This semester I’m teaching Theological Ethics. The first half of the course will be three theorists, or kind of big-picture introductions to ethics, Alan Donagan (Kantian/deontology), Paul Ramsey (love and agape, with a bit of “realism” thrown in) and K.E. Løgstrup (phenomenology). But then for the second half, we’re going to be talking about environmental ethics.
What I predict will happen, is that we will see in the second half how totally inadequate so much of the Christian moral tradition is for helping us understand our responsibilities and opportunities in this time of polycrisis. By “polycrisis” I mean the multiply-reinforcing and complexifying crises of ecological devastation, political stalling that makes collective action to remedy the ecological crisis nearly impossible, lingering inequalities based on race and class that make experience of ecological devastation uneven and unjust, and a few more to boot that I’ll not go into in order not to completely bum you out.
Maybe I’ll be wrong about that. But I doubt it. Life in 2022 is too complex for the categories we learned in 1960.
So I wanted to do something different, something interesting. I decided that before we launch into ecotheology proper, we’ll do an interlude and read Henry David Thoreau’s classic Walden as a class. And more importantly: we’ll build a replica! I found this measured drawing showing more or less exactly how Thoreau built it.
The plan is to build this over three weekends and then erect it at a pond Wabash owns near campus. Each student will then be required to sleep one night in this cabin, and he will have a writing assignment to do while he’s out there (like Thoreau did!). He’s to write Thoreau a letter thanking him for his book and explaining what parts of the book are still applicable today, and which parts need to be rethought in light of the polycrisis.
I hope it works! And to be able to do something to promote simpler living, with a smaller carbon footprint, with young and energetic brilliant students will simply help me hope. I hope.
