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In this contribution to ecotheology, Ernst Conradie addresses the question whether Christian sin-talk can be retrieved in the public sphere. He argues that sin may be regarded as a form of social diagnostics and defends the plausibility of sin-talk in conversation with evolutionary biology, animal ethology, and the cognitive sciences.
List of contents
Introduction: Sin and Social Diagnostics
1. Penultimate Perspectives on the Roots of Environmental Destruction in Africa
2. Where Have Things Gone Awry in Evolutionary History?
3. How is the Story of What Went Wrong in the World to be Told?
4. Obstacles Thwarting a Retrieval of a Christian Notion of Sin
5. Posse Non Peccare?
Conclusion: Engaging in Social Diagnostics
About the author
Ernst M. Conradie is a senior professor in the Department of Religion and Theology at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. He works in the intersection between Christian ecotheology, systematic theology and ecumenical theology and comes from the Reformed tradition. He is the author of The Earth in God's Economy: Creation, Salvation and Consummation in Ecological Perspective (2015), Redeeming Sin? Social Diagnostics amid Ecological Destruction (2017), and Secular Discourse on Sin in the Anthropocene: What's Wrong with the World? (2020). He was the international convener of the Christian Faith and the Earth project (2007-2014), the leading editor (with Sigurd Bergmann, Celia Deane-Drummond, and Denis Edwards) of Christian Faith and the Earth: Current Paths and Emerging Horizons in Ecotheology (2014), and coeditor with Hilda Koster of The T&T Clark Handbook on Christian Theology and Climate Change (2019). He is responsible for registering the project "An Earthed Faith: Telling the Story amid the 'Anthropocene'" at UWC.
Pan-Chiu Lai is a professor in the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests include interreligious dialogue, Christianity and Chinese culture, modern Christian thought, and environmental ethics. He is a coauthor with Lin Hongxing of Confucian-Christian Dialogue and Ecological Concern (2006, in Chinese), a coeditor with Jason Lam of Sino-Christian Theology: A Theological Qua Cultural Movement in Contemporary China (2010), and an author of Towards a Trinitarian Theology of Religions: A Study of Paul Tillich's Thought (1994), Mahayana Christian Theology (2011, in Chinese), and Sino-Christian Theology in the Public Square (2014, in Chinese). He is registered as a co-researcher at UWC for the project "An Earthed Faith: Telling the Story amid the 'Anthropocene'."
