As foreshadowed in the previous issue (February 2000), this issue of Pacifica is largely devoted to the publication of four major papers to be delivered at the annual conference of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Theological Schools (ANZATS) to be held in Christchurch in early July and dedicated to the theme “Ecotheology”. The organisers of the conference hope that pre-publication of the papers in this way will allow the theological agenda to be up and running, so to speak, as the conference gets under way.
A major event to occur at the conference will be the launching of the first volume of the Earth Bible project. It is appropriate, then, that the opening paper published in this issue should be the Charles Strong lecture to be delivered by Dr Norman Habel, the inspirer and editor-in-chief of the project. In a way that will be most useful for conference par-ticipants, the paper sets out the six principles of an ecojustice critique that lie behind the Earth Bible project as a whole and assesses the chal-lenges such a critique presents to contemporary theology.
Denis Edwards’ paper, “Ecology and the Holy Spirit”, provides a notable illustration of a traditional theological topic creatively re-thought in terms of ecotheology. Neil Darragh in “Adjusting to the Newcomer” comprehensively surveys the variety of ways in which ecotheology calls for a re-examination of traditional areas of theological enquiry. Finally, in a paper that may stir some useful controversy, “Towards a Christian Social Ecology”, Richard Davis, brings the critique of social ecologist Murray Bookchin to bear against ecotheology itself, in an attempt to establish a more authentic Christian social ecology.
The article of Richard Wade, “Towards a Christian Ethics of Animals”, though not in fact intended for the July 2000 conference on ecology, in fact, as the title suggests, forms an appropriate complement from a related area of ethical concern.