Academic Degradation
Theological Foundations for Environmental Ethics: Reconstructing Patristic
and Medieval Concepts
by Jame Schaefer
Georgetown University Press, 2009
(336 pages, $29.95, paperback)
reviewed by R. V. Young
The aim of Jame Schaefer’s new book is wholly admirable: She sets out to show that Christian theology of the patristic and medieval periods can provide a basis for ethical behavior in the face of a widely acknowledged abuse of the natural environment common among modern societies. To this end, she has compiled a good deal of information from contemporary scientific sources about ecology, biological evolution, and cosmology. In addition, she has explored the work of a substantial number of theologians and the lives of what might more properly be called devotional figures from the first 1,400–1,500 years of Christianity.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
R. V. Young is Professor of English Emeritus at North Carolina State University, and a former editor of Modern Age: A Quarterly Review. His Shakespeare & the Idea of Western Civilization is forthcoming in January from Catholic University of America Press. He and his wife are parishioners at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Dunedin, Florida. They have five grown children, 15 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. He is a senior editor of Touchstone.
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more from the online archives
18.4—May 2005
The Idylls, Idols & Devils That Corrupt the Moral Imagination by Vigen Guroian
32.2—March/April 2019
on Preserving Physical & Spiritual Nourishment by Nathanael Devlin
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
