Religion in Public Discourses on Genetics and Ecology
Research on religious notions in debates on genetics and the environment.
- Project 1: Playing God? Religion and science in discourses on genetic modification.
- Project II: The Impact of Technology and Ecology on Religion (Drees)
In public and political discourse on genetics and on the environment, religious notions crop up: a warning against ‘playing God’, a call to respect the ‘integrity of creation’, or a consideration of humans as ‘created co-creators’. One project (see below) deals with political discourse on genetics; another, executed by the postdoc Tony Watling (2004-2007) focused on environmental discussions and religious pluralism. This research project is funded by NWO, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, in the context of its programme ‘The Future of the Religious Past’. In October 2006 there has been a research conference 'Religion, Science and Public Concern': a multi-author volume is to be published in the course of 2008.
Project 1: Playing God? Religion and science in discourses on genetic modification.
In debates on the social acceptability of genetic technologies religious expressions (‘playing God’, ‘sacredness of life’, ‘creation’) have been used alongside metaphors from the social and political domain (e.g. ‘boundaries’) and from mythic material and fiction (Frankenstein, ‘the golem’, ‘hubris’). Using religious vocabularies in public debate on genetic insights and technologies raises the issue how religious discourse with its particularity can play a role in the public sphere. Is the resistance against some such technologies to be understood as a consequence of lack of information? How might we engage in fruitful moral debate, respecting moral and religious differences?
Project II: The Impact of Technology and Ecology on Religion (Drees)
Drees works on a concluding monograph for this research programme. A particular focus will be the main direction of influence considered. Not so much the contribution from theology to ethical discourse on technology will be central, but rather the impact of articulating stances regarding technology and ethics on religious convictions and practices. Thus, the study will deal with changes in faith due to engagement with modern day problems associated with science, technology and ecology. E.g., can one speak of The Greening of Faith? as an interpretation of the ‘religion and ecology’ movement?
The manuscript is to be written during a sabbatical in Princeton from September 2008 until June 2009, as the Witherspoon Fellow of the Center for Theological Inquiry.