Engaging the Gandhian Tradition in Confronting the Climate Crisis

During the summer of 2020, the Wendland-Cook program hosted a series of webinars under the theme: Liberating People and the Planet: Christian Responses at the Intersection of Economics, Ecology, and Religion. Originally planned as an in-person conference, these webinars featured insights from theologians and scholars of religion reflecting on our climate and economic crisis. The original papers are being prepared for a book to be released in 2021.

In preparation of the book release and to contextualize the webinars, we featured brief overviews of each of the chapters in an Interventions forum. To see the entire forum, click here. This is Dan Joranko’s contribution to the forum.

ENGAGING THE GANDHIAN TRADITION IN CONFRONTING THE CLIMATE CRISIS

DAN JORANKO

September 10, 2020

One of the central concerns of our day is the need to de-carbonize our economic life. The crisis is such is that if it is not successfully met we face the possibility of civilization spiraling into collapse or catastrophic war. The crisis is urgent; we have a decade or so to meet the challenge. At the same time, de-carbonization provides significant opportunities for a more just and sustainable future.

Until recently the U.S. Christian response has been muted. Much of the activity has focused on statements or small-scale work such as greening congregational buildings. At the same time — we are witnessing a growing and more robust climate movement, which has included participants from U.S. churches. This paper suggests considering an approach rooted in the Gandhian tradition of strategic nonviolence. It establishes a dialogue between Christian thought and action with the origins and evolution of this tradition. Most of the Christian examples come from the United States, but I hope this approach can provide one avenue towards a more international dialogue.

In the paper, I propose a fourfold framework:

a) pragmatic politics and organizing;

b) satyagraha and strategic nonviolence;

c) constructive work and community economic development; and

d) simple living and intentional community.

This framework, in turn, touches on the core dimensions of social life: governance and politics, institutions and social movements, economics and work, communities and households, and religion. Finally, I argue that that an embrace of the Gandhian tradition will be a force towards both overcoming the climate crisis and providing a pathway to a more just and sustainable flourishing of life on our precious planet.

Daniel Joranko is a Lecturer at the Vanderbilt Divinity School and teaches on subjects such as religion and ecology, community development and strategic nonviolence. He coordinates the VDS Riverbend program, which features courses inside prisons made up of one-half VDS students and one-half prisoners. He also serves as the state coordinator for Tennessee Interfaith Power and Light and the coordinator of the United Methodist Tennessee Conference Creation Care Ministry. He is a long-time community organizer, including work in Nashville and Chicago.