Ecotheology from the Sámi church council of the Church of Norway

Since as far back as the 1990s, different theologians have proclaimed that S & aacute;mi spirituality provides useful wisdom for churches seeking to develop ecotheological reflection. I explore to what degree statements from the S & aacute;mi church council (SCC) confirm this claim. I do so by analysing statements from the SCC on environmental questions, using methods from established ecological hermeneutics. I show that the minutes from the SCC contain an ecotheology that places more emphasis on social than on ecological sustainability and that the theology embedded in the statements reflects the dominant ecotheology of the Church of Norway (CoN). This finding stands in contrast to previous studies that conclude that S & aacute;mi ecotheology challenges the CoN and other Western churches to focus more on the connection between humans and non-human nature in future ecotheological statements. The gap between previous findings and those presented here invites discussion of whether this type of text and the Western analytical methods used here are suitable for studying S & aacute;mi ecospirituality. In the conclusion, I state that Western researchers and church leaders are faced with a challenge in terms of selecting relevant data and developing a methodology that bridges S & aacute;mi spirituality and Western contemporary ecotheology.