This post comes at the relationship between EcoEcclesia and OccupyTheology from opposite sides from the previous post. In the previous post, I reflected a bit upon why the Climate movement is like the Occupy movement, springing from similar and related sets of causes (the oligarchy’s continuous drive to further consolidate power and economic stranglehold. From another angle, OccupyTheology is done as an exercise that seeks to identify questions that need to be posed to our theology that require a rethinking and reorientation, and hopefully, a RECOVERY of theological narrative that is up to the task of challenging the status quo which has constructed the unjust systems under which we now find ourselves. With the growing Climate Crisis, OccupyTheology needs an alternative branding to reflect the centrality of the EcoCrisis, so I have added the identifier, EcoEcclesia, to bring that out into the open as a place to begin and from which to operate.
EcoEcclesia clearly is an effort to highlight the “Ecologically-Centered” Church. The root word for both ecology and ecclesia is the oikos, or household (as it is also for the word “economy”, or our “science” of keeping the household of human community “in order”; the housekeeping required to attend to the smooth functioning of the community. So EcoEcclesia, in its close relationship to OccuyTheology, recognizes the “Economic” as an integral player in this work of seeking to renew our household.