Preface and Introduction: African Worldviews & Ecological Hermeneutics

Auteurs-es

  • Mathew K. Birgen McGill University
  • Gerbern S. Oegema McGill University

DOI :

https://doi.org/10.26443/jcreor.v6i2.254

Mots-clés :

African hermeneutics, African ecology, African Worldviews, African Religion

Résumé

The present issue of the Journal of the Council for Research on Religion (JCREOR) brings together several African scholars and scholars of Africa from different backgrounds to explore the intersections of nature, humanity, and biblical interpretation through the lens of African worldviews and ecological hermeneutics. The volume features a collection of essays, many of which were first presented at the “Colloquium on African Ecological Hermeneutics,” an event co-hosted by the McGill School of Religious Studies and the Presbyterian College, Montreal, on April 17th, 2024.

Biographie de l'auteur-e

Gerbern S. Oegema, McGill University

Gerbern S. Oegema is Professor of Biblical Studies at McGill University and a distinguished scholar of religion with more than thirty years of international experience in Religious Studies and Adult Education. His work has taken him across the Netherlands, Germany, Israel, the United States, and Canada. He founded and served as the first director of the McGill Centre for Research on Religion (CREOR) and was founder and first chair of the Council of Theological Education in Montreal. An honorary faculty member of the Presbyterian College, he is recognized for bringing together scholars and communities across disciplines, faiths, and cultures. His research focuses on Second Temple Judaism, apocalypticism, the Pseudepigrapha, and Christian origins. He is the author and co-editor of more than twenty books, editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha, and co-editor of several book series, and has received multiple SSHRC grants supporting his scholarship.

Références

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Egbo, Anthony Chukwuebuka. “African Concept of Happiness in the Light of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart: A Hermeneutical Approach.” Volume 5, Issue 2 (2024): 127–143.

Maathai, Wangari. The Challenge for Africa. New York: Pantheon Books, 2009.

Mbiti, John S. Introduction to African Religion. 2nd rev. ed. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1991.

Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. Man, and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis of Modern Man.2nd ed., London: Unwin Publishers, 1976.

Nweke, Charles C. “African Identity: The Nature-Culture Perspective.” Φιλοσοφια 19, no. 1 (2018): 66–75.

Ogunnaike, Oludamini. “Survival, Sustainability, and the Sacred: Spiritual Perspectives on the Environmental Crisis.” In Religion, Environment and Sustainable Development in Africa, edited by David O. Ogungbile and Oyeronke Olademo, 1–14. Ibadan: African Association for the Study of Religions, Nigerian Publications Bureau, 2020.

Olupona, Jacob K. African Religions: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Tyson, Paul. Theology and Climate Change. London: Routledge, 2021.

United Nations. “Climate Action: Causes and Effects of Climate Change.” Accessed April 30, 2025. https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/causes-effects-climate-change.

______. “Sustainable Development: The 17 Goals.” Accessed April 30th, 2025. https://sdgs.un.org/goals.

United Nations Environment Programme. Climate-Responsible Finance: A Moral Imperative towards Children. May 9, 2024. https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/statements/climate-responsible-finance-moral-imperative-towards-children.

———. Faith for Earth Initiative: Faith for Earth Coalition. August 24, 2020. https://faithfornature.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Brochure-Faith-for-Earth-24-August-2020.pdf.

White, Lynn. “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis.” Science 155 (1967): 1203–1207.

Wu, Chengyi Coral. “Towards an Ecocriticism in Africa: Literary Aesthetics in African Environmental Literature.” In Natures of Africa: Ecocriticism and Animal Studies in Contemporary Cultural Forms, edited by F. Fiona Moolla, 141–165. Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2016.

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Publié-e

2026-10-05

Comment citer

Birgen, Mathew K., et Gerbern S. Oegema. 2026. « Preface and Introduction: African Worldviews & Ecological Hermeneutics ». Journal of the Council for Research on Religion 6 (2). Montreal, QC, Canada:ii–vii. https://doi.org/10.26443/jcreor.v6i2.254.

Numéro

Vol. 6 No. 2 (2025): African Worldviews & Ecological Hermeneutics

Rubrique

Preface and Introduction

Licence

(c) Tous droits réservés Mathew K. Birgen, Gerbern S. Oegema 2025

Licence Creative Commons

Cette œuvre est sous licence Creative Commons Attribution - Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale - Pas de Modification 4.0 International.