Mission

The European Forum for the Study of Religion and the Environment promotes scholarly and critical inquiry into the relationships between human beings and their diverse cultures, environments and religious beliefs and practices. There is a growing interest in the relationships between environmentally sustainable ways of living and established religious traditions, emerging trans-cultural and trans-local religious practices, and environmental spiritualities. Our goal is to foster interdisciplinary dialogues on human-environmental relationships and religion/nature/culture interactions. Such dialogues engage ethical concerns as well as beliefs and values in secular ways of life. The Forum provides a “home” and an “open space” to scholars in Europe interested in the interactions between religion and environmental matters in different historical, political, cultural, and geographical contexts. This Forum is, however, neither limited to only European fields and topics nor only to scholars in Europe. It understands itself as a body which encourages and resources scholars and networks in Europe and on other continents in order to encourage and support trans-national research communities for the study of religion, nature, culture and the environment. Therefore, scholars from all faculties, and from both Europe and other regions, are welcome to register at our website.

History

In 2003, a group of researchers in Europe decided to formulate a common project on the theme of “The Environment, Citizenship and Religion”. It connected 74 distinguished established and younger scholars from 24 universities and other institutions in 11 countries in Europe and Russia, and Sigurd Bergmann, Trondheim, administrated it.

In June 2005, 24 scholars from 10 countries attended and participated in the workshop “Religion and the Environment in Europe” 3 - 5 June 2005, Benediktbeuern, Germany. Preparations for the workshop had been made by a group of seven scholars from Norway, England, Finland, Sweden, Greece and Switzerland during a two day meeting in Geneva 24-26 September 2004.

At the end of this workshop, the scholars decided to establish the Forum for the Study of Religion and the Environment in order to develop an expanding cooperation of researchers in different academic disciplines on the theme of Religion, Nature, the Environment and Culture. An executive committee began its work 2005, and two international conferences took place in 2007 and 2009.

An executive committee began its work 2005, and the Forum was chaired by Sigurd Bergmann (2005-11), Celia Deane Drummond (vice chair 2009-11, chair 2011-18 ), Maria Jansdotter Samuelsson (vice chair 2011-13), Markus Vogt (vice chair 2013-15), Michael Northcott (vice chair 2015-17), Peter Scott (chair 2018-24), and Jonathan Schorsch (vice chair 2021-24, chair 2024- ), and Petra Carlsson (vice chair 2024- ). Seven international conferences took place in 2007 (Bamberg), 2009 (Åbo/Turku), 2011 (Chester), 2013 (Sigtuna), 2015 (Munich), 2021 (Manchester), and 2024 (Potsdam).