Healing the Land' in the Canadian Arctic

Evangelism, Knowledge and Environmental Change

Bibliographic Data

ID12901576
AuthorsN Johnson (0000-0002-0543-0523, McGill University, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume6
Issue3
Pages300-318
Publication date2012-11-15
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal for the Study of Religion Nature and Culture (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1749-4907 • E-ISSN: 1749-4915
PublisherEquinox Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1558/jsrnc.v6i3.300
OpenAlexW1977305731
LanguageEN
Citations received4

Beginning in 2006, an evangelical movement called ‘Healing the Land’ was introduced to a number of Inuit communities in the Canadian Arctic. Healing the Land (HTL), which promoted an ethic of environmental stewardship through prayer and repentance of sin, also helped Inuit make sense of rapid environmental change. Rather than linking shifts in weather and plant and animal distributions to climate change, HTL leaders argued that they resulted from communal processes of prayer and repentance that miraculously restored the environment to an Edenic state of plenty. In this article, I explore the appeal of HTL’s theology and ritual practice to Inuit residents of Clyde River, Nunavut. I argue that residents found HTL’s explanations of environmental change compelling because HTL offered a vision of integrated action through which individuals and communities could address social and environmental issues simultaneously

Aotearoa · Appeal · Arctic · Climate change · Environmental change · Environmental ethics · Environmental resource management · Environmental stewardship · Evangelism · Political science · Prayer · Repentance · Sociology · Stewardship (theology · Theology · Gender Studies · Indigenous Studies and Ecology · Law · Philosophy · Religion, Ecology, and Ethics · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices · Ecology

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