Johannes Michael Luetz

This chapter is an attempt to approach interfaith consciousness from the vantage point of personal lived experience. To this end, I give an autoethnographic account of living across cultures, countries and communities comprising diverse faith orientations. These lived experiences have formed and informed my interfaith awareness, which was nurtured over a lifetime of what I call ‘longing for belonging’. I complement this autoethnographic account with biblical reflections on home and homelessness and conclude that my own sense of ‘strangeness’ can lead to a deferential appraisal and appreciation of the perceived ‘foreignness’ of others. This implies extending intellectual hospitality to adherents and proponents of other faiths as a conduit for nurturing and propagating interfaith awareness and practice. The reason is simply this: on the face of it, everybody alive today is a stranger in this world—almost everywhere.

This interdisciplinary book explores the science and spirituality nexus in the Pacific Islands Region and as such makes a critical contribution to sustainable climate change adaptation in Oceania. In addition to presenting case studies, literary analyses, field projects, and empirical research, the book describes faith-engaged approaches through the prism of:

• Context: past, present, and future prospects
• Theory: concepts, narratives, and theoretical frameworks
• Practice: empirical research and praxis-informed case examples
• Doctrine: scriptural contributions and perspectives
• Engagement: enlisting religious stakeholders and constituencies

Comprising peer-reviewed works by scholars, professionals, and practitioners from across Oceania, the book closes a critical gap in the literature and represents a groundbreaking contribution to holistic climate change adaptation in the Pacific Islands Region that is scientifically sound, spiritually attuned, locally meaningful, and contextually compelling.