CEE Deputy Director Dr Emilka Skrzypek has co-authored a new piece titled, “When the ocean is sacred: Pacific theology and the governance of deep-sea mining”. This post, which looks to highlight the need to bring together religious and cultural values found across the Pacific Islands with regulatory frameworks around Deep Sea Mining, comes as another product of Emilka’s long-standing collaboration with CEE Affiliate Dr Nicholas Bainton and Dr Jaap Timmer.
Writing about the piece on LinkedIn, Dr Bainton says:
“The unknowability of the deep seabed mirrors, in striking ways, the mysterium tremendum: the mystery at the heart of all encounters with God that no human knowledge can fully contain. Pacific theologies have never separated the ocean’s spiritual depth from its physical depth. In our view they are uniquely positioned to hold these two unknowns together.
What emerges is the concept of ‘spiritual responsibility’. This is not stewardship of a resource or the environment, but answerability to a morally inhabited world: to ancestors, spirits, future generations, and God.”
