What Has Hybridity Got to Do with Ecology? What Christian-Buddhist Hybridity-as-Hermeneutical-Lens Can Suggest to the Theological Conversation on Ecology

This essay offers some insights that "hybridity" utilized as a hermeneutical paradigm might contribute to the wider theological conversations going on about the global ecological crisis. The hybridity in question here is—what can be expressed as a—"Christian-Buddhist hybridity." That refers to a sensibility that seriously takes into consideration the two spiritual–religious traditions of Christianity and Buddhism as a "hybrid way" to view the world in general and spiritual–religious–theological themes in particular.

This study will argue that, despite the significant gains in the Catholic Christian reflection on ecology achieved through Pope Francis' Laudato Si', it cannot be denied that Christian theology in general, as well as how it treats ecological themes in particular, is still fundamentally characterized by an anthropocentric focus that dualistically distinguishes too strongly between humans, on the one hand, and nature, on the other. Thus, Christian theological reflection on ecology might be helped and complemented by utilizing a nondual and unitive paradigm. One such paradigm is the Buddhist teaching on interbeing as expressed, for example, by teachers such as Thich Nhat Hanh.

Moreover, the goal of hybridity (as a hermeneutical tool) is to build a world in which the thick wall between "us" and "them" can be hammered and broken down in favor of a new worldview in which the intimate connections among different worlds are highlighted and in which the presence of what we typically consider "other" is increasingly found within our very own selves. In that sense, Buddhism and aspects of the Dharma about Sunyata or Emptiness do seem to be a more effective means to realize hybridity's goal of overcoming and transcending the radical divide between "us" and "them" (with "them" in this case being "Nature").