Interpreting what it means to live in a time characterized by pervasive human influence throughout Earth's systems involves questions and narratives that appear religious in scope, even while they also challenge conventional religious thought. The essays in this collection, edited well so that they are both coherent and helpfully contradictory with one another, offer readers multiple ways into the conflicts and possibilities in the idea of the Anthropocene.
— Willis Jenkins, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of Virginia

This timely book takes the notion of the Anthropocene literally by providing historical, theological, philosophical, and ethical elaborations on what it actually means that humanity has become a dominant force of the earth system. It is a scholarly account of the deeper human dimensions of the Anthropocene, moving beyond its predominating framing as a natural science phenomenon.
— Dieter Gerten, earth system scientist, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, professor, Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, Geography Department

Religion in the Anthropocene marks the first thorough treatment of religious and quasi-religious dimensions of the Anthropocene from perspectives as diverse as philosophy, theology, anthropology, and history, among others. This impressive collection of international scholarly voices aims not at consensus or easy answers, but fully explores the Anthropocene's profoundly ambivalent implications for humanity's place in nature and deep time, and our responsibilities for nonhuman others. Readers new to the topic, as well as scholars in the field, will come away with fresh--and sometimes disconcerting--insights into what it means to be human in the Age of Humans.
— Lisa H. Sideris, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Indiana University

Laudato Si, this document receives a fair bit of attention in this book, which is not surprising given it-s influence, but this widespread attention is a turn of events in the world of scholarship that could not have been predicted a decade ago. This book is an important rejoinder to the scientifically dominant discourse that surrounds the concept of the anthropocene. This book is recommended.
— -Paul Allen, Corpus Christi College, Vancouver, Canada

List of Figures
Foreword: The Anthropocene as a Challenge for Public Theology
- Heinrich Bedford-Strohm
Acknowledgments
Contributors

The Future of Religion in the Anthropocene Era
- Celia Deane-Drummond, Sigurd Bergmann, and Markus Vogt

Part 1: Setting the Stage
1 On Going Gently into the Anthropocene
- Michael Northcott
2 From the Anthropocene Epoch to a New Axial Age:
Using Theory-Fictions to Explore Geo-Spiritual Futures
- Bronislaw Szerszynski
3 Transformations of Stewardship in the Anthropocene
- Christoph Baumgartner
4 Religion at Work within Climate Change: Eight Perceptions
about Its Where and How
- Sigurd Bergmann

Part 2: Historical Matters
5 Bridging the Great Divide: The Anthropocene as a Challenge
to the Social Sciences and Humanities
- Franz Mauelshagen
6 Becoming Human in the Anthropocene
- Agustín Fuentes

Part 3: Philosophical Analyses
7 De-moralizing and Re-moralizing the Anthropocene
- Maria Antonaccio
8 Anthropocene Fever: Memory and the Planetary Archive
- Stefan Skrimshire
9 Reconsidering the Anthropocene as Milieu: William Desmond
and the Originary Goodness of Being
- Francis Van den Noortgaete

Part 4: Theological Trajectories
10 Performing the Beginning in the End: A Theological Anthropology
for the Anthropocene
- Celia Deane-Drummond
11 Cooled Down Love and an Overheated Atmosphere: René Girard
on Ecology and Apocalypticism in the Anthropocene
- Petra Steinmair-Pösel
12 Beyond Human Exceptionalism: Christology in the
Anthropocene
- Matthew Eaton
13 American Evangelicalism, Apocalypticism, and the
Anthropocene
- Marisa Ronan

Part 5: Ethical Deliberations
14 Human Ecology as a Key Discipline of Environmental Ethics
in the Anthropocene
- Markus Vogt
15 Protection of Threatened Species in the Anthropocene:
A Theological-Ethical Perspective
- Anders Melin

Part 6: Sociopolitical Transformations
16 Contesting the Good Life of Technological Modernity
in the Anthropocene
- Ian Barns
17 The Anthropocene and the Future of Diplomacy: Religion,
Ecology, and Transnational Relations in the Age of Human
Responsibility
- David Joseph Wellman

Bibliography
General Index