TREES ~ Theological Roundtable on Ecological Ethics and Spirituality

Contacts & Membership
TREES welcomes all GTU faculty, students, and staff who are committed to bringing about more sustainable practices in the GTU and wider Bay Area communities. Likewise we welcome all those committed to bringing about an ecologically just society to join us in our efforts.

If you would like to join the TREES listserv, which will provide you with updates on upcoming events, summaries of each of the events, notifications about other special events, and educational opportunities in the Bay Area and beyond, please click here:
http://george.gtu.edu/mailman/listinfo/trees-list

If you would like more information about any of the TREES programs, or you would like to become involved with the TREES group, please contact the TREES office:

TREES at the GTU
2400 Ridge Road
Berkeley CA 94709
510.
trees@gtu.edu

Steering Committee
Whitney Bauman, GTU PhD Student
whitneybauman@sbcglobal.net
Whitney Bauman serves as the Managing Editor for Theology and Science and is a PhD student in Theology at the Graduate Theological Union. He received his MTS from Vanderbilt Divinity School in May 2000 and a BA in Psychology from Hendrix College in May 1998. Deeply concerned with environmental issues, Whitney wrote his MTS thesis on Ecological Concepts of the Self and is presently on the Steering Committee
of the Theological Roundtable on Ecological Ethics and Spirituality (TREES) at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in Berkeley, CA. His current interests include eco-justice
issues in theology, especially as they pertain to issues
of "greening" theological education, theological anthropology, and violence.

Brian Campbell, Pacific School of Religion, MDiv Student
bgcampbell@aol.com
Brian is an MDiv student preparing for ordained ministry in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Brian's academic and vocational interests include leading wilderness trips and retreats, giving voice to ecological concerns in scripture, and fostering ecological and social justice rooted in creaturely interconnection. Brian's sense of incarnation was shaped at a young age by his family's tradition of spending Easters not in church but in the outdoors, camping together. He is most at home hiking with his wife Gina in the lush forests of the Southern Appalachians and the Oregon Cascades.

Chris Evans, GTU PhD Student
chwevans@yahoo.com
A Ph.D. student in Liturgical Studies with a special interest in the interaction of theologies of Eucharist and the priesthood of the baptized with ecological ethics, Chris previously completed a MDiv at the Pacific School of Religion. Chris misses the lush greenery and near daily rain of his native Oregon. Chris first became interested in issues of ecology from his time spent in Barrow, Alaska, particularly his visit to ANWR.

Eileen Harrington, GTU PhD student
eileenmharrington@hotmail.com
Currently a Ph.D. student in Ecofeminist and Globalization Theology at the GTU after getting her MA in Celtic Christianity and M.Div. in the Ministry of Teaching from PSR, she's using her former life as non profit manager for social justice organizations in Seattle to assist TREES and ABSW in fundraising and development. Hailing originally from Washington, DC, her family includes Gambit, Houdini, and Halloween, all who help her in her understanding of animal theology. One will find her on occassion pursuing her passion: horseback riding in the Northwest.

Carol Manahan, GTU, PhD Student

Joellynn K. Monahan, Pacific School of Religion, Field Education Office and MDiv Alum
jkmonahan@uuma.org
Joellynn was the only kid in her NJ elementary school reading Rodale's books on organic gardening and building models of solar skylights for science fair projects. Many years later we find her pursing ordination as a Unitarian Universalist Minister. Joellynn's interests include ecofeminist theology, connections between racism and environmental destruction, and the intersection of spirituality and place. Her secret mission is to help all GTU students to see the environment as both the context for our varied ministries and the primary community of accountability in our professional and personal lives. Joellynn and her partner live a Slow Food, automobile-free life in Berkeley.

Adam Olsen, Pacific School of Religion, MA Student
guavajelly57@hotmail.com
Adam is a second year M.A. student at the GTU and is interested in medieval history and the evolution of thought concerning humankinds' place in creation. It is important to recognize our past in order to better shape our future. He hails from the Midwest, growing up in beautiful Northern Michigan and then graduating from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota in 2000. Still new to the Bay Area, when not studying, Adam can be found climbing at nearby crags or telemark skiing near Lake Tahoe.

Rev. Craig Scott, Pacific School of Religion, MDiv. Alum
craigscottuu@earthlink.net
An MDiv student at PSR, Craig is preparing for a Unitarian-Universalist ministry, and has been an active member of TREES since his arrival on the GTU campus. In past lives, he has worked as an attorney representing disadvantaged communities and as a legal researcher and writer at UC Berkeley. A major aspect of Craig's environmental commitment focuses on wildlife issues; for many years he has volunteered his time and energy to working with marine mammals at an animal rehab center and to participating in wildlife-oriented research projects on Tomales Bay and the Point Reyes peninsula.

Dana Spottswood, MA, GTU Alumnus
Dana@piedmontchurch.org
Dana, partly inspired by her time as a Park Ranger in Olympic National Park, co-founded TREES in February of 1999, while working on her masters in Theology from the GTU, which focused on eco-spirituality and the ethics of bioregionalism. Currently, Dana is an artist, working in egg tempera and wood, and is employed part-time as publications coordinator at a local church.

Lou Ann Trost, PhD, Program Director, Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, GTU, Berkeley.
Dr. Trost is former Program Director at the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. She is Book Editor of Theology and Science. Most Recently, she worked for the "Science and Religion" section of the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago, IL.

Greg Zuschlag, GTU PhD student in Systematic Theology and MDiv, Notre Dame.
Greg@piedmontchurch.org
Greg, when not hiking around the Bay Area with Dana and their dog Shep, is a GTU doctoral student working in the area of Systematic Theology. Incorporating insights from U.S. environmental history and ethics-philosophy, Greg's research critically examines the theological anthropology's supporting the various and prevailing notions of environmental stewardship with the hope of reconstructing a more ecologically sound notion of human beings' place and role within Creation.

Advisory Board
Rev. Sally Bingham
Rev. Bingham is an Episcopal Priest. Currently the Environmental Minister at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco and director of the Regeneration Project. Also co-director of the Episcopal Power and Light program; a commissioner of the city/county of San Francisco, Commission on the Environment; a trustee for Environmental Defense; and the Chair of the Episcopal Commission for the Environment for the Diocese of California.

Dody Donelly, PhD, ThD
Professor Donelly is a theologian and historian, and author of Team Works and Radical Love. She is a faculty member at the Fromm Institute of the University of San Francisco and the Graduate Theological Union.

Clare Fischer, PhD
Professor Fischer is Aurelia Henry Reinhardt Professor of Religion and Culture at Starr King School for the Ministry and a Core Doctoral Faculty Member at the Graduate Theological Union. She is also co-director of the Center for Ethics and Social Policy at the Graduate Theological Union. Her research interests include Sociology/Ethics of Work, Civil Society and Globalization, Feminist Theory, Indonesian Culture and Society, and Pilgrimage/ritual studies.

John Grim, PhD
Professor of Religion at Bucknell University and President of the American Teilhard Association, John is a historian of religions, and undertakes annual field studies in American Indian lifeways among the Apsaalooke/Crow peoples of Montana and the Swy-ahl-puh/Salish peoples of the Columbia River Plateau in eastern Washington. His published works include: The Shaman: Patterns of Religious Healing Among the Ojibway Indians (University of Oklahoma Press, 1983) and, with Mary Evelyn Tucker, a co-edited volume entitled Worldviews and Ecology (Orbis, 1994). Grim and his wife, Mary Evelyn Tucker, recently organized the Conference on World Religion and Ecology at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University and are founding members of the Forum on Religion and Ecology.

Jay McDaniel, PhD
Professor McDaniel is Professor of Religion at Hendrix College in Conway, AR. Dr. McDaniel's interests include Process Theology, Buddhism, and inter-religious dialogue. He is the author of several noted books on ecological theology, including Of God and Pelicans, With Roots and Wings, and Living from the Center: Spirituality in an Age of Consumerism.

Sallie McFague, PhD
Professor McFague is the former Carpenter Professor of Theology and former Dean of the Divinity School. She currently teaches at the Vancouver School of Theology in British Columbia. Her works include: Models of God; The Body of God, Super, Natural Christians; and Life Abundant. Her research interests include ecological theology, feminist hermeneutics, and Christian doctrine.

Carol Robb, PhD
Professor Robb is Professor of Christian Social Ethics at San Francisco Theological Seminary and a Core Doctoral Faculty Member at the Graduate Theological Union. Her current research includes: Environmental/Feminist/Economic Ethics Agriculture, Welfare Reform, and Methods in Ethics.

Rosemary Radford Ruether, PhD
Professor Radford Ruether is Carpenter Professor of Feminist Theology at the Pacific School of Religion, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, and Georgia Harkness Professor of Applied Theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theology Seminary in Chicago. Her publications include: Sexism and God-Talk; Gaia and God: Ecofeminist Theology and Earth Healing; and The Wrath of Jonah: The Crisis of Religious Nationalism in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

Lou Ann Trost, PhD
Dr. Trost is former Program Director at the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. She is also Editor of the CTNS Bulletin.

Mary Evelyn Tucker, PhD
Professor of Religion at Bucknell University and a founding member of the Forum on Religion and Ecology, Mary Evelyn received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in the history of religions, specializing in Confucianism in Japan. She and her husband John Grim have directed the series of ten conferences on religions of the world and ecology at the Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions (1996–1998) and served as editors of the Harvard University Press book series from these conferences. Her research interests include topics regarding the world religions, Asian religions, and religion and ecology. Her published works include: Moral and Spiritual Cultivation in Japanese Neo-Confucianism (SUNY, 1989); co-edited with John Grim, Worldviews and Ecology (Orbis, 1994); co-edited with Duncan Ryûken Williams, Buddhism and Ecology (Harvard/CSWR, 1997); co-edited with John Berthrong, Confucianism and Ecology (Harvard/CSWR, 1998); co-edited with Christopher Chapple, Hinduism and Ecology (Harvard/CSWR, 2000); and Worldly Wonder: Religions Enter Their Ecological Phase (Open Court, 2003).

Sponsors
TREES is supported through generous gifts from organizations like the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, the Center for Ethics and Social Policy, the Strong Foundation, Metanexus Institute, and the Graduate Theological Union (GTU). We are also supported by individual donations and volunteer work.

Contributions
All contributions to TREES are tax-deductible and greatly assist the day to day operations of the group. If you would like to assist TREES in its mission, please consider a generous donation of whatever amount you can afford. Checks may be sent to the address below. For credit card charges, please call the office directly. Annual reports are available upon request. Thank you!

TREES at the GTU
2400 Ridge Road / Berkeley CA 94709
Phone: 510-848-0528, ext. 1316
Fax:510-845-8948
Email: trees@gtu.edu

This website sponsored in part by the Strong Foundation