Climate change and the symbol deficit in the Christian tradition: expanding gendered sources

Intro -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction: The deficit thesis and the task it presents -- Part I: Contexts for the symbol deficit -- Chapter 1: From acts of God to the Anthropocene -- Chapter 2: Culprits for the predicament -- Lynn White revisited -- Nature as modernity's other: Adorno and Horkheimer -- Chapter 3: Consumer idolatry -- System of idolatry: Abuse of God's gifts -- Captured in the consumer society -- Calling out heresy -- Chapter 4: Religion in denial -- Chapter 5: To empower those who suffer and give voice to those who lack a voice -- An encompassing vision -- Gendered injustices -- Doctrinal challenges -- Conclusion, Part I: Lessons from the context -- Part II: Conditions for symbolic practices -- Chapter 6: Symbols as mediating practice -- Introduction: Symbols, practices and semiotics -- Tillich on symbols -- From Tillich to pragmatism: Neville -- Symbols and experience -- Symbolic practices are practices of orientation, transformation and engagement -- Symbols mediate, constitute and engage embodied human experience -- Perspectives from evolutionary theory -- To live by metaphors -- Formative psychological elements for symbolically mediated relationships -- Chapter 7: Conditions for agency: A critique of modernity's detached subject -- An expanded view of agency and freedom conditions -- Overcoming anthropocentric conditions for agency: From Habermas to Vetlesen -- Preliminary concluding reflections -- Chapter 8: Symbols for enhancing moral motivation and avoiding defection -- The stick: Supernatural punishment as moral motivation? -- A better way, but no carrot: On emulation of goodness -- Linda Zagzebski: Goodness as admirable -- On the virtue of ecological care -- Virtues as relational and articulations of self-interpretation.

"Exploring how the climate crisis discloses the symbol deficit in the Christian tradition, this book argues that Christianity is rich in symbols that identify and address the failures of humans and the obstacles that prevent humans from doing well, while positive symbols that can engage people in constructive action seem underdeveloped. Henriksen examines the potential of the Christian tradition to develop symbols that can engage peoples in committed and sustained action to prevent further crisis. To do so, he argues that we need symbols that engage both intellectually and emotionally, and which enhances our perception of belonging in relationships with other humans, be it both in the present and in the future. According to Henriksen, the deficit can only be obliterated if we can develop symbols that have some root or resonance in the Christian tradition, can provide concrete and specified guidance of agency, as well as can engage people both emotionally and intellectually, and finally open up to visions for a moral agency that provide positive motivations for caring about environmental conditions as a whole"