The four main foci of my research program related to religions are: 1) the politics of environmental social movements and their normative elements; 2) the relationship between Western and non-Western scientific methodologies; 3) the religious dimensions of secular social movements; and 4) place-based pedagogy. I am currently the President of the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture, and Co-Chair of the Publicly Engaged Scholarship in the Study of Religion seminar at the American Academy of Religion.
Ph.D., University of Florida (Religion and Nature)
Graduate Certificate, University of Georgia (Environmental Ethics)
M.A., Graduate Theological Union (Ethics and Social Policy)
B.A., Wake Forest University (Psychology)
Books and Special Issues
Key Figures in Religion and Environment: Theoretical Foundations. (Routledge, 2024).
Grounding Education in Environmental Humanities: Exploring Place-Based Pedagogies in the South (co-edited with Dave Aftandilian)
Science and Religion: One Planet, Many Possibilities (co-ed. with Whitney Bauman) (Routledge)
Religion and Sustainability: Social Movements and the Politics of the Environment (Equinox/Acumen Press)
Higher Education for Sustainability: Cases, Challenges and Opportunities from Across the Curriculum (ed.) (Routledge)
Sands, Robert and Lucas F. Johnston (eds.) Special Issue: “’Natural’ Origins of Religion.” Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, Vol. 3, No. 4 (January 2010): 437-579.
Journal Articles and Book Chapters
Johnston, Lucas F. 2024. “B-Side Spirituality: An Empathetic Theory of Religion and Ethnographic Data About Spiritual (but not Religious) Belonging.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion. Vol. 91: 283-301.
Johnston, Lucas F. 2018. “Placing Pedagogy & Sustainability in the Piedmont: Faculty and Student Engagement,” for Grounding Education in Environmental Humanities: Place-Based Pedagogies in the South. Lucas F. Johnston and Dave Aftandilian (eds.). (New York: Routledge).
Johnston, Lucas F. 2018. “Worldview Analysis in Comparative Context: Fishing for Data in Muddy Waters.” Invited submission for the open-source journal Religions, special issue on “Ethnographies of Worldviews/Ways of Life,” edited by Ann Taves and Michael Kinsella.
Johnston, Lucas F. 2017.“Cultivating an Academy We Can Live With: The Humanities and Education for Sustainability.” Invited submission for the open-source journal Religions, special issue on “Religions and Global Environmentalism,” edited by Evan Berry.
Johnston, Lucas F. 2016.“Dancing My Prayers: Material Culture and Spiritual Practices of Improvisational Rock Music Subcultures.” Practical Spiritualties in the Media Age. Curtis Coats and Monica Emerich (eds.) (New York: Bloomsbury).
Johnston, Lucas F. and Bron Taylor. 2016. “Religion and Environmental Politics into the Twenty-first Century.” The Companion to Religion and Politics in America. Barbara McGraw (ed.) (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell).
Taylor, Bron, and Lucas F. Johnston. 2016. “Religion and the Rise of Environmental Politics in the Twentieth Century.” The Companion to Religion and Politics in America. Barbara McGraw (ed.) (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell).
Johnston, Lucas F. and Robert Wall. 2014. “The Camel and the Eye of the Needle: Religion, Moral Exchange and Social Impacts.” The Changing World Religions Map, Stanley Brunn (ed.) (New York: Springer).
Johnston, Lucas F. “Sustainability as a Global Faith? The Religious Dimensions of Sustainability and Personal Risk.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion (2014) 82 (1): 47-69.
Johnston, Lucas F. 2010. “From Biophilia to Cosmophilia: the Role of Biological and Physical Sciences in Promoting Sustainability.” Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, Vol. 4, No. 1: 7-23
Van Horn, Gavin and Lucas F. Johnston. “Evolutionary Controversy and a Side of Pasta: The Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Subversive Function of Religious Parody.” Golem: Journal of Religion and Monsters, Vol. 1, No. 2 (June 2007).
Johnston, Lucas F. “Buddhism and Nature: A Survey of Themes and Works in an Emerging Field.” Worldviews, Vol. 10, No. 1 (May 2006).
- FYS 100 Rock Music, Religion, and Social Change
- REL 101 Introduction to Religion
- REL 109Introduction to Buddhism
- REL 111 Introduction to First People’s Traditions
- REL 200 Approaches to Religion
- REL 240/341/640 Religion and Ecology
- ENV 201 Environmental Issues
- REL 244 Religion, Terrorism, and Violence
- REL 288/709 Field Placement in Religion and Public Engagement
- REL 307/607 Magic, Science and Religion
- REL 390/690 Poet Warrior: Writing Workshop (with Joy Harjo)
- ENV 301 Writing Resistance: Contemplative Approaches to Writing (with Terry Tempest Williams)
- ENV 301 Networks of Relationships between Humans and Trees (with David Haskell)
- ENV 301 Writing Beyond Words (with Carl Safina)
- ENV 305 Environmental Ethics
- REL 332 Religion and Public Engagement
- REL 390/690 Environmental Ethics
- ENV 390 Energy Policy and Sustainability
- ENV 391 Sustainability & Sustainable Development
- REL 390/HNR 265/ENG 361 Radical Ecologies
- REL 781 Science and Religion
- REL 781 Religion, Terrorism, and Violence
- SUS 701 Global Human Systems