Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Limited Time Free eBook Offer: An Orthodox Christian Perspective on Environmentalism
Limited Time Free eBook Offer: An Orthodox Christian Perspective on Environmentalism
Mar 18, 2025 3:24 PM

Beginning today, Acton is offering its first monograph on Eastern Orthodox Christian social thought at no cost through Amazon Kindle. Through Tues., Nov. 12, you can get your free digital copy of Creation and the Heart of Man: An Orthodox Christian Perspective on Environmentalism (Acton Institute, 2013). The print edition, which runs 91 pages, will be available later this month through the Acton Book Shop for $6. When the free eBook offer expires, Creation and the Heart of Man will be priced at $2.99 for the Kindle reader and free reading apps.

A summary of Creation and the Heart of Man:

Rooted in the Tradition of the Orthodox Church and its teaching on the relationship between God, humanity, and all creation, Fr. Michael Butler and Prof. Andrew Morriss offer a new contribution to Orthodox environmental theology. Too often policy mendations from theologians and Church authorities have taken the form of pontifications, obscuring many important economic and public policy realities. The authors establish a framework for responsible engagement with environmental issues undergirded not only by Church teaching but also by sound economic analysis. Creation and the Heart of Man uniquely takes the discussion of Orthodox environmental ethics from abstract principles to thoughtful interaction with the concrete, sensitive to the inviolability of human dignity, the plight of the poor, and mon destiny munion with God.

About the authors:

Fr. Michael Butler

The Very Reverend Michael Butler is an independent scholar and an archpriest of the Orthodox Church in America and is serving a parish in Olmsted Falls, Ohio. He received his PhD in church history and patristics from Fordham University and his MA in theology and BA in psychology from the University of Dallas in Irving, Texas. He blogs on environmentalism and other subjects at

Prof. Andrew Morriss

Professor Andrew Morriss is D. Paul Jones, Jr., and Charlene A. Jones Chairholder in law and professor of business at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. He received his PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his JD and MPA from the University of Texas in Austin, and his AB from Princeton University. He has written extensively on environmental issues and is the author or coauthor of more than 50 scholarly articles, books, and book chapters. He serves as a Research Fellow at the New York University Center for Labor and Employment Law, a Senior Fellow at the Property & Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Mont. and a Senior Scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.

Excerpt from the book:

Everything in creation exists by sharing in and manifesting God’s energies: created things are beautiful by sharing in and manifesting God’s beauty; true by sharing in and manifesting God’s truth; good by sharing in and manifesting God’s goodness; and so forth. This means … that every created thing can be a theophany—a revelation of God.

What does this say about nature? About any creature? It says that nothing is simply an object to be used, an inert, meaningless thing. Everything, every creature—from spotted owls to veins of coal in a mountain—shares in the energies of God. It says that somehow God is present and can be discerned there, if we can see, not only with our eyes but also with our hearts…. We must also remember that Christianity is not Jainism—we are not called to gently sweep insects from our paths for fear of inadvertently stepping on one. Rather we are called to stewardship, an active role in which we must do more than preserve what God has given to us but responsibly and prayerfully use it in pursuit of our responsibilities to God and our brothers and sisters.

Sometimes a good steward husbands a resource. Sometimes, however, a good steward makes use of a resource in pursuit of the steward’s calling. Orthodox environmentalism cannot thus be a static vision of nature as something to be preserved unaltered. A steward’s task is much harder than either digging up every last lump of coal or refraining from touching any of it. In entrusting us with responsibility for the natural world, God gave us opportunities to exercise judgment, not a simplistic recipe. While life would surely be simpler if he asked less of us, it would leave us as less than he intended us to be. (30–31)

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
‘Religion will return’ to the West: former chief rabbi of the UK
Some 23 percent of Americans, and a higher percentage of Europeans, say they belong to no religion in particular. Although this is the result of a centuries-long retreat from faith, one of Europe’s most prominent religious spokesmen believes that the process may e full-circle. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi ofthe UK and a member of the House of Lords, traced the boomeraging arc of secularization and re-evangelization as part of a lecture on “Faith and the Challenges...
China’s ‘Social Credit System’: When dystopian fiction becomes reality
Growing up, I was fascinated with authors such as Ayn Rand, Aldous Huxley, Lois Lowry, George Orwell, and others who developed dystopian worlds through their writing. Reading their works was a fun way to explore the extremes that our society would never e. According to a recent article inWiredby Rachel Botsman, some of those fictional worlds ing ever closer to reality, with the Chinese government developing a new algorithm that will allow them to rank their citizens on a so-called...
What Christians should know about vocation
This weekend Protestants around the world will celebrate the 500th anniversary of Reformation Sunday, memoration of Martin Luther’s nailing his ninety-five theses to the church door Wittenberg, Germany on October 31, 1517. As Stephen Nichols says,“when we think of Martin Luther, we think of thesolas, we think of the authority of Scripture, we think of the necessity of justification by faith alone through grace alone in Christ alone. But one of the crucial doctrines of Luther is vocation.” “For Martin...
The further reformation of all of life
“One of the famous formulas e out of the Reformation era is that ofsemper reformanda, which means ‘always reforming,’” says Jordan Ballor in this week’s Acton Commentary. “This is a particularly appropriate topic for this observance of Reformation Day, now 500 years after Luther’s publication of the 95 Theses.” The point of departure for the Protestant Reformation was originally a somewhat limited set of topics or doctrines, particularly those related to soteriology the doctrine of salvation. In this sense Luther’s...
Haiti’s solar entrepreneurs
Jean-Ronel Noel and Alex Georges began pany in a garage in Haiti, tinkering with solar panels and light bulbs, wondering how their experiments might translate into an actual product. “We have plenty of sunshine, so is there a way that we can harvest energy from the sun to resolve the energy problem?” they asked. The result was ENERSA, pany that brings solar-paneled street lights and a range of domestic solar products to the Haitian market. Since its beginning, pany has...
Venezuelan political prisoners awarded top EU human rights award
The EU has taken a symbolic stance against the worst human rights tragedy in South America, awarding its top human rights prize to the political prisoners and defiant opposition inNicolás Maduro’s Venezuela. The European Parliament announced the recipient of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought last Thursday, explicitly mentioning the socialist nation’s “political prisoners.” Eugénio Lopes provides the details about the award, named for the famous Soviet dissident, in a new essay forReligion & Liberty Transatlantic. The president of...
Business as a work of justice
Justice is essential to how we go about our work, says Katherine Leary Alsdorf. In this video produced by Values & Capitalism, Alsdorf and others discuss how Christian business leaders can offer a living witness of Christ’s love by utilizing their social and material capital in love and justice. ...
How should the church encourage wealth creation?
Earlier this year two evangelical groups, theLausanne MovementandBAM Global, released apaper on the role of wealth creation in the church to address these question. In the paper they note that wealth creation is a godly gift that is frequently misunderstood. Too many Christians still have a rigid divide between the sacred and secular, which causes them to miss that “God’s concerns are holistic, and so is the mission of the church.” Another problem is that many pastors lack any experience...
Americans would probably ban hateful speech—if we could agree on what speech is hateful
A slight majority of Americans oppose banning hateful and offensive speech—but mostly because we can’t agree on what speech is hateful and offensive. That’s a key takeaway from the Cato Institute’s new survey report, “The State of Free Speech and Tolerance in America.” The findings in almost every category are distressing for those who abhor offensive speech but believe it should remain legal to express such sentiments in the public square. According to the report, only 59 percent of Americans...
Make Maximilian Kolbe of Auschwitz ‘the patron saint of entrepreneurs’: Petition
Fr. Maximilian Kolbe is well-known for volunteering to die in place of another prisoner at Auschwitz. However, his history as a pioneering entrepreneur, who used the latest technology and managerial techniques to increase his ministry’s outreach, has inspired a new movement for the pope to name him “the patron saint of entrepreneurs and start-ups.” The fascinating history of how the Polish Franciscan used innovative techniques, employed the latest forms munications, and oversaw hundreds of workers is the subject of a...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved