Lindaman Chair Jonathan Moo to Present “Why Virtuous People Won’t Save the Earth”
Moo’s lecture asks the question: What enables many otherwise virtuous people to remain unconcerned and complicit in ecological ruin and climate crisis? He argues that, although traditional Christian virtues like humility, prudence and temperance could be of great help in addressing environmental challenges, Christians must attend first to the question of what story they see themselves living out. Moo will survey the role of limits and restraint in environmental ethics and propose the need for Christians to reclaim a biblical vision of belonging – to one another, to their places, and to the earth – if they are to be faithful and virtuous in ways that matter for the flourishing of other life.
The Lindaman Chair Lecture is held every spring and features Whitworth’s appointed Edward B. Lindaman Chair, named for the university’s 14th president. The position is an endowed, rotating chair for senior faculty members who are engaged in significant regional and national academic initiatives and who contribute to public dialogue concerning important social issues.
Moo became the Lindaman Chair in 2019. He has focused on studies relating to the book of Revelation, climate change, and a new project on belonging and limits.
Moo arrived at Whitworth in 2010 and has taught courses on the New Testament, Greek and exegesis, faith in relation to science, ecology, and environmental ethics. He has published several books and a number of articles and essays on early Judaism, Christianity and ecology, and is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences. He serves on the board of A Rocha USA, a Christian organization dedicated to biodiversity conservation. He regularly takes his students into the mountains for study, reflection and recreation and offers a Theology & Ecology course every other Jan Term at Tall Timber Ranch in the North Cascades. In 2014, Moo was named Whitworth’s Innovative Teacher of the Year, and he has three times been named by the senior class as a most influential professor.
Moo graduated from Lake Forest College and then went on to Utah State University for an M.S. in wildlife biology before heading to Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Boston. He later earned his doctoral degree in biblical studies at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
Before coming to Whitworth, he worked at the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion where he explored the connection between Christian faith and environmental studies.
The lecture is free and open to the public.
About Whitworth University:
Located in Spokane, Wash., Whitworth is a private liberal arts university affiliated with the Presbyterian church. The university, which has an enrollment of nearly 3,000 students, offers more than 100 undergraduate and graduate degree programs.
Contacts:
Trisha Coder, media relations manager, Whitworth University, (509) 777-4703 or tcoder@whitworth.edu.
