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Cultivating the “unquiet heart”: Ecology, education, and Christian faith

In his 2015 encyclical, Pope Francis argued that Christianity stands in need of an “ecological conversion.” Conversion is an urgent kind of theological language, urging a resilient and ecologically grounded faith, a faith that turns on the capacities necessary to inhabit God’s world well. Drawing on the eschatological tension described by Jürgen Moltmann as the “unquiet heart,” this essay builds a practical theology for nurturing Christian faith in our vulnerable and changing ecological context. Engaging generative questions from the fields of theological anthropology, educational theory, and practical theology, it reframes the work of human life as becoming good inhabitants in God’s household. As such, it reexamines the shape of human identity and vocation in relationship to the world and to God’s promised future. It concludes with modest proposals for practices and educational approaches that might cultivate what Larry Rasmussen has called an “earth-honoring faith.”