Subtopic Deep Dive
Christian Environmental Ethics
Research Guide
What is Christian Environmental Ethics?
Christian Environmental Ethics examines theological concepts of stewardship, dominion, and creation care in Christianity and their influence on environmental attitudes and behaviors.
Researchers analyze scriptural interpretations, papal encyclicals like Laudato Si', and empirical data from Christian congregations. Key studies include Greeley (1993) with 304 citations linking Catholicism to pro-environmental views and Jenkins et al. (2018) with 181 citations on religion's role in climate change. Over 10 papers from the list exceed 140 citations, focusing on attitudes and behaviors.
Why It Matters
Christian Environmental Ethics shapes faith-based environmental activism, as seen in Greeley (1993) showing Catholics' higher willingness to fund environmental protection. Hope and Jones (2014) demonstrate religious faith's impact on attitudes toward Carbon Capture technologies, influencing policy advocacy. Gottlieb (2003) compiles perspectives linking Christian theology to ecological practices, affecting congregation behaviors amid climate crises.
Key Research Challenges
Reconciling Dominion and Stewardship
Interpreting Genesis dominion as exploitation versus care divides scholars, as Kroesbergen (2014) critiques eco-theology debates using Kierkegaard. Deane-Drummond's views clash with traditionalists, stalling consensus. Empirical validation remains limited.
Measuring Religious Influence Empirically
Quantifying theology's impact on behaviors faces confounding variables, per Arbuckle and Konisky (2015) on Protestant variations. Morrison et al. (2015) note inconsistent Christian responses to climate attitudes. Surveys like Greeley (1993) need replication.
Bridging Theology and Policy Impact
Linking doctrines to activism lacks causal evidence, as Jenkins et al. (2018) highlight cultural entanglements. Hope and Jones (2014) find mixed faith effects on tech acceptance. Policy translation from encyclicals remains underexplored.
Essential Papers
Religion and Attitudes toward the Environment
Andrew M. Greeley · 1993 · Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion · 304 citations
This essay is an attempt to expand a study reported in 1989 of the relationship between religion and concern for the environment in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Here, only one variable was used, willingness to...
Religion and Climate Change
Willis Jenkins, Evan Berry, Luke Beck Kreider · 2018 · Annual Review of Environment and Resources · 181 citations
Understanding the cultural dimensions of climate change requires understanding its religious aspects. Insofar as climate change is entangled with humans, it is also entangled with all the ways in w...
Religion Does Matter for Climate Change Attitudes and Behavior
Mark Morrison, Roderick Duncan, Kevin A. Parton · 2015 · PLoS ONE · 175 citations
Little research has focused on the relationship between religion and climate change attitudes and behavior. Further, while there have been some studies examining the relationship between environmen...
Religion and social values for sustainability
Christopher D. Ives, Jeremy Kidwell · 2019 · Sustainability Science · 168 citations
Discourse on social values as they relate to environmental and sustainability issues has almost exclusively been conducted in a secular intellectual context. However, with a renewed emphasis on cul...
This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment
Roger S. Gottlieb · 2003 · 162 citations
Preface and Acknowledgments Introduction: Religion in an Age of Environmental Crisis Introduction to the Second Edition: Good News/Bad News Part I: The Moment of Seeing: Selections from Nature Writ...
The impact of religious faith on attitudes to environmental issues and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies: A mixed methods study
Aimie Hope, Christopher R. Jones · 2014 · Technology in Society · 161 citations
An exploratory mixed methods study was conducted to investigate potential differences in the pro-environmental values and beliefs of people from the UK Christian, Muslim and secular (non-religious)...
The Role of Religion in Environmental Attitudes
Matthew B. Arbuckle, David M. Konisky · 2015 · Social Science Quarterly · 159 citations
Objective This article examines the role of religion in public attitudes about the environment. While some have found that various aspects of theology and religious practices are responsible for lo...
Reading Guide
Foundational Papers
Start with Greeley (1993) for empirical baseline on Catholic environmentalism (304 citations), then Gottlieb (2003) for broad religion-nature anthology, and Hope and Jones (2014) for faith-attitude methods.
Recent Advances
Study Jenkins et al. (2018) for climate-religion synthesis (181 citations), Ives and Kidwell (2019) for social values (168 citations), and Morrison et al. (2015) for behavior evidence (175 citations).
Core Methods
Core methods: surveys/regressions (Greeley 1993, Arbuckle and Konisky 2015), mixed-methods (Hope and Jones 2014), theological critique (Kroesbergen 2014), and value discourse analysis (Ives and Kidwell 2019).
How PapersFlow Helps You Research Christian Environmental Ethics
Discover & Search
Research Agent uses searchPapers and citationGraph on Greeley (1993) to map 304-citation influence across Christian ethics papers, revealing clusters around stewardship debates. exaSearch uncovers papal encyclical discussions; findSimilarPapers extends to Jenkins et al. (2018) for climate-religion links.
Analyze & Verify
Analysis Agent employs readPaperContent on Hope and Jones (2014) to extract Christian vs. secular attitude data, then runPythonAnalysis with pandas to compute statistical differences in pro-environmental scores. verifyResponse via CoVe cross-checks claims against Morrison et al. (2015); GRADE assigns high evidence to Greeley (1993) surveys.
Synthesize & Write
Synthesis Agent detects gaps in dominion interpretations between Kroesbergen (2014) and Gottlieb (2003), flagging contradictions; Writing Agent uses latexEditText and latexSyncCitations to draft theology-policy sections, latexCompile for full reports, exportMermaid for attitude influence diagrams.
Use Cases
"Correlate Christian denomination with climate policy support in recent surveys"
Research Agent → searchPapers + runPythonAnalysis (pandas regression on Greeley 1993 and Morrison 2015 datasets) → statistical p-values and denomination coefficients output.
"Draft LaTeX review on stewardship theology from key papers"
Synthesis Agent → gap detection → Writing Agent → latexEditText + latexSyncCitations (Gottlieb 2003, Kroesbergen 2014) + latexCompile → camera-ready PDF with citations.
"Find GitHub repos analyzing Christian environmental survey data"
Research Agent → citationGraph on Arbuckle and Konisky (2015) → paperExtractUrls → paperFindGithubRepo → githubRepoInspect → R scripts for attitude modeling output.
Automated Workflows
Deep Research workflow scans 50+ papers via searchPapers, structures reports on stewardship evolution from Greeley (1993) to Jenkins et al. (2018). DeepScan applies 7-step CoVe to verify Hope and Jones (2014) faith-CCS links with GRADE checkpoints. Theorizer generates hypotheses on papal encyclicals' behavioral impacts from citationGraph clusters.
Frequently Asked Questions
What defines Christian Environmental Ethics?
It examines stewardship, dominion, and creation care in Christianity's impact on environmental attitudes, analyzing scriptures and encyclicals like Laudato Si'.
What methods dominate this subtopic?
Methods include surveys (Greeley 1993), mixed-methods studies (Hope and Jones 2014), and theological exegesis (Kroesbergen 2014), often with regression analysis of attitudes.
Which are key papers?
Greeley (1993, 304 citations) links Catholicism to environmental concern; Gottlieb (2003, 162 citations) anthologizes religion-nature links; Jenkins et al. (2018, 181 citations) cover climate religion.
What open problems exist?
Challenges include causal links from doctrine to behavior (Arbuckle and Konisky 2015), reconciling dominion interpretations (Kroesbergen 2014), and scaling empirical studies beyond US/UK Christians.
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Part of the Religion, Ecology, and Ethics Research Guide