Stewardship and sustainability: An assessment of Christian and secular responses to the environmental crisis

Abstract

The concepts of sustainability and stewardship are both associated with societal responses towards the global environmental crisis. A comparison is drawn between responses towards the environmental crisis from Christian and global perspectives, with reference to multifaith, conservation and economic perspectives. Selected documents are analysed to find evidence pointing towards the underlying environmental attitude of the authors, making use of ecocritical images, dark green religion principles and expressions of ecojustice. Conclusions are drawn about whether a shallow or sincere environmental outlook forms part of the ecosophies espoused by the documents. The discussion is based on analyses of the Laudato si (2015) and the UN Sustainable Development Agenda (2015), with added insights from selected documents to provide different perspectives.
Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This study focuses on the analysis of documents originating from both the religious and secular sectors, using methodology consisting of concepts derived from different disciplines. It can therefore be considered as an interdisciplinary study.