I was ordained as a priest at Bristol Cathedral on 29 June this year. Since my ordination, I’ve been thinking more about what it means to be a ‘Christian Environmental Historian’ and to work as a self-supporting minister teaching environmental history at the University of Bristol. Over the next few weeks, I hope to explore this question on this blog.
Most fundamentally, being a Christian environmental historian means that I can draw on my academic work in my ministry and use my ministry work to inform and shape my work in environment history. But what does this mean in practice? What does it mean to draw on my academic work in my ministry? What does it mean to use my ministry work to inform and shape my work in environmental history? These are the questions I’m hoping to explore in some depth as I reflect on what it means to be a Christian environmental historian.
Being a Christian environmental historian also positions me towards the edge of both academia and ministry. As a self-supporting minister, I’m no longer a full time academic and neither am I a full-time minister. This ‘peripherality’ or ‘edginess’ is something that I’m comfortable with, although it does come with certain challenges, especially related to use of time. At the same time, this positioning also makes me something of an insider in two quite privileged roles, and I need to be careful not to overstate the ‘peripherality’ or ‘edginess’.
In short, being a Christian environmental historian is both something theoretical and something practical. It shapes who I am, and it shapes what I do. It’s also important to say that I didn’t suddenly become a Christian environmental historian at my ordination a couple of weeks ago. As a lifelong Christian, it has been part of my identity since I first started to call myself an environmental historian over 20 years ago. But there is something about becoming a deacon and a priest that have built this more fully into my professional identity as a much more public Christian.
I’m excited to call myself a Christian environmental historian, and I’m excited to be exploring what this means.
Religion, Environment, History 