Atla Annual 2021 Online

In 2016, David Todd and Jonathan Ogren published 'The Texas Landscape Project: Nature and People,' an expansive look at the natural history, ecology, and environmental justice of the state. Over 500 pages, the work includes an array of stunning photographs related to five areas where nature and the human meet: land, water, air, energy, and the built world. This holistic vision, distilled in the particular climates, topographies, and physical geographies of Texas, reflects both the concerns and hopes about the general stewardship and sustainability of natural resources. In this respect, perhaps there is no more significant place than the Dallas-Fort Worth region, which boasts both a history of abundant oilfields and a future of the country’s largest natural gas reserves in the Barnett Shale. Theological schools and libraries like Perkins and Bridwell continue to benefit from these and other historical investments, thus tying the operations, functionality, and overall existence of many such institutions to the land and the ways in which human actors have used the land. In the last few years, the focus on environmental sustainability has grown along with more critical understandings of institutional roles in renewable energy. As theological institutions, then, it will become ever more pressing to evaluate not simply questions about what our ties are to the past, but what visions there are for the future. This paper will examine the ambiguities of environmental legacies and justice while discussing what roles theological schools and libraries have in strategizing for coming generations.