$3 Million For Yale Chair In Religion And Ecology

$3 million has been pledged to support a newly-endowed chair at Yale University, devoted to teaching religion and ecology. WNPR’s Nancy Cohen reports.

 

The Yale masters program in religious and environmental studies at the School of Forestry and the Divinity School was the first of its kind in the country. Professor Mary Evelyn Tucker says the interdisciplinary field is built around the idea that people’s views of nature are colored by the religious traditions in which they grow up. She says the newly-endowed Chair will focus on Christianity and the environment, including scripture.

 

“How does the passage on ‘dominion’, that humans should have dominion over the earth, what does that mean in today’s world? And there’s a whole new interpretation that humans need to have stewardship over the earth to have care for creation, as some Christian groups would speak of it.”

 

Other professors in the program teach about indigenous traditions, Asian and western religions, as well as environmental ethics. 

 

For WNPR, I’m Nancy Cohen.