Rev Dowd Discusses Religious Roots of Collapse & Ecocide with Jem Bendell

Jem Bendell is a professor of Leadership and Sustainability at Cumbria University, UK

IFLAS

Reverend Michael Dowd is a prolific producer of videos from what he calls a 'post-doom' perspective.

Michael Dowd is known today for his leadership in the realm of “post-doom,&quot; which his website defines as:&quot;A fierce and fearless reverence for life and expansive gratitude — even in the midst of abrupt climate mayhem and the runaway collapse of societal harmony, the health of the biosphere, and business as usual.&quot;“Post doom, no gloom,&quot; Dowd suggests, is the stage of the grief cycle beyond mere &quot;acceptance.&quot; Three years after posting on youtube his first &quot;postdoom conversation&quot; (with Shaun Chamberlin), the site now offers a total of 85 — including a conversation with me in March 2020. Michael has also posted more than a dozen of his own, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcAlqMeyeaW9IM0ePw8i9v8TP9yeZGeEo" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">information-dense videos</a> to serve as a crash course for understanding our global predicament, with special attention to &quot;ecological overshoot, the already decades-long collapse of thermo-industrial civilization, and how it is still possible to live life fully and love the life you live.&quot;Dowd&#x27;s personal journey is from Roman Catholic upbringing, to evangelical student, to liberal protestant minister, and now his own brand of “post-doom pastor&quot;. His mentors include Thomas Berry (1914–2009), whose inspirational writings on the evolutionary epic turned Dowd into a <a href="https://religious-naturalist-association.org/the-rna-community/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">religious naturalist</a> in 1988, followed by Dowd&#x27;s first book in 1991, Earthspirit: A Handbook for Nurturing an Ecological Christianity. In 2015, Dowd became an acolyte of the originator of environmental sociology — a mentor he would never meet. Two weeks after William Catton died, Michael encountered Catton&#x27;s 1980 book on a recommendation by John Michael Greer. Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change, is the book Dowd credits for his shift away from climate activism into the final stages of the grief cycle, culminating in, what he calls, “post doom, no gloom collapse trust and love-in-action&quot;.

The Q&amp;A will cover topics such as:

1. How Dowd sees collapse, ecocide, and possible NTHE as “religious failure”. 

2. How he shifted from evolutionary evangelism into his “post doom, no gloom” work.

3. How his sense of a Big Picture differs from how Big History and the Epic of Evolution are often understood.

4. How does religious naturalist “faith&quot; (trust) support someone in accepting the ongoing nature of collapse — including possible NTHE — while maintaining a &quot;calm gratitude”?

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Rev Dowd Discusses Religious Roots of Collapse & Ecocide with Jem Bendell

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Rev Dowd Discusses Religious Roots of Collapse & Ecocide with Jem Bendell

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