Spirituality and Sustainability: The Role for Teaching About Religion

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Increasingly, environmental policymakers and theorists have begun to recognize that successful programs to promote environmental sustainability require active participation and support from religious organizations and individuals. Unfortunately, in many societies, those who fear or do not understand religion oppose the participation of religious groups in policymaking activities, thus erecting a barrier to the accomplishment of sustainability goals. At the same time, educational policymakers and theorists have begun to recognize that public schools around the world should teach students about religion as part of a liberal education that will prepare students for citizenship in a global economy and society. This paper asks whether the "teaching about religion" project might aid the sustainability project by removing barriers (fear, ignorance, hostility) to certain limited forms of religious participation in public processes that are necessary to achieve sustainability goals in the long term. There is good reason to be optimistic that these two movements are compatible, although, as the paper will also explain, the interaction between the movements is complicated by the fact that some religious traditions have not always acted to promote environmental objectives.

Stream: Environmental Sustainability

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

Since 2001, I have taught administrative law, environmental law, natural resources law, and church-state law at Boston University. My nearly twenty published articles in these areas have been published in top law journals in the United States as well as in books and international conference proceedings. Recently, my interests have turned international. I have spoken at church-state conferences in Vietnam and Norway, and am currently spending the spring 2008 semester teaching in Lyon, France and then in Krakow, Poland, on a Fulbright Fellowship. Before joining Boston University, I worked at the U.S. Department of Justice and worked as a law clerk for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the U.S. Supreme Court. I hold a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Harvard, an M.A. in Religious Studies from University of Chicago, and a J.D. from Stanford Law School, where I graduated first in my class.