Date of Award
5-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Publisher
Santa Clara : Santa Clara University, 2025
Degree Name
Licentiate in Sacred Theology (STL)
Director
Monica Marcelli-Chu
Abstract
Christian social ethics is at the crossroads of its most significant challenges, the environmental crisis which embraces almost every aspect of life: religion, politics, economics and the human person. At a time when global food insecurity is on the rise and calling for an urgent increase in food production, so too is our common home being threatened by our very global food system. In this thesis, l present the African Indigenous cosmologies, more precisely the Shona cosmology, as a complex web of life, within which is embedded Indigenous food systems that can reasonably respond to the ever-alarming food insecurity worsened by the environmental crisis. More so, I explore these cosmologies through their food systems to see how they can inform the making of Christian environmental ethics at a time we are coming to realize that the global food system is the principal cause of environmental degradation.
In the context of food insecurity and environmental crises, with Africa being the most affected, I navigate through questions like food systems, cosmologies and theology. This thesis can therefore be characterized as contributing to a constructive Christian environmental ethics, building from the ethics of relationality expressed through African Indigenous cosmologies.
Recommended Citation
Fru, Elvis Nche, ""Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet:" African Indigenous Cosmologies Informing Christian Environmental Ethics" (2025). Jesuit School of Theology Dissertations. 150.
https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/jst_dissertations/150
