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Dr. Robert Corrington, Professor of Philosophical Theology 
Selected Relevant Publications
- Nature and Spirit: An Essay in Ecstatic Naturalism. Fordham University Press, 1992.
- Nature's Self: Our Journey from Origin to Spirit. Rowman and Littlefield, Rowman and Littlefield, 1996.
- "My Passage From Panentheism to Pantheism," The American Journal of Theology and Philosophy 23, no. 2 (May 2002): 129-153
Selected Relevant Courses
- Philosophies of Nature
- Nature, God, and the New Cosmology
Dr. Laurel Kearns, Associate Professor of Sociology of Religion and Environmental Studies
Selected Relevant Publications
- “When Nature is Rats and Roaches: Religious Eco-Justice in Newark, NJ," with Matthew Immergut, in Lived Religion in an Urban Context: Ethnographic Portraits of Religion in Newark, edited by Karen McCarthy Brown. Forthcoming, University of California Press.
- Eco-Spirit: Religions and Philosophies for the Earth, co-edited with Catherine Keller. Fordham University Press, 2007.
- "The Context of Eco-Theology" in Blackwell Companion to Modern Theology, edited by Gareth Jones. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004.
- Three articles for Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature. Continuum, 2004.
- "Greening Ethnography and the Study of Religion," in Beyond Personal Knowledge: Reshaping the Ethnography of Religion. Edited by James V. Spickard, J. Shawn Landres, and Meredith B. McGuire. New York University Press, 2002
- “Noah's Ark Goes to Washington: A Profile of Evangelical Environmentalism,” Social Compass 44(3), Sept. 1997): 349-366
- "Saving The Creation: Christian Environmentalism in the United States," Sociology of Religion 57,1 (spring 1996): 55-70
- “Of Knowledge, Buildings and Trees,” in Earth and Word: Classic Sermons on Saving the Planet, edited by David Rhoads. Continuum, 2007.
Selected Relevant Courses
- Religion and the Earth
- Christianity and Ecology
- Contemporary Theories in the Sociology of Religion
- Religion and Social Change
- US Religious Landscape
Dr. Catherine Keller, Professor of Constructive Theology
Selected Relevant Publications
Selected Relevant Courses
- Creation and Chaos
- In/Spirit: Trinity, Ecofeminism, and the Pneumatological Turn
- Process Theology
- Feminist Theology
- Pneumatology: Spirit Bodies Spirit Spaces
- Constructive Theology: Creation and Apocalypse
The following faculty regularly have relevant material in their seminars.
Dr Heather Elkins in Liturgical Studies
Dr. Hyo Dong Lee in Theology and Philosophy
Dr. Stephen Moore in New Testament
Within the Graduate Division of Religion, a specific focus on ecological issues is possible in the Ph.D program. To date, 15-20 students have studied related topics with Drs. Keller, Kearns, and Corrington.
Drew Theological School’s offers other related courses and programs in its Seminary Programs:
- Camp & Retreat Certification Courses (offered as intensives and often offered off site):
- Theology and Ecology of Common Ground
- Developing Environmental Education and Resources
- Biblical Foundations of Camp/Retreat Ministry
- Doctor of Ministry program on Environmental Ministries and Ecological Spirituality.
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Students have organized an extra-curricular student group on campus, TERRA, to raise awareness of and take action on ecological issues in the Theological School, in the churches, and in society. The Theological School occasionally collaborates with activities sponsored by the Drew College of Liberal Arts (the undergraduate program) student environmental groups and Environmental Studies faculty, such as showing the films “The Great Warming” and “An Inconvenient Truth” as well as the annual Fernfest, which plants native species on campus to return it to a more genuine forest-like state.
Drew Theological School is connected to GreenFaith, an interfaith organization based in New Brunswick, New Jersey. “GreenFaith inspires, educates, and mobilizes people from diverse religious backgrounds to deepen their relationship with the sacred in nature and to take action for the earth” (http://www.greenfaith.org/). Students are able to do an internship with GreenFaith, or with local “green” congregations.
Related Recent Dissertations
Antonia Gorman, “The Blood of Goats and Bulls: An Eco-Spiritual Response to the Sacrifice of Creation”
David B. Dillard-Wright: “Ark of the Possible: The Animal World in Merleau-Ponty”
Warren Calhoun Robertson: “Drought, Famine, Plague and Pestilence: Ancient Israel’s Understandings of and Responses to Natural Catastrophes”
Matthew Immergut: “Searching for Nature and the Sacred: Jewish and Christian Seekers and Their Quests for and Constructions of the More-Than-Human World”
Seung Gap Lee: “The Hope of the Earth: A Process Eschatological Eco-Ethics”
Jennifer Micale: “Stange New Worlds: Ecofeminism and Science Fiction”
Nam T. Nguyen: “Nature's Primal Self: An Ecstatic Naturalist Critique of the Anthropocentrism of Peirce's Pragamticism and Jasper's Existentialism”
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The Drew Theological School frequently hosts conferences and special speakers on topics related to the environment. These include the annual Ground for Hope conference, which is open to people within and without of the Drew community. This interfaith conference combines one or two key speakers with several seminars on topics of environmental concern as well as an interfaith worship service.
Conferences
“Greening the Church for the Next Millennium” Oct, 1999. Guest speakers: Bill McKibben, Cal DeWitt, Karen Baker Fletcher, John Cobb.
"Humanity on the Edge: Religion and Science in the Next Century" November 1999. (co-sponsored with Partners for Environmental Quality, now GreenFaith)
Ground for Hope 1, Sept-October 2005 co-sponsored with GreenFaith. Guest Speakers: Rosemary Radford Ruether, Jay McDaniel, Mary Evelyn Tucker.
--The volume EcoSpirit: Religions and Philosophies for the Earth is the result of this 4.5 day conference. For details go to http://depts.drew.edu/tsfac/colloquium/2005/.
Ground for Hope II, April 2007. co-sponsored with GreenFaith. Guest speakers: Larry Rasmussen and Peggy Shepard.
Relevant Speakers at Drew since 1999.
- Karen Baker Fletcher, author of Sisters of Dust, Sisters of Spirit: Womanist Wordings on God and Creation.
- Sharon Betcher, author of Spirt and the Politics of Enchantment
- John Cobb, author of Is it Too Late?, For the Common Good (with Herman Daly)
- Anne Daniell, author of Incarnating theology in an estuary-carnival place: New Orleans in the Pontchartrain Basin
- Gary Gardner-WorldWatch Institute, author of Inspiring Progress: Religions' Contributions to Sustainable Development.
- Cal DeWitt, former president of Au Sable Institute and author of Earth-Wise: A Biblical Response to Environmental Issues
- Marion Grau, author of Of Divine Economy: Refinancing Redemption
- Rebecca Gould, author of At Home with Nature
- John Grim, Forum on Religion and Ecology, author The Shaman: Patterns of Religious Healing Among the Ojibway Indians, and co-editor of Worldviews and Ecology
- John Hart, author of Sacramental Commons: Christian Ecological Ethics; What Are They Saying About...Environmental Theology?
- Elizabeth Johnson, Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God
- Jay McDaniel, author of With Roots and Wings: Christianity in an Age of Ecology and Dialogue and Living from the Center: Spirituality in an Age of Consumerism.
- Bill McKibben, author of The Comforting Whirlwind, The End of Nature, and organizer of Step-It-Up
- Anna Petersen, author of Being Human: Ethics, Environment and Our Place in the World and Seeds of the Kingdom: Utopian communities in the Americas
- Anne Primavesi, author of Sacred Gaia: Holistic Theology and Earth System Science, and Gaia’s Gift: Earth, Ourselves and God.
- Larry Rasmussen, author of Earth Ethics, Earth Community
- Rosemary Ruether, author of Gaia and God, and Integrating Ecofeminism, Globalization and World Religions
- Matthew Sleeth, author of Serve God, Save the Planet
- Dan Spencer, author of Gay and Gaia: Ethics, Ecology and the Erotic
- Mary Evelyn Tucker, Forum on Religion and Ecology, author of Worldly Wonder, Religions Enter Their Ecological Phase
- Mark Wallace, Finding God in the Singing River: Christianity, Spirit, Nature
- David Wood, author of Time after Time and Econstruction: The Implausible Convergence of Environmentalism and Deconstruction
Activist Speakers:
- Tanya Barnett, formerly of Earth Ministry, author of Greening Congregations Handbook
- Isabel Carvalho, “Lived Worlds: Self and Justice in the Brazilian Environmental Movement”
- Fletcher Harper, exec director of GreenFaith
- Sister Miriam McGillis, Genesis Farm
- Michael Nelson, AME Zion Church representative to the National Council of Churches Eco-Justice Working Group.
- Mike Schut, formerly of Earth Ministry, author of Food and Faith & Simple Living…..
- John Seed, Rainforest Information Centre, Australia
- Peggy Shepard, WE ACT, Harlem, NYC
- Randy Wilson, Coalfield Delegation to the UN and Kentuckians for the Commonwealth.
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As part of a university wide initiative, Drew Theological School’s faculty, administration and students have always been actively involved on recycling, food, energy, grounds, buildings and purchasing issues related to sustainability. Dr. Kearns is on the steering committee for those efforts. Students and faculty specifically at Drew engage in environmental actions and awareness in multiple ways. These include recycling and printing assignments front-and-back on recycled paper or on the back of previously-used sheets of paper. The Theological School hosts a coffee shop/study area, the Cyber Café, which offers Fair Trade Certified coffee and ceramic mugs as a substitute for Styrofoam coffee cups. Every year the students and faculty put on an eco-chapel, usually in the springtime on or close to Earth Day. Students and faculty occasionally participate in local political actions, such as the Step It Up campaign of 2007, a nationwide campaign to demand that the U.S. legislature pay more attention to ecological issues.
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