Reconsider the Lilies - by Andrew R H Thompson (Paperback)

About the Book

Christian environmentalism's dominant traditions have for too long avoided decolonial thought's critical gaze. Reconsider the Lilies introduces readers to the ways environmental issues are shaped by dynamics of racism and colonialism and orients readers to Christian approaches to environmentalism that can move beyond that legacy.

Book Synopsis

Christian environmentalism's dominant traditions have for too long avoided decolonial thought's critical gaze. Reconsider the Lilies introduces readers to the ways environmental issues are shaped by dynamics of racism and colonialism and orients readers to Christian approaches to environmentalism. By recounting the history of environmental justice, Thompson shows how even well-intentioned Christian environmentalism incorporates racist and colonialist assumptions. Challenging Christian environmentalism's colonial roots requires incorporating the insights of decolonial thought toward a more pluralist, pragmatic approach to environmentalism, one that learns from communities struggling against environmental injustice in the face of ecological collapse. Reconsider the Lilies focuses on different conceptions of justice and structural sin and offers a constructive cosmic Christology that traces Christ's presence in the concrete relationships that exist among all living things. But for this Christ-centered conception of ecological community to be decolonial, it must focus less on doctrine and ideology, and more on incarnation and embodiment. It must welcome a broad range of knowledge and expression. Environmental theology can be decolonized. Ecological communities can be restored through healing broken relationships and power disparities by equalizing access to ecological power.

Review Quotes

"Thompson gives us a thoughtful and candid look at the dangers and inadequacies of Christian environmentalism when it does not take seriously the various and rich ways in which peoples of color see a technicolor creation that we must save. His anti-oppressive Christian environmentalism calls us to cast a wide vision for transformative ways of knowing that embrace a deeply incarnational theology--one that throws open the doors of typical Christian environmentalism to cherish a world of humans and more-than-humans in order to save us all." --Emilie M. Townes, University Distinguished Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society and Gender and Sexuality Studies, Vanderbilt University Divinity School; author of Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil

"In a clear and forthright voice, Thompson explains how whiteness has distorted Christian environmentalism. Then, listening well to decolonial and anti-racist voices, he constructs helpful pathways toward an anti-oppressive theological environmentalism. An important book!" --Willis Jenkins, Hollingsworth Professor of Ethics, University of Virginia