Paper short abstract:

This paper will discuss how the Lutheran Church in Tanzania’s tree-planting schemes reflect local understandings of domesticity, land, and spiritual heritage; and how these understandings are tied to contemporary environmental theologies and broader political debates on energy use and modernity.

Paper long abstract:

In the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania, particularly the Northern Diocese, a significant portion of environmental discourse focuses on land: animals, mountains, soil, and especially trees and forests. Tree-planting and reforestation schemes are given particular emphasis by church officials and individual parishioners alike, and this paper will discuss their cultural, moral, and political dimensions.

The diocese is centred around Mt. Kilimanjaro where the Chagga people form the ethnic majority. As many as 70% of Chagga people are Christian, and many of them hear exhortations to "care for the environment" every Sunday in church. Clergy attempt to inculcate a moral duty in parishioners, drawing on environmental and stewardship theologies. At the same time, environmental discourse reflects cultural concepts of domesticity (as "the environment" is also understood to mean the household), and connection to the land - which is itself grounded in contemporary understandings of historical Chagga spirituality.

Environmental discourses also reflect contemporary political issues, including debates on household energy consumption, (particularly the use of firewood and charcoal versus gas and electricity) and the engagement between church officials and government leaders on environmental policies. Debates on energy and the promotion of tree-planting schemes over other options (e.g. reducing carbon emissions) also reflect locally understood ideas of modernity and development.

I demonstrate how environmental discourse and tree-planting schemes reflect cultural understandings of domesticity, land, and spiritual heritage; contemporary political debates; and moral understandings of Chagga spiritual heritage and its application to contemporary environmental theology.