Susan Power Bratton – författare

Susan Power Bratton draws on information from demographers, economists, ecologists, and sociologists to argue that individuals should use Christian values when dealing with the regulation of human population. In this easy-to-read analysis, the author reviews a number of issues and provides case studies and discussion questions at the end of each chapter.

Discusses the expression of environmental values in Christian art as it displaced pagan aesthetics from the third century to the Reformation.This book looks at what art reveals about the environmental values of Christianity. As western Europe transitioned to Christianity, pagan religious aesthetics changed or were displaced. Focusing on Christian art and architecture from early third-century Rome to seventeenth-century Netherlands, Susan Power Bratton examines this transition. She explores the relationship between Christ and nature in emergent Christian art, the role nonhumans play in this art, and how Christian art represents the ownership and management of natural resources.The first section of the book discusses Christian art in imperial Rome and monastic Ireland's contribution-from high crosses to the Book of Kells-and evaluates the claim that Christianity suppressed the positive portrayal of nature in pre-Christian art. The second section investigates changes in cosmology from the early Middle Ages through the Gothic era and examines their implications for environmental economics. The final section analyzes the paintings of the Italian Renaissance and Dutch Golden Age and the impact of an emerging scientific worldview on the spiritual meaning of the landscape.

This interdisciplinary Handbook examines the relationship between environmental problem solving and religion, addressing how environmental planning often neglects the cultural influences and organizational resources of the world’s religions. It explores global faiths such as Islam and Buddhism, as well as Indigenous and emerging religions.Expert contributors from a breadth of disciplines including anthropology, ecology, education and theology use the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a unifying framework to examine multiple facets of religious practice and expression. The Handbook explores key topics including conservation, education, leadership, ecojustice, social ethics, religion’s functions in civil society, and faith-based participation in resolving environmental conflicts. They advocate for future action and research in this field, emphasizing the importance of incorporating religion as a crucial component of environmental management and problem solving.The Handbook on Religion and the Environment is an essential reference for students and academics in the fields of environmental studies, environmental science, religious studies, and political science. It is also an enlightening read for policymakers, religious leaders, ecologists, and professionals working in international development, and urban and environmental planning.

How does religion relate to our global environment? Religion and the Environment provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to this controversial question by covering the following important themes: the religion-environment interface pre- and post-industrial religious practices related to resource extraction and the rise of the Anthropocene an analysis of religious response to the impacts of contemporary industrialization, globalization, and urbanization religious thought, leadership, policy formation, and grassroots activism relative to the environment. Religion and the Environment will offer students and general readers a sophisticated yet accessible exploration of the relationship between religion and the environment, through case studies ranging from climate change to the impacts of warfare. This engaging book will be an excellent addition to introductory courses and those approaching the topic for the first time.

How does religion relate to our global environment? Religion and the Environment provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to this controversial question by covering the following important themes: the religion-environment interface pre- and post-industrial religious practices related to resource extraction and the rise of the Anthropocene an analysis of religious response to the impacts of contemporary industrialization, globalization, and urbanization religious thought, leadership, policy formation, and grassroots activism relative to the environment. Religion and the Environment will offer students and general readers a sophisticated yet accessible exploration of the relationship between religion and the environment, through case studies ranging from climate change to the impacts of warfare. This engaging book will be an excellent addition to introductory courses and those approaching the topic for the first time.

Buildings and landscapes are as much a part of the Christian church as its creeds - reflecting the faith and proclaiming God. The architecture of the church's structures and the curating of its grounds are unique windows into the church's history and the shape of its theological commitments. Birthed in the iconoclastic spirit of the Reformation, the scapes of Protestant churches have experienced massive shifts in design and scope. From humble beginnings - small buildings and cemeteries - churches today can occupy thousands of square feet across hundreds of acres. The modern megachurch, with its extensive campuses, parking lots, and sprawling lawns, has changed how we think about the church and its spaces. Form follows function, and theology is in both. The shifts in scale, style, and symbol within the church's common spaces reflect changes in ecclesial priorities, even as they form the theological imagination in new ways. In ChurchScape, Susan Bratton chronicles the story of the Protestant church's transformation of landscape and building. Citing the influence of college campuses on megachurch architecture, Bratton examines the features that are a part of many megachurch complexes, including waterscapes, iconography, and outdoor art. Taking readers on a cross-country journey to over two hundred churches, Bratton traces the movement from the small parish building of the nineteenth century to the extensive complexes that form today's churchscapes. As she moves from church to church, Bratton describes how all the church's spaces - buildings, greens, gardens, and gateways - together shape its practices, name its beliefs, and form its life together. Bratton's work offers the first historical and theological analysis for the megachurch and its physical planners and planters. She demands that all of us look with new eyes at the ways the church may be an innovator without being disruptive, a place of community without becoming exclusive, and a site of abundance without decadence. The church-in-place must consider how its scapes and spaces reflect its sacred life.