Faith and ethics

Lord Carey says: "I was fortunate enough to be brought up in an unprivileged, working class home in the east end of London where our home was completely destroyed in the Blitz in 1940. This gave me a sense of the gift of life and the importance of values that transcend possessions. Following two years in the Royal Air Force, an unexpected encounter with Christianity led me to explore ordination. I went on to serve in academia and church, ending my service as Archbishop of Canterbury in 2002.

"My concerns have remained consistent through my long life: Inequality remains an ugly stain in a rich world, greed and over-production are wilfully destroying nature and wars ensure that the very poor remain bottom of the heap. I am delighted to identify with the values of Compassion in World Farming".

Christopher Carter’s teaching and research interests are in Black & Womanist Theological Ethics, Environmental Ethics, Religion & Food, and Religion & Animals. His publications include The Spirit of Soul Food (University of Illinois Press, November 2021), “Blood in the Soil: The Racial, Racist, and Religious Dimensions of Environmentalism” in The Bloomsbury Handbook on Religion and Nature (Bloomsbury, 2018), and the co-edited volume The Future of Meat Without Animals (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016). In them, he explores the intersectional oppressions experienced by people of colour, the environment, and animals. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor of Theology at the University of San Diego and a Faith in Food Fellow at Farm Forward.

Rabbi David Rosen is the former Chief Rabbi of Ireland, is AJC's International Director of Interreligious Affairs and director of AJC’s Heilbrunn Institute for International Interreligious Understanding. He is an International President of the World Conference on Religion and Peace (www.religionsforpeace.org), Honorary President of the International Council of Christians and Jews (www.iccj.org), and the only Jewish member of the Board of Directors of the King Abdullah International Center for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (www.kaiciid.org). In 2005, Rabbi Rosen received a knighthood from the Pope and in 2010 he was awarded a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) by Queen Elizabeth II.

Mary Evelyn Tucker is co-director with John Grim of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology. They are affiliated faculty with the Yale Center for Environmental Justice. They organized 10 conferences on World Religions and Ecology at Harvard and were series editors for the 10 resulting volumes from Harvard. Her research area is Asian religions and she co-edited Confucianism and Ecology, Buddhism and Ecology, and Hinduism and Ecology.

She has authored with Grim, Ecology and Religion (Island Press, 2014). They co-edited the Routledge Handbook of Religion and Ecology (2017) with Willis Jenkins. They are editors for the series on Ecology and Justice from Orbis Books.

They have created six online courses in Religions and Ecology: Restoring the Earth Community, which include Indigenous religions, Western religions, and Asian religions. They also edited the books of cultural historian, Thomas Berry, including Selected Writings (Orbis 2014). They published Thomas Berry: A Biography (Columbia University Press, 2019) with Andrew Angyal.

With Brian Thomas Swimme, they created a multi-media project Journey of the Universe that includes a book (Yale, 2011), an Emmy Award winning film on PBS, a series of podcast Conversations, and free online courses from Yale/Coursera.

Tucker was a member of the Earth Charter Drafting committee and the International Earth Charter Council. She won the Inspiring Yale Teaching Award in 2015 and has been awarded 7 honorary degrees. With Grim, she has received numerous awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture.

Fazlun Khalid is recognised as one of 15 leading global eco-theologians and is listed amongst the "500 Most Influential Muslims in the World" by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre of Jordan. He received the Muslim News Awards for Excellence in Engineering, Science and Technology in 2004 for developing a scientific approach to Islamic environmental practice. He founded the Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences a leading global Islamic environmental NGO.

Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi is an American Buddhist monk, scholar, and translator of Buddhist texts from the original Pali into English. He holds a PhD in philosophy from Claremont Graduate University (1972). He was ordained as a Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka in 1972. He edited the Buddhist Publication Society in Kandy, and was its president from 1988 until 2010. He is currently the president of the Buddhist Association of the United States (BAUS), based at Chuang Yen Monastery in Carmel, New York. In 2008, together with several of his students, Ven. Bodhi founded Buddhist Global Relief, a non-profit organisation supporting hunger and poverty relief for communities suffering from chronic hunger and malnutrition.

Bishop John Arnold was appointed Roman Catholic Bishop of Salford in 2014. He has a law degree from Trinity College, Oxford and was called to the Bar in 1976. He entered the Institute of Charity (Rosminians) and began studies for the priesthood in 1978, in Rome. He was ordained priest in 1983 and Bishop in 2006, when he served as an auxiliary bishop for Westminster diocese. He is the Chair of the Board of Trustees of CAFOD, the Catholic Church's aid and development agency. Bishop John is a member of the Bishops’ Conference Department for International Affairs and spokesman on the Environment. Inspired by Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’, which calls on “every person living on this planet” to care for our shared earth, Bishop John has called on the Catholic community to make practical responses to deal with climate change. He expresses his thinking on animals and the environment here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbu4zrYn7Cc .

Martin Palmer is President of FaithInvest, an international organisation assisting the faiths in moving their investments into environmental and sustainable investments in partnership with the UN. He is also Special Advisor to WWF International’s Beliefs and Values Initiative and Co-Chair of the International Network on Conservation and Religion. In all three spheres he works especially on food-related issues. He is a regular contributor to the BBC especially Radio 4 and author of over 30 books. He is a translator of Classical Chinese books such as the Shang Shu and the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and is a renowned expert on Chinese religions

The Reverend Dr John Chryssavgis, Archdeacon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, has taught in Sydney and Boston. He is theological advisor to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the “green patriarch,” on environmental issues. His books include Creation as Sacrament: Reflections on Ecology and Spirituality (Bloomsbury, 2019), In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers (World Wisdom, 2nd revised ed. 2008), On Earth as in Heaven: Ecological Vision and Initiatives of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew (Fordham University Press, 2012). He lives in Maine.

Rabbi Soetendorp is an award winning human rights advocate, lecturer, writer, environmental activist and champion of civil society worldwide who is active in a wide variety of progressive, humanitarian and interfaith organizations and initiatives. He is a founding member of Green Cross International and serves as an Earth Charter commissioner and a Millennium Development Ambassador. Rabbi Soetendorp is a founding member of the Islam and the West dialogue group of the World Economic Forum.

Elizabeth McAnally, PhD, is the newsletter editor and website manager for the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology.  She also manages the websites for Journey of the Universe, Thomas Berry and the Great Work, American Teilhard Association, and Emerging Earth Community.  Elizabeth is the author of Loving Water across Religions: Contributions to an Integral Water Ethic (Orbis Press, 2019).  Her work has also been published in The Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Nature (Bloomsbury Press, 2018), as well as in several journals. Elizabeth has taught classes on philosophy, religion, and environmental ethics at several universities, including the University of San Francisco. She practices yoga and teaches Chinese internal arts. Elizabeth is an avid musician who loves singing and playing the flute.

Andrew is Director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics (www.oxfordanimalethics.com) and a member of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Oxford. He is also Honorary Professor at the University of Winchester and Professor of Animal Ethics at the Graduate Theological Foundation in Indiana, USA. He has written more than 20 books, including Why Animal Suffering Matters published by Oxford University Press.

Dr Manazir Ahsan has been Director General of the Islamic Foundation since 1985 and edits the Muslim World Book Review. He has authored over half a dozen books and many articles on aspects of Islam. He is Co-Chair of the Interfaith Network and Chair of the Inter Faith Relations Committee of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB). Dr Ahsan was awarded an MBE in the Year 2000 in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in recognition of his contribution to Interfaith and Community activities.

Bishop Dominic is President of the Anglican Society for the Welfare of Animals and a former honorary Vice President of the RSPCA. He protested against live animal exports and contributed to the book, Siege on Shoreham. He has a passionate concern for animal welfare and how it relates to the welfare of people and the environment. He believes that Christians need to take seriously their role as stewards of God’s creation and how we use the world’s resources.

Bishop John read Law at St Peter’s College Oxford and Theology at Cambridge and Durham. A former Archdeacon of Canterbury, he was appointed Bishop of Oxford in 2007. He has written 15 books on Christian belief and practice. He chairs the Church of England Board of Education and the SPCK and is a Governor of St George’s House, Windsor. His interests include education, world development, environment and media and he enjoys armchair sport, the arts, walking, travel and recovering.

Trinley Thaye Dorje is the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa of the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Karmapas are considered to be great bodhisattvas (enlightened beings) who manifest for the benefit of all sentient beings and retain and transmit the teachings. Trinley Thaye Dorje, was born in Lhasa (Tibet) in 1983. He lives in India but teaches all over the world. He is known for his great fondness of animals and his concern to protect them from all forms of cruelty.

Lindsay Meader is an Anglican priest, serving as the Lead Theatre Chaplain for the Diocese of London and Senior Chaplain of Theatre Chaplaincy UK. Prior to this she served for 14 years as Associate Rector of St James’s Piccadilly - the first inner-city place of worship and Grade 1 listed building to be awarded the Eco-Church Gold Award. Lindsay became vegetarian at the age of 13 having grown up in Petersfield, the town where CIWF had its first office.

Bishop Llewellin practised as a solicitor before entering the ministry and studying at Cambridge. His 3 years as a priest in Johannesburg Cathedral came to an end when he was expelled by the then South African Government in 1971. He served as Bishop of Dover and, from 1999-2003, as Bishop at Lambeth and Head of Staff to the Archbishop of Canterbury. He is Chairman of the Anglican Society for the Welfare of Animals. He has led ecumenical pilgrimages to Israel/Palestine.

Jonathan Crane, PhD, is the Raymond F. Schinazi Junior Scholar in Bioethics and Jewish Thought at Emory University. An ordained rabbi, Crane sits on the advisory board of FarmForward.org, and currently serves as the President of the Society of Jewish Ethics. Co-editor with Elliot Dorff of The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics, his most recent book is Narratives and Jewish Bioethics. He is working on an edited volume, Beastly Morality, and is authoring a book on eating ethics.

Shi Changhui is the executive director of the China Buddhist Association, the deputy director of Hebei Buddhist Association and director of the Hebei Buddhist Charity Foundation, which helps poor children, especially with their schooling. He is the abbot of the Shijiazhuang Hongyi Buddhist Center and the Baoding Longtan Temple.

Michael J. Reiss is Professor of Science Education at UCL Institute of Education, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics and a Priest in the Church of England. He was a member of the Farm Animal Welfare Council/Committee (2004-12), Director of Education at the Royal Society (2006-08), a member of the GM Science Review Panel (2002-04), Specialist Advisor to the House of Lords Select Committee on Animals in Scientific Procedures (2001-02) and Chair of EuropaBio’s External Advisory Group on Ethics (2000-01).

William is associate professor of Philosophical Theology at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. His research and teaching focuses upon the intersection of contemporary culture with Christian theology and ethics, with special attention to modern rationality, creation care, and love for all creatures. Recent publications include, "Karl Barth and 'Love for all Creatures'," in Issues in Ethics and Animal Rights (Regency Publications, 2011) and "Life Sacred," in God's Earth is Sacred (Phillips and Carmichael, eds., Washington, D.C., National Council of Churches, 2012).

Abdal Hakim Murad is dean of the Cambridge Muslim College, which trains imams for British mosques. His most recent book is Commentary on the Eleventh Contentions (2012). He regularly leads prayers at the Cambridge central mosque, and has preached in major mosques across the world. His articles have appeared in The Independent, the Daily Telegraph, The Times, the Catholic Herald, Islamica, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, and Prospect. He is also a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day.

Pankaj Jain is the author of the award-wining Dharma and Ecology of Hindu Communities: Sustenance and Sustainability (Ashgate, 2011). He is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Anthropology and Philosophy & Religion at the University of North Texas and teaches courses on religions, cultures, ecologies, and films of India and Asia. He received the Fulbright-Nehru Environmental Leadership Fellowship in 2012, has published widely and works to “green” Hindu and Jain temples in North America.

Father Charles is a Catholic priest, working for the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops in Nairobi. He is the National Executive Secretary for the Pastoral and Lay Apostolate, Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue. He also the Chair of the Kenya Interfaith Network of Action on the Environment. He earned his PhD in Rome and has written several books on faith and conservation and raises awareness with religious leaders of all faiths about the illegal wildlife trade and the need to protect the environment.

Rabbi Yonatan Neril founded and directs The Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development (ICSD). Yonatan completed an M.A. from Stanford University and received rabbinical ordination in Israel. He speaks internationally on religion and the environment, including at the Parliament of World Religions. As part of ICSD's Faith Inspired Renewable Energy Project, he has helped develop commercial scale solar fields on church lands in Africa. He is the lead author and editor of two books, including Uplifting People and Planet: 18 Essential Jewish Teachings on the Environment. He is a member of the United Nations Environment Program's Faith-based Advisory Council, and of the Pontifical University's Alliance for Laudato Si' Advisory Council.

Kathleen Duffy is Professor Emerita of Physics at Chestnut Hill College where she directs the Institute for Religion and Science. She writes widely on the philosopher Teilhard de Chardin, edits Teilhard Studies and serves on the Advisory Boards of the American Teilhard Association and Cosmos and Creation. She has published Teilhard’s Mysticism: Seeing the Inner Face of Evolution (Orbis Books, 2014), Teilhard’s Struggle: Embracing the Work of Evolution (2019), an edited volume of essays entitled Rediscovering Teilhard’s Fire (St. Joseph’s University Press, 2010), as well as several book chapters and articles on how Teilhard’s religious essays connect with modern science. Kathleen also guides retreats on topics related to Teilhard’s life and work.

Michael Gilmour teaches English and biblical literature at Providence University College in Manitoba, Canada, and is a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. His books include Eden’s Other Residents: The Bible and Animals (2014), Animals in the Writings of C. S. Lewis (2017), and Creative Compassion, Literature and Animal Welfare (2020).

Mat McDermott, is a Senior Director at the Hindu American Foundation and founding board member of the Hindu environmental non-profit Bhumi Global. Mat is a former editor at TreeHugger, as well as a regular contributor to Hinduism Today and numerous other online publications. He is the lead author of the 2015 Hindu Declaration on Climate Change, a joint project of HAF and The Bhumi Project. He produces HAF's podcast “That’s So Hindu”.

Asa Keisar is an Israeli religious scholar and lecturer and author of Velifnei Iver HaShalem, in which he states that eating meat and animal by-products is no longer permitted according to Jewish sources, because of the cruelty inflicted on animals by the modern mass production of meat, dairy and eggs. The book is distributed to tens of thousands of students throughout Israel annually.

Asa Keisar is also the initiator and founder of the Vegan Kosher Certification which is the only one of its kind, combining Kashrut and Veganism in one stamp. Vegan Kosher was established in order to make tens of thousands of Vegan Kosher items accessible to vegan consumers.

His lecture on Religious Veganism, has been viewed on YouTube by over six million Israelis.

Richard is Professor Emeritus, Mathematics, College of Staten Island and the author of Vegan Revolution: Saving Our World (2021), Revitalizing Judaism, Judaism and Vegetarianism, Judaism and Global Survival, Who Stole My Religion: Revitalizing Judaism and Applying Jewish Values To Help Heal Our Imperilled Planet, and Mathematics and Global Survival, and over 250 articles and 25 podcasts at JewishVeg.org/schwartz. He is President Emeritus of Jewish Veg, formerly Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA) and President of the Society of Ethical and Religious Vegetarians (SERV). He is associate producer of the 2007 documentary, A Sacred Duty: Applying Jewish Values to Help Heal the World.

Gopal D. Patel is a faith-based environmental activist, campaigner and consultant. For more than a decade, he has spearheaded environmental initiatives that engage religious communities and leaders in India, East Africa, Europe, and North America. He is co-Founder and Director of Bhumi Global, a non-profit organization that works to educate and mobilize Hindu communities globally for environmental action. He is also co-chair of the United Nations Multi-faith Advisory Council and is a member of the Advisory Board to the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.