Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Eco spirituality'

At a peripheral glance the collective action of a social movement group creates a perception of rational and homogenous internal group identity. This fa??ade has led some social movement theorists to take for granted the internal cohesiveness of the groups they are studying. Yet this emphasis on the rationality and structure of collective action over-simplifies the complex and dynamic interactions that occur in the construction of individual and collective identities. Accordingly, the constructivist New Social Movement theoretical paradigm actively eschews these misleading assumptions, instead granting primacy to the study of the reflexive, complex and dynamic interactions that occur in the construction of individual and collective identities. By employing the tools provided by New Social Movement theory my study unravels one such under-researched identity, namely the diverse and multifaceted ??eco-spiritual?? identity. The rich narratives of actors who consider themselves spiritual and are environmental activists are analysed through a case study of the Wilderness Acton Group, a collective within The Wilderness Society, Sydney. Analysis of the fieldwork data informs a theoretical and empirical understanding of social movements with regard to the negotiation and construction of political goals; trajectory and rejuvenation; individual movement motivation and participation; ongoing construction of group identity and solidarity; emotional commitment; action event selection; and group rituals, activism and practices

Thesis (M.A.)--Florida State University, 2009.
Advisor: Amanda Porterfield, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Program of American and Florida Studies. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed on April 29, 2010). Document formatted into pages; contains v, 69 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis advisor: Boyd Taylor Coolman
This dissertation offers a new systematic interpretation and retrieval of the theology and spirituality of the 12th century master Hugh of St. Victor, an interpretation centered on the Triune LORD’s unifying and reforming work in history in the three days of Jesus Christ’s dying, burial, and rising. Seen from the vantage of Hugh’s treatise On the Three Days, these ‘three days’ of Jesus Christ’s ‘Passover’ are, for Hugh, the plenary revelation of the Trinity in history – and so an eschatological disclosure – and are at once the soteriological and spiritual center of his theology. The work of the dissertation is, in part one, to explore the objective polarity of the LORD’s work in the three days. This entails an in-depth treatment of Hugh’s christology, including the currently contested and historically misconstrued territory of Hugh’s doctrine of the hypostatic union. Moreover, the project brings out the integral connections between Hugh’s doctrine of the hypostatic union and his soteriology of the re-formation of all of history in the three days. This triadic soteriological scheme in turn correlates to three degrees of theological language and of Triune self-revelation in history. The task of part two of the dissertation is to study the subjective polarity of Spirit-enabled human participation in Christ’s dying, burial, and rising. Hugh’s spirituality and practice of theology are explored as means of human re-formation unto wonder, wisdom, and charity – in short, unto mystical and ultimately eschatological union with God – through participation in the paschal mystery. These chapters thus systematize and explore aspects of Hugh’s thought as diverse as the communal formation at the Abbey of St. Victor, humility, study of the liberal arts and memorization of Scripture, theological meditation, allegorical and tropological biblical interpretation, works of charity, and the responsive eros of Hugh’s contemplative mysticism, all as means of sharing, by turns, in Christ’s dying, burial, and rising. The third and final part of the dissertation attempts a contemporary practice of Hugonian theology. It places the Hugonian theology retrieved in parts one and two in the context of the reception of Laudato Si’ in order to offer a christological and mystical companion to Pope Francis’ encyclical. It argues that the ‘ecological conversion’ for which Pope Francis calls, as a subjective participation in Christ, implicitly depends upon a robust enough objective christology to make the summons to particularly ‘ecological’ conversion coherent and compelling. Hence the contemporary eco-christologies of Sallie McFague and Celia Deane-Drummond are studied and adjudicated. Finally, on the basis of the gains accrued in the course of those eco-christological engagements, a renewed Hugonian christology and soteriology is proposed as a framework for and aid to the spiritual and moral implementation of Laudato Si’. Ecological conversion is itself, most properly, a process of human re-formation in the three days of Jesus Christ’s Passover, and hence practical efforts to teach and implement Laudato Si’ benefit from a Hugonian theological and spiritual approach
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018
Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: Theology

The literature of Integrated Water Resource Management argues collaborative watershed partnerships between state agencies and civil society are crucial for water governance. They bring stakeholders together to facilitate dialogue, reduce competition and negotiate on complex water related issues. However in newly independent states, like the Philippines, local state agencies are still struggling to adopt collaborative governance approaches that offer stronger stakeholder engagement, due to poorly implemented decentralizing policies, resource constraints and a lack of political will. Thus, the need to identify and explore alternative institutional arrangements that are capable and willing to support local government is the first step towards developing culturally appropriate and feasible solutions within the Philippine context. Using the Angat River Basin, located in Bulacan, Central Luzon, Philippines, as the focal area for investigation, this research presents a shift in thinking about mainstream watershed group-agency partnerships. As such, the research suggests that the Philippine Catholic Church, a key faith-based organization possesses the necessary skills, experience and trust to facilitate and support a potential partnership for the 63,000 hectare Angat River Basin. The findings from this research, which were collected using a qualitative multi-method approach, highlight how the Diocese of Malolos and the wider Philippine Catholic Church are not only actively responding to environmental advocacy and management, but that their strengths of transformational leadership, political acuity and moral authority compensate for the deficiencies of the local government.
Applied Science, Faculty of
Arts, Faculty of
Asian Research, Institute of
Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of
Graduate

碩士
輔仁大學
宗教學系碩士在職專班
103
Since ancient times, Eastern and Western cultural thoughts and most religions advocated nature. They regard nature as the gift for human beings, granted by the Creator or by Heaven. Returning to the nature of Ecological Spirituality is not a new way of spirituality created today. For example, in the middle Ages, there were many thinkers proclaiming a similar spirituality in the Catholic religion. Facing a deteriorating global ecological environment, many ecologists think that religion could contribute to the peace of the world and the ecological system of the world. Thus, the writer focused on the Catholic religion as the research subject, and applied literature analysis and historical research to investigate the thoughts and practice of a Catholic Ecological Spirituality. The investigation targets of this thesis: first, does the Catholic Church, which regards spirituality highly, also highly advocate ecological spirituality? Secondly, what is the origin of eco-spirituality and how does it develop in the Catholic Church? Thirdly, what is the solution nowadays when facing the difficulty of the practice of eco-spirituality in the Catholic Church? Finally, does Catholic ecological spirituality inspire today’s Taiwanese Catholic Church and society? The writer hopes to provide some useful reference for the Catholic Church and other religious spiritual groups by doing this research. Through the research, the writer found that Catholic ecological spirituality contains three dimensions and four aspects. Heaven, Earth and the Human being are the three dimensions. And the four aspects are to reconcile with Heaven, nature, others and oneself. First of all, the writer investigated the Bible and the Catholic social teachings and found the ecological morality presented that there were ecological spiritual thoughts in the traditional Catholic Church. Secondly, in the spiritual history of the Catholic Church, there were many religionists living in reclusion in the desert and the forest with a simple ecological spiritual life, in communion with Heaven and Earth. Thirdly, using Taiwanese Catholic Church as an example, the writer investigated present practice of ecological spiritual thoughts and realized the practice was integrated with the environmental protection works, and finally with social concerns. However, the present practice has its difficulty. The writer hopes to find solutions in the future, in order to apply Catholic unique ecological thoughts concretely, to benefit this island and to further contribute to the world.

碩士
輔仁大學
宗教學系碩士在職專班
107
Abstract Today's global environment has deteriorated, causing all sort of natural disasters. Many environmental scholars have found that religious education seems to have a greater impetus to ecological conservation. The priest of Society of Jesus, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) was a very influential thinker of the twentieth century. His understanding of spirituality is not only focused on the inner perception of the individual, but on the integration of man and the earth. During his lifetime, he strived to transform himself into a model of ecological spirituality. This thesis focuses on the eco-spirituality of Teilhard de Chardin. The writer uses literary analysis and historical research methods to explore “ the eco-spirituality” (or ecological spirituality) model of Teilhard de Chardin in depth. First, the writer examines when the ideas of eco-spirituality begin to sprout during the development of western ecological thinking, and how the spirituality of the Catholic Church developed its ecological spiritual thought. Secondly, the writer explores the unique and personal ecological spiritual thought of Teilhard de Chardin, which was deeply influenced by the concepts of the Catholic religion. How did Teilhard de Chardin practice his spiritual thought during a long and arduous archaeological career? How does his theory relate to Nature? Finally, it analyzes the implementation dilemma of eco-spirituality in Taiwan, and delve into an examination on Catholic ecological spiritual thought. Lastly, we take a look into the future of mankind with Teilhard de Chardin’s ecological and spiritual perspective. The writer finds that Teilhard de Chardin had observed the connection between human beings and phenomena of the Nature. The ecological spirituality advocated by him has a transcendental spirit that can be elevated closer towards the Sacred. Considering the negative impacts of the rapidly changing material society and the deteriorating natural environment, this has epoch-making significance which is inspiring and demonstrative to Christians. In view of the predicament encountered in Taiwan's current religious and ecological education, we have the means to find a suitable solution from Teilhard de Chardin’s ecological devotional model. The writer hopes that with this thesis, the Catholics and even Christians in Taiwan will be able to use as a reference to aid their spiritual devotion. The writer also hopes that religions on both sides of the strait can be further heightened with eco-spirituality. To take this as a guide to overcome the challenges of environmental protection work in our society.

Situated in the holistic education field, this research explores the mind/body experiences of six youth who remained in a drama group from the time they were children to their late adolescence. In the first phase of this research these participants reflected on their experiences of the imagination, thought and felt sensation as they engaged in meditation and mind/body warm-up exercises during the drama years. The participants applied their understanding of mind/body awareness to a question posed by Vivian Darroch-Lozwoski; what happens when we attend to nature feelingly? Over the course of one year, the youth explored the above question, individually and collectively through dreaming, reveries, the imagination, experiences of energy and as they wandered in nature. The inquiry directly addresses the existential, ontological and epistemological implications of holistic mind/body development and outlines approaches for gentling the mind and body to nature.

The purpose of this dissertation is to construct a Korean socioecological ethics based on comparative studies of the Eastern indigenous ecological spirituality of Donghak and the Western creation consciousness of sacramental commons. As this thesis examines the significant similarity between Donghak (initiated by 수운 , Su-woon) and sacramental commons (elaborated by John Hart), it highlights their common socioecological understandings of "interrelatedness," "interdependence," "interaction," and "transformation." In the nineteenth century, before the intrusion of Western modernization into traditional Korean society, Donghak's revolutionary egalitarian thinking included liberating and empowering minjung, the common people. Donghak's radical ideas are precursors of socioecological concepts; its social consciousness has affected contemporary Korean ecological spirituality. By virtue of Donghak's spirituality and consciousness, Korean socioecological ethics might overcome the harm of Western anthropocentric influences. This project envisions a utopian socioecological community and a versatile pedagogical program as a socioecological project in Korean contexts. Although Koreans have experienced a conflict between traditional value systems and Western imported ideologies, eco-community movements have been developed that integrate them. These movements emphasize participation, solidarity, and responsibility for local communities, and aim to change daily life through a transformation of cultural consciousness and contextual conduct. The methodological significance of this dissertation lies in the interreligious and transcultural dialogue between Donghak and sacramental commons. Elements of comparative socioecological ethics--themes of "relational community," "relational consciousness," and "interconnectedness"--in both Donghak and sacramental commons reveal their shared, holistic understanding of a socio-ethical relationship among the divine Spirit, humans, and nature. These comparative constructs suggest how socioecological ethics can restore socioecological relationality to a dynamic unity of the divine and the earthly, the infinite and the finite, transcendence and immanence, universality and particularity, and individuality and diversity. Donghak and sacramental commons emphasize relational socioecological consciousness, the role of divine Spirit, and the importance of practice and projects based on this holistic understanding. Their common creation consciousness can provide a shared socioecological vision and have a transformative role in Korean contexts.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
The Mandorla: A Spiritual Memoir constructs a life-narrative and is an attempt to articulate and give structure to an inner world of struggle and conflict that fuels the spiritual journey of one woman—myself. It is a record of the tribulations, as well as moments of knowledge, divine insight, transcendence and ineffable bliss. The spiritual memoir is organised around four journeys, and while the journeys themselves only took around seven months in total, they map a spiritual odyssey that evolved over four decades from youth through to middle age. The journeys serve to ground an eclectic range of spiritual themes in places that provide temporal and spiritual reference points. The first section is centred on two journeys to the “East,” and is grounded in an Eastern philosophical and spiritual outlook. The initial expedition explores a youthful quest for truth in India; the second trip tracks a return to India just before the collapse of my marriage, and follows my life in middle age. The second section is centred on two journeys in the “West,” one to Central Australia, the other, a pilgrimage/sabbatical to England and Europe that explores, among other things, the feminine face of the Divine. “The Mandorla,” the final section, considers complementary opposites such as male–female, inside–outside, agony–bliss, heaven–earth and how these irreducible opposites overlap and exist together in a third liminal space, the mandorla, a place of potential reconciliation and apotheosis for the seeker–traveller. The accompanying exegesis is divided into three parts and examines a variety of spiritual autobiographical projects, especially works by female writers. The first chapter explores the genre of spiritual autobiography, and provides an historical overview exploring key texts, as well as documenting the process of the writing of the spiritual memoir and the challenges of working in an autobiographical, self-reflexive style. The second chapter investigates travel/pilgrimage and eco-spiritual writing, and also considers methodologies for understanding spiritual journeys. The third chapter of the exegesis reflects on the powerful autobiographical accounts of the spiritual journeys of two women in modernity—Monica Baldwin and Karen Armstrong. These memoirs parallel my own spiritual explorations and journey in The Mandorla and provide a form for reflecting on women’s spiritual experience in modernity.

South African schools provide an enormous challenge for transformation towards inclusive and caring communities of learners, facilitators and caregivers. This qualitative study conducted at a primary school used narrative pastoral therapy-as-research and participatory action research-as-therapy to develop inclusive and caring practices. Co-authoring conversations with learners and caregivers from a diverse cultural and religious traditions and collaborating with facilitators challenged me to develop pastoral care as political care. This paved a way for future transformation of a school as a multi-religious community of care and respect. I engaged with participants in finding alternative ways of dealing with loss due to death of loved ones or separartion from caregivers. Children with chronic illness challenged their experiences of rejection and marginalisation at school by writing and producing a play while those whose voices were silenced chose other ways to inform learners and facilitators about their illness.
Practical Theology
M. Th. (Practical Theology with specialisation in Pastoral Therapy)