Ecological Aspects of War

Anne Elvey is a writer and activist whose publications include, On arrivals of breath (Poetica Christi 2019), White on White (Cordite Books 2018), and Kin (FIP 2014), shortlisted in the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards 2015. Obligations of Voice is forthcoming from Recent Work Press in 2021. Anne is editor of hope for whole: poets speak up to Adani. Her most recent scholarly book is Reading the Magnificat in Australia: Unsettling Engagements (Sheffield Phoenix 2020). Anne is an adjunct research fellow in the School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University, and an honorary research associate, Trinity College Theological School, and member of the network for Religion and Social Policy, University of Divinity.

Ecological Aspects of War reflects on warfare in the larger context of planetary relationality - not only the limits that must be respected in human conflicts, but also the impact of war on the larger created order. From the ancient legal constraint that fruit trees should not be destroyed in siege warfare (Deuteronomy 20) to the incarnational embedding of Christ in the material world, there is a broad range of theological issues to consider in re-imagining our relationships within the biosphere. This admirable Australian discussion demonstrates afresh how Christian theological traditions envisage an inter-species responsibility, and in addition, takes the necessary step of including Muslim and Buddhist perspectives on these most pressing issues.

Australians' ecological footprints are among the heaviest on earth. Australia is a combatant in its longest running war. Despite this, ecological, economic and military crises and are largely absent from public discourse and most Australians continue to live, and our governments continue to operate, as if the earth had no limits and the war did not exist. Situating questions of war and peace in an ecological framework, contributors use varied faith perspectives and approaches to highlight the interconnectedness of all life and the interrelationships between war and violent economic systems that normalise destructive commercial-industrial practices and promote irresponsible patterns of consumption and waste production. Ecological Aspects of War has the potential to help us muster the collective spiritual, moral and cultural resources needed to come to grips with the ecological, economic and military crises in which we are complicit and to imagine and create non-violent life-giving alternatives. It is a timely and important contribution.