregation Version. Presbyterian Hunger Program [PCUSA]). Online:
http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/unitedchurchofchrist/legacy_url/
1762/Just-Eating-Reading-Book-African-American-Adaptation.pdf?1418425330.
Shearer, Tobin Miller. 2010. ‘Chickens, Crops, and Tractors: The Use of Machines as
Sacred Symbols in Mennonite Fresh Air Hosting Programs’, Journal for the Study
of Religion, Nature and Culture 4.3: 153-81. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/
jsrnc.v4i3.153.
Smith, Kimberly K. 2007. African American Environmental Thought: Foundations,
American Political Thought (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas).
Smith-Cavros, Eileen M. 2007. ‘Modern Black Churchgoers in Miami-Dade County,
Florida: Place, Nature, and Memory’, Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and
Culture 1.3: 351-70. Doi: htp://dx.doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.v1i3.351.
Stoll, Mark. 2006. ‘Religion and African American Environmental Activism’, in Glave
and Stoll 2006: 150-63.
Stuckrad, Kocku von. 2007. ‘Finding Data: Some Reflections on Ontologies and
Normativities’, Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture 1.1: 39-46. Doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.v1i1.39.
Taylor, Bron (ed.). 2005a. The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature (London: Continuum
International).
———. 2005b. ‘Religious Studies and Environmental Concern’, in Bron Taylor (ed.),
The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature (London: Continuum International): 1373-
79.
———. 2010. Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future (Berkeley:
University of California Press).
———. 2011. ‘Editor's Introduction: Toward a Robust Scientific Investigation of the
“Religion” Variable in the Quest for Sustainability’, Journal for the Study of
Religion, Nature and Culture 5.3: 252-63. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.
v5i3.253.
———. 2013. ‘Kenya’s Green Belt Movement: Contributions, Conflict, Contradictions,
and Complications in a Prominent ENGO’, in Nina Witoszek, Lars Tragardh,
and Bron Taylor (eds.), Civil Society in the Age of Monitory Democracy (New York:
Berghahn Books): 180-207.
Taylor, Dorceta E. 1997. ‘Women of Color, Environmental Justice, and Ecofeminism’,
in Karen J. Warren (ed.), Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press): 38-81.
———. 2014. ‘The State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations: Mainstream
NGOs, Foundations, Government Agencies’, Green 2. Online: http://
diversegreen. org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2014/07/FullReport_Green2.0
_FINAL.pdf.
Tucker, Mary Evelyn, and John Grim. 2011. ‘Intellectual and Organizational
Foundations of Religion and Ecology’, in Bauman, Bohannon, and O’Brien 2011:
81-95.
Voter Activation Network. 2014. ‘An In-Depth Analysis of Faith in Place Supporters
by the Voter Activation Network’. Faith in Place, internal document.
Witt, Doris. 2007. ‘From Fiction to Foodways: Working at the Intersections of African
American Literary and Culinary Studies’, in Bower 2007: 101-25
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