Integral Ecology as Theology and Ethics of “Place”
A 5-lesson module covering Overview of Integral Ecology and Place, The Modern Crisis and Displacement of Place, Biblical and Theological Perspectives on Earth and Place and more.
5 lessons · From your material · audio narrated
L1
Overview of Integral Ecology and Place
In this article by Emmanuel Omokugbo Ojeifo, published in the journal Religions in 2025, we explore how the concept of place serves as a vital theological and ethical foundation for integral ecology. To understand why this focus is so urgent, we must first look at how academic theology has traditionally approached our relationship with the world. Historically, theological studies have prioritized human-centered dimensions over ecological place. This traditional lens focused heavily on human consciousness, salvation, and interpersonal ethics, treating the physical environment merely as a passive background stage. It is like studying a home by analyzing only the residents while ignoring the building itself, including its physical walls, foundation, and surrounding garden. Ojeifo argues that this anthropocentric limitation overlooks a fundamental reality: human beings cannot exist, construct identity, or flourish in isolation from the specific physical settings they inhabit. To respond effectively to our global environmental crisis, theology must bring the physical concept of place into its central discourse.
To bridge this gap, Ojeifo engages deeply with integral ecology. Integral ecology addresses socio-ecological destruction caused by neoliberal capitalism and extractivism. When global economic models view the natural world purely as a commodity to be exploited for immediate profit, the resulting destruction harms both non-human nature and human communities simultaneously. For instance, industrial strip mining destroys both local topsoil ecosystems and the communities living alongside them, leaving behind toxic runoff, ruined agriculture, and displaced families. Integral ecology insists that we are not confronting two separate dilemmas—one social and one environmental—but rather one complex crisis that is simultaneously social and environmental.
To trace the lineage of this concept, Ojeifo notes that the term integral ecology originally emerged in marine biology through Hilary Moore, who sought to broaden traditional scientific understandings. In her 1962 landmark book Silent Spring, environmentalist Rachel Carson reinforced this framework by observing that in nature nothing exists alone, highlighting the intricate web of life linking plants, animals, and soil. Later, Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff introduced integral ecology into theological discourse in 1997, arguing that a holistic paradigm must listen to both the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor. This vision was further elevated when Pope Francis published his encyclical Laudato Si in 2015, emphasizing that everything is closely interrelated across biological, economic, cultural, and spiritual spheres. Writing in 2023, scholar Elizabeth Gandolfo suggests speaking of integral ecologies in the plural to honor pluriversal ways of being human that live out this deep interdependence.
Methodologically, this paper does not rely on quantitative statistical surveys or laboratory experiments. Instead, this article utilizes a textual method of analysis based on secondary literature. Researchers synthesize historical texts and modern theological arguments to build a comprehensive framework. By critically examining philosophical texts, scripture, and contemporary social thought, Ojeifo demonstrates that place is not an obsolete concept, but a vital site of action and resistance. A common misconception is that a strong attachment to place represents a narrow or provincial worldview; however, Ojeifo shows that cultivating rootedness in place provides the indispensable enabling condition for true human and ecological flourishing in our contemporary world.
•Theological studies have historically prioritized human centered dimensions over ecological place. It is like studying a home by analyzing only the residents while ignoring the building itself.
•Integral ecology addresses socio ecological destruction caused by neoliberal capitalism and extractivism. Industrial strip mining destroys both local topsoil ecosystems and the communities living alongside them.
•This article utilizes a textual method of analysis based on secondary literature. Researchers synthesize historical texts and modern theological arguments to build a comprehensive framework.
L2
The Modern Crisis and Displacement of Place
In this paper published in Religions in 2025, Emmanuel Omokugbo Ojeifo explores how contemporary humanity finds itself immersed in what Craig Bartholomew in 2011 described as a crisis of place. To understand how we arrived at our present socio-ecological breakdown, we need to trace the historical shift from premodern relational intimacy with the environment to the alienating dynamics of Enlightenment modernity. As we covered earlier in this module, integral ecology requires us to examine the deep philosophical and historical roots of our environmental situation rather than looking at physical degradation in isolation.
Historically, premodern ancestors maintained a profound sense of reverence for and intimacy with their local environments. For thousands of years, human societies understood their lives as inextricably bound to specific geography. Ancient agrarian communities treated local forests, mountains, and rivers as sacred partners in survival rather than inert resources waiting to be exploited. People belonged to the land just as much as the land belonged to them. This relationship was anchored in mythos—the foundational narratives, sacred traditions, and spiritual rituals that taught communities how to live within the limits and rhythms of their immediate surroundings.
However, the rise of Enlightenment modernity radically displaced this relational worldview, dismissing premodern intimacy as primitive, backward, and outmoded. Modernity prioritized rational logos over mythos, systematically dismantling the cultural and spiritual frameworks that kept human behavior in check. In doing so, modern social structures redefined land purely through abstract, technical, and economic lenses. Consider a concrete historical transition: a community trades ancient folklore about a sacred grove for commercial timber valuation spreadsheets. When the grove ceases to be a living, sacred neighbor and becomes merely a metric on a balance sheet, the ethical boundary preventing its destruction vanishes.
According to Karen Armstrong in 2022, modernity discarded guiding myths that sustained healthy nature relationships over millennia. Armstrong points out that in prioritizing logos over mythos, modern industrial culture stripped away the story-driven reverence that oriented our forebears toward nature. Think of this like converting a vibrant, complex garden into a sterile factory floor; stripping spiritual stories from land management turns living soil into mere raw industrial material. Armstrong warns that unless we recover this ancient veneration of nature, any contemporary concern for the natural environment will remain superficial and ineffective against systemic destruction.
This shift produced what Edward Casey in 2013 calls the suppression of place in exchange for abstract space. For centuries in Western philosophical discourse, place came to be treated as an impoverished second cousin to time and space. To be somewhere physically was reduced to coordinates on a grid. As Willie James Jennings noted in 2010, colonial modernity played a decisive role in this transformation. Western colonizers, as Norman Wirzba observed in 2021, never planted both feet on the ground they occupied; they kept one foot in the boat, ready to move on. Colonial expansion imposed a mathematical and commercial imagination on the earth, mapping land in terms of grid lines, spatial volume, and commodity prices, which effectively severed the bond between human identity and local ecology.
A common misconception today is that endless mobility and rootlessness represent the peak of human freedom and cosmopolitan sophistication. As Wirzba highlights, staying put is frequently misinterpreted as a sign of a stagnant, provincial spirit or a cowering refusal to explore the world. Yet, as Zygmunt Bauman observed in 1996, liquid modernity transforms the historical figure of the pilgrim—who had a clear destination and home—into the stroller, the vagabond, the tourist, and the player. This hypermobility creates a pervasive condition of homelessness and alienation. Walter Brueggemann in 2002 identified this exact phenomenon as displacement: a loss of rootage that leaves modern individuals feeling sociologically and psychologically lost.
When humanity loses its sense of place, it loses its sense of ethical responsibility to local ecosystems. When we view our locations as temporary stepping stones or disposable real estate, we lose the habits, skills, and emotional investment required to care for the earth. By analyzing this modern crisis of place, Ojeifo demonstrates that our ecological degradation is fundamentally tied to an underlying crisis of identity and loss of sacred context.
•Premodern ancestors maintained reverence for and intimacy with their local environments. Ancient agrarian communities treated local forests and rivers as sacred partners in survival.
•Enlightenment modernity displaced traditional worldviews by prioritizing rational logos over mythos. A community trades ancient folklore about a sacred grove for commercial timber valuation spreadsheets.
•According to Armstrong 2022 modernity discarded guiding myths that sustained healthy nature relationships. Stripping spiritual stories from land management turns living soil into mere raw industrial material.
L3
Biblical and Theological Perspectives on Earth and Place
In this 2025 paper published in the journal Religions, Emmanuel Omokugbo Ojeifo examines how biblical traditions and modern ecotheology provide a vital framework for recognizing the intrinsic value of nature and advancing ecojustice. A very common misconception is that Christian theology is inherently unearthly or indifferent to the natural environment, viewing the physical world merely as a temporary stage that will eventually be discarded or consumed in a final conflagration. Critics historically pointed to Genesis texts regarding human dominion as justification for environmental exploitation. However, as we covered earlier in this module, when we closely examine biblical narratives and contemporary theological reflection, a much richer and more nuanced relationship between faith, humanity, and the land comes to light.
To construct an adequate theology of place, ecotheologians emphasize that an anthropologically founded theology of place must value nature in its own right, rather than reducing it to a passive resource for human consumption. Consider the difference between viewing a historical cathedral as a sacred place of meaning versus viewing it merely as a stack of stone and timber that can be demolished for raw materials. When we apply this to the natural world, a forest holds intrinsic sacred value regardless of its economic value to human timber companies. Its worth does not depend on human utility, market price, or corporate harvesting schedules. The ecosystem possesses inherent dignity as part of God's creation, functioning as a vibrant community of interdependent life forms.
According to Elizabeth Johnson, 2015, the natural world is an irreplaceable theological element in any serious study of God and humanity. Rather than treating Earth as an accidental backdrop for human salvation history, Johnson argues that creation itself is an active participant in divine disclosure. Imagine a theater performance where the stage is not just painted cardboard, but a living organism that interacts with and sustains the actors. Scholars view wild animal habitats as essential revelations of divine creation rather than backdrops. When scripture depicts God caring for sparrows, feeding wild beasts, or clothing the lilies of the field, it highlights that non-human creatures have their own direct relationship with their Creator, existing within a magnificent web of life whose ultimate center is God.
This reframing directly addresses what scholars identify as a crisis of anthropocentrism and alienation. When human beings view themselves as elevated far above the rest of creation, they act like impostor omnipotent lords, treating local ecosystems with careless disregard. In contrast, recovering our biblical identity as dusty earthlings—formed from the soil and destined to return to it—reminds us that humans are situated within creation, not hovering above it. We commune with God not through an abstract, placeless spirit realm, but through immanent, concrete geographies. When we walk through a local wetland or inhabit a specific river valley, we are engaging with holy ground that manifests divine presence.
This insight forms the basis for ecojustice, which connects the moral treatment of vulnerable human communities with the ethical treatment of the land itself. According to Habel, 2000, Earth Bible contributors discern biblically grounded support for ecojustice by reading scriptural texts from the perspective of the Earth. Theologians reexamine scriptural texts to advocate for the rights and dignity of vulnerable ecosystems. Just as biblical prophets demanded justice for the oppressed, modern ecotheologians read scripture to hear the voice and suffering of degraded lands, polluted rivers, and displaced species. For instance, when a river system is poisoned by industrial runoff, ecojustice demands that we recognize both the harm done to local human populations and the violation committed against the river ecosystem itself.
Ultimately, by reexamining biblical metaphors—from Jesus using agricultural language and working with mud to the risen Christ being mistaken for a gardener—we see a profound incarnational nerve that grounds spiritual life in the dust and soil of everyday places. Ecotheology challenges us to abandon the destructive paradigm of absolute domination and instead embrace our priestly and creaturely responsibility to tend, protect, and flourish alongside the rest of the Earth community.
•An anthropologically founded theology of place must value nature in its own right. Forests hold intrinsic sacred value regardless of their economic value to human timber companies.
•According to Elizabeth Johnson 2015 the natural world is an irreplaceable theological element. Scholars view wild animal habitats as essential revelations of divine creation rather than backdrops.
•According to Habel 2000 Earth Bible contributors discern biblically grounded support for ecojustice. Theologians reexamine scriptural texts to advocate for the rights and dignity of vulnerable ecosystems.
L4
Ethical Praxis and Place as Resistance
Welcome to L4 of our study. In this paper published in the journal Religions in 2025, the author explores how our relationship to specific places can transform into a powerful site of moral action and ecological resistance. Earlier in this module, we examined the theoretical foundations of ecotheology and the modern displacement from nature. Now, we turn our attention to practical ethics. How does living intentionally in a particular location empower individuals and communities to stand against environmental destruction? The central idea we are unpacking today is that place is not merely a passive backdrop for human activity, but an active arena where moral decisions are made and where resistance against exploitation takes root.
To understand how place becomes a site of resistance, we must first recognize that modern globalized economies often treat land as an abstract, interchangeable commodity. When land is viewed merely as a resource to be extracted for profit, it becomes easy to displace communities and destroy ecosystems. However, when people develop a deep, place-based commitment, that perspective radically shifts. Place serves as an active site of ethical action and ecological resistance. For example, local residents might stage protests or blockades to prevent corporate oil pipelines from crossing native watersheds, drawing their strength directly from their rootedness in that specific environment. This kind of resistance is not just political; it is fundamentally ethical and spiritual, born out of a refusal to let a home ecosystem be desecrated for distant financial gains.
A helpful analogy here is the difference between living in a rented house where you feel no connection to the structure, and living in a family home built by your ancestors. If someone tries to demolish a room in a generic rental, you might simply pack up and move away. But if someone threatens the home where your roots lie, you stand your ground and defend it. In the same way, place-based resistance emerges when people realize that their identity is intertwined with the soil, water, and life of their home region. Ched Myers, writing in 2016, refers to this dynamic through the concept of watershed discipleship. According to Myers, Christians and other communities are called to reinhabit their watersheds, allowing the physical and social landscapes to shape their material habits, mission, and worship.
Practicing this kind of place-based ethics requires a mental and spiritual discipline of remaining grounded. It is a conscious choice to turn away from the throwaway culture described by Pope Francis in 2015, which treats the Earth as a pile of endless resources. Remaining grounded means resisting the urge to constantly seek out consumer convenience at the expense of local ecological health. A gardener chooses to cultivate native plants locally rather than consuming imported nonnative flora. This daily act of choosing the local over the imported, or the sustainable over the convenient, represents a quiet but profound form of moral resistance. It counteracts the globalized mindset that detaches consumer habits from their environmental consequences.
A common misconception is that place-based resistance requires living in remote wilderness or engaging solely in high-profile political protests. In reality, as Elizabeth Gandolfo demonstrated in her 2023 study on ecomartyrdom in Latin America, resistance manifests through everyday cultural and pastoral practices. Gandolfo highlights how communities use music, poetry, art, murals, and local theater to tell the stories of those who sacrificed their lives defending their common home. These creative expressions are themselves strategies of place-based resistance that inspire eco-political liberation. Resistance happens wherever individuals choose to honor the sacredness of their immediate surroundings.
Furthermore, this resistance relies heavily on emotional connection. Intimate knowledge of place fosters deep emotional connection and protective moral responsibility. We can see a vivid demonstration of this in the writings of American environmental activist and farmer Wendell Berry. Writing in 2002, Berry describes his return to his native Kentucky. A farmer recalls specific rocks and fields, inspiring a lifetime commitment to land stewardship. Berry explains that during his youth away at school, he could recall the exact postures of workers, the grazing animals, and the casual locations of small rocks across the fields of his childhood. When he chose to return to Kentucky permanently, his relationship with the land shifted from accident to deliberate choice. His mind became rooted in the earth like a live root system, allowing him to see his own body as a brief expression of the place's energy.
As Norman Wirzba observed in 2021 when commenting on Berry's work, it is only on the basis of this deep intimacy that people can develop the detailed knowledge needed to live in a place without destroying it. When you know every stream, tree species, and seasonal shift in your environment, you naturally develop a protective ethic. You notice when the water becomes polluted or when a local species begins to disappear. Intimacy transforms abstract environmental principles into urgent, personal obligations. In this way, a decolonized ecotheology reclaims place as the essential enabling condition for both human flourishing and ecological justice.
•Place serves as an active site of ethical action and ecological resistance. Local residents stage protests to prevent corporate oil pipelines from crossing native watersheds.
•Practicing place-based ethics requires a mental and spiritual discipline of remaining grounded. A gardener chooses to cultivate native plants locally rather than consuming imported nonnative flora.
•Intimate knowledge of place fosters deep emotional connection and protective moral responsibility. A farmer recalls specific rocks and fields, inspiring a lifetime commitment to land stewardship.
L5
Conclusions and Implications for Integral Ecology
Welcome to L5 of our module. In this paper published in the journal Religions in 2025, the author brings together several theological, philosophical, and ecological threads to offer a compelling vision of integral ecology grounded in a robust ethics of place. As we covered earlier in this module, addressing ecological degradation requires more than abstract intellectual speculation or top-down environmental policy. It demands a fundamental shift in how human beings inhabit, relate to, and care for specific local landscapes. In this final section, we synthesize these conclusions, examining how place functions as the indispensable enabling condition for both human and ecological flourishing, how integral ecology calls for replacing extractive paradigms with place-centered stewardship, and how theological engagement provides vital tools for navigating our current global ecological crisis.
To understand the ultimate conclusions of this study, we must first recognize that place is not merely a background setting or a neutral physical container in which life happens. Rather, place is the fundamental enabling condition for human and ecosystem flourishing. As Norman Wirzba points out in his 2021 work, it is only on the basis of intimate familiarity with a place that people can develop the detailed, nuanced knowledge required to live in an area without destroying it. When humans form deep roots within a specific geographic location, their economic, social, and spiritual activities align with the natural boundaries and capacities of that ecosystem. Consider a healthy wetland ecosystem that provides natural filtration for clean drinking water while serving as a buffer against catastrophic floods for nearby human settlements. When a community recognizes the wetland as an essential, living component of their home, human well-being and environmental health reinforce each other. Conversely, when place is reduced to disposable real estate, both human communities and ecological networks collapse. Think of a potted plant whose roots are confined to inadequate soil; without a rich, supportive environment, the plant cannot bloom, just as human communities cannot thrive in fragmented, degraded environments.
This leads directly to the core ethical transition demanded by integral ecology: replacing extractive exploitation with place-centered stewardship ethics. For centuries, modern technological paradigms have treated local environments as boundless warehouses of raw resources to be harvested for profit and abandoned. Integral ecology counters this mindset by advocating for a deeply contextualized praxis of care. A practical illustration of this shift occurs when a municipality transitions from clear-cutting local mountain forests for rapid timber profit to establishing protected communal watershed reserves. By choosing long-term ecological balance over short-term gain, the community honors what Odomaro Mubangizi, writing in 2022, identifies in African traditions as the enhancement of vital force across humans, non-humans, and the natural environment. A common misconception here is that embracing a place-centered ethics means retreating from the modern world or attempting to turn back the clock to an idealized premodern past. However, as Karen Armstrong observed in 2022, while we cannot return wholesale to a premodern sensibility, acquiring a nuanced understanding of ancestral wisdom allows us to chart a new path forward. It is not about abandoning progress, but about redefining progress so that human actions nourish rather than sever our living root systems.
Furthermore, theological engagement with place provides practical resources for navigating the contemporary Anthropocene epoch, an era marked by widespread environmental disruption and rootlessness. In a world characterized by rapid globalization and transient mobility, Pope Francis noted in 2013 that modern individuals risk becoming nomads without roots. Ted McAllister and Wilfred McClay emphasized in 2014 that human beings stand powerfully in need of stable, coherent places to ground their identity and orient their moral responsibilities as citizens, neighbors, and family members. When spiritual traditions reframe nature as a sacred gift rather than a commodity, they offer policymakers and local leaders moral frameworks that prioritize environmental restoration alongside local community needs. For example, local governments informed by ecotheological principles might rebuild urban neighborhoods around shared green spaces, public gardens, and restored waterways, ensuring that marginalized populations gain access to dignified, healthy living conditions. As Pope Francis affirmed in his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si', when people build networks of solidarity and belonging within their local environment, even severe urban decay can be transformed into a setting for a dignified and flourishing life.
Ultimately, integral ecology is not an abstract academic exercise; it is an active praxis rooted in daily life. Drawing on the life and writing of farmer and activist Wendell Berry from 2002, true intimacy with a place transforms our relation to the earth from mere coincidence or accident into a deliberate choice. By learning the names of local plants, listening to the stories of neighbors, and observing seasonal cycles, our minds become live root systems growing directly out of the earth. By embracing place as the foundation of ecological stewardship, we cultivate the deep roots necessary to protect our shared home.
•Place is the fundamental enabling condition for human and ecosystem flourishing. Healthy wetland ecosystems provide clean water and flood defense that allow surrounding towns to thrive.
•Integral ecology requires replacing extractive exploitation with place centered stewardship ethics. A city transitions from clear-cutting local forests to establishing protected communal watershed reserves.
•Theological engagement with place provides practical resources for navigating the Anthropocene epoch. Spiritual frameworks guide policymakers to prioritize environmental restoration alongside local community needs.
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