The Climate Crisis and the Significance of Existential Insignificance: A Radical Pastoral Theological Perspective

This article explores the notion of existential insignificance as it pertains to the climate crisis and pastoral theology. The claim is that a radical pastoral theology embraces existential insignificance and impermanence in the very moments of personalizing care for other human beings, other species, and the Earth. In this formulation, God and the notion of incarnation are signifiers of those acts of care and belongingness that transcend or overcome human narcissism and anthropocentrism. From a different angle, care creates a space for multinaturalism and perspectivism, which are necessary for epistemologies of care that bridge the distance or ontological rift between human beings and other species. I argue that this view of care vis-à-vis existential insignificance and impermanence can alter how we conceptualize pastoral theology. This alteration suggests a change in how we might dwell in a world that faces a climate emergency.