Disconnection and the Healing Practice of Imagination for Mormon Environmental Ethics
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints possesses a subversive and fecund interpretation of the Christian creation narrative. This interpretation, denying creation <i>ex nihilo</i>, bespeaks a particular attention to and care for the living earth. However, Latter-day Saint praxis...
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| Formato: | article |
| Lenguaje: | EN |
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MDPI AG
2021
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | https://doaj.org/article/9eb91745eb6045e880e610a22b6d7976 |
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| Sumario: | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints possesses a subversive and fecund interpretation of the Christian creation narrative. This interpretation, denying creation <i>ex nihilo</i>, bespeaks a particular attention to and care for the living earth. However, Latter-day Saint praxis is wounded by a searing disconnect between the theopoetics of its conceptual creation and its lived practice. I argue that the Church must understand this disconnect as a wound and attend to it as such. I turn to theopoetics, arguing that it is in the lived practices of Latter-day Saints engaging somatically with the Earth that can restore our imaginative potential and move toward healing. I begin by exploring the Christian conception of creation <i>ex nihilo</i> and juxtapose this with the Latter-day Saint understanding of <i>formare</i><i>ex materia</i>. I then explore the implications of such a cosmology for environmental ethics and probe the disconnections between theory and practice in Mormonism broadly construed. I propose that the healing salve for disconnection is imagination, a salve found in the first heartbeat of the Latter-day Saint story. I speak with Latter-day Saint theopoetics and indigenous voices, proposing ultimately that is with them that the healing of theology and praxis must begin. |
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