Religion, Modernity, Democracy, and Ecological Wisdom. A Review Article of “Religion and Ecological Crisis: Christian and Muslim Perspectives from John B. Cobb and Seyyed Hossein Nasr,” by Md. Abu Sayem

Grzegorz Francuz

doi:10.21697/seb.5898

Published: 2026-07-28

Religion, Modernity, Democracy, and Ecological Wisdom. A Review Article of “Religion and Ecological Crisis: Christian and Muslim Perspectives from John B. Cobb and Seyyed Hossein Nasr,” by Md. Abu Sayem

Grzegorz Francuz

Studia Ecologiae et Bioethicae

Section: Review Articles

https://doi.org/10.21697/seb.5898

Abstract

This review article discusses Md. Abu Sayem’s book Religion and Ecological Crisis: Christian and Muslim Perspectives from John B. Cobb and Seyyed Hossein Nasr as an important contribution to contemporary scholarship at the intersection of religion and ecology. It presents Cobb as a thinker whose process theology links ecological responsibility with interdependence, the common good, and a critique of economism, while Nasr is interpreted as a metaphysical critic of modernity who diagnoses ecological devastation in terms of desacralization and spiritual alienation. The review argues that Sayem’s book is especially valuable because it presents religion as both potentially complicit in ecological domination and capable of offering moral and spiritual resources for ecological restraint, care, and responsibility. At the same time, the article extends Sayem’s argument by situating it within a broader discussion of democracy, pluralism, public reason, and ecological legitimacy. Referring to John Rawls and Bryan G. Norton, it suggests that ecological responsibility in contemporary societies must also be articulated in a way compatible with democratic pluralism and overlapping consensus. The article concludes that the significance of Sayem’s book lies in showing how different religious traditions may converge in support of ecological wisdom without erasing their theological and philosophical differences.

Keywords:

religion and ecology, ecological crisis, John B. Cobb Jr., Seyyed Hossein Nasr, public reason, ecological wisdom, environmental ethics, SDG 4 – Quality Education, SDG 17 – Partnerships for the Goals, democracy

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Francuz, G. (2026). Religion, Modernity, Democracy, and Ecological Wisdom. A Review Article of “Religion and Ecological Crisis: Christian and Muslim Perspectives from John B. Cobb and Seyyed Hossein Nasr,” by Md. Abu Sayem. Studia Ecologiae Et Bioethicae. https://doi.org/10.21697/seb.5898

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