John Allen Grim

John Allen Grim (born October 7, 1946) is the co-founder and director of the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale University, alongside his wife, Mary Evelyn Tucker. He teaches at Yale University, where he holds appointments in the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, the Divinity School, and the Department of Religious Studies. He has also taught at Sarah Lawrence College and Bucknell University.^[1]

Grim teaches in the joint MA program in religion and ecology at Yale and offers courses in World religions and ecology and Native American and Indigenous traditions. He specializes in Native American religions and has studied the Salish people of Washington State and the Crow/Apsaalooke people of Montana. He has also undertaken field work with healing practitioners in East and Southeast Asia and with religious leaders in Vrindaban and New Delhi, India. He teaches hybrid/online classes at Yale as well as a MOOC (massive open online course) specialization of three courses on Journey of the Universe and “The Worldview of Thomas Berry.”^[2] Among the awards he has received are the Lifetime Achievement Award in religion and ecology,^[3] the Interfaith Visionary Award in 2010,^[4] the Chancellor’s Medal/Joint and Common Future Award (University of Massachusetts, Boston) in 2013,^[5] and the Passionist Award for promoting Thomas Berry’s work in 2016.^[6]

Works[]

Grim is the author of The Shaman,^[7][8] the co-author of Ecology and Religion.^[9] He has also edited and co-edited numerous volumes including Living Cosmology,^[10] the Routledge Handbook of Religion and Ecology,^[11] Worldviews and Ecology,^[12] and Indigenous Traditions and Ecology,^[13] among others.

Collaborations with Thomas Berry[]

Grim studied world religions with Thomas Berry in graduate school and worked closely with him for more than 40 years. He co-edited several of his books including The Christian Future and the Fate of Earth^[14] and Selected Writings on the Earth Community^[15] Grim and his wife Mary Evelyn Tucker are managing trustees of the Thomas Berry Foundation. In 2019, Tucker, Grim, and Andrew Angyal published Thomas Berry: A Biography (Columbia University Press).^[16]

Forum on Religion and Ecology[]

John Grim is co-founder and director of the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale. From 1995-1998 Grim and Tucker organized a series of ten conferences on World Religions and Ecology at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University.^[17] They are the series editors for the ten volumes (distributed by Harvard University Press) that came out of the conferences.^[18] At a culminating conference at the United Nations in 1998, they founded the Forum on Religion and Ecology. Speaking at that event were Tim Wirth (former senator from Colorado and President of the UN Foundation), Tu Weiming (of Harvard and Peking University), Maurice Strong (former Under-Secretary-General of the U.N.), and Bill Moyers (PBS journalist)^[19]

Grim also frequently speaks and gives interviews on religion and ecology and issues of ecological importance, such as Laudato Si' (the Papal Encyclical on the environment)^[20][21][22] and Standing Rock/DAPL.^[23]

Journey of the Universe

John Grim is one of the executive producers of the Emmy award-winning film, Journey of the Universe.^[24] This documentary aired on PBS for a number of years^[25] and is part of a multimedia project that also includes a series of conversations with scientists and environmentalists on DVD and podcasts and a book by the same name from Yale University Press.

American Teilhard Association

Since 1996, Grim has served as president of the American Teilhard Association. The Association is dedicated to the work and legacy of French paleontologist, philosopher, and Jesuit, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

Education[]

Ph.D. Fordham University, 1979

M.A. Fordham University, 1975

B.A., St. John's University, MN, 1968

Honorary Degrees

St. John’s University, doctorate, 2011

California Institute of Integral Studies, doctorate, 2005

Major Publications[]

•Tucker, Mary Evelyn, John Grim, and Andrew Angyal. Thomas Berry: A Biography. Columbia University Press, 2019.

•Jenkins, Willis, Mary Evelyn Tucker, and John Grim, eds. Routledge Handbook on Religion and Ecology. New York, NY: Routledge Books, 2016.

•Tucker, Mary Evelyn and John Grim, eds. Living Cosmology: Christian Responses to Journey of the Universe. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2016.

•Tucker, Mary Evelyn and John Grim, eds. Thomas Berry: Selected Writings on the Earth Community. (Spiritual Masters Series.) Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2014.

•Grim, John and Mary Evelyn Tucker. Ecology and Religion. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2014.

•Tucker, Mary Evelyn and John Grim, eds. The Christian Future and the Fate of Earth: Collected Essays of Thomas Berry. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2009.

•Grim, John, ed. Indigenous Traditions and Ecology: The Interbeing of Cosmology and Community. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press for CSWR series World Religions and Ecology, 2001.

•Tucker, Mary Evelyn and John Grim, eds. "Religion and Ecology: Can the Climate Change?" Daedalus, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Cambridge, MA, Fall 2001.

•Tucker, Mary Evelyn and John Grim, eds. Worldviews and Ecology: Religion, Philosophy, and the Environment. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1993, paperback edition Orbis Books, 1994. (Eighth printing 2003, Translated into Indonesian).

•Grim, John, ed. Shamans and Preachers, Color Symbolism and Commercial Evangelism: Reflections on Early Mid-Atlantic Religious Encounter in Light of the Columbian Quincentennial. Special Issue American Indian Quarterly. University of Nebraska Press, Fall 1992, Volume XVI, Number 4.

•Grim, John. The Shaman, Patterns of Siberian and Ojibway Healing, (The Civilization of the American Indian Series #165), Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1983; paper back, 1984; reprinted in 1987 as The Shaman, Patterns of Religious Healing Among the Ojibway Indians. French translation, 1985.

References[]