Education

• University of Virginia - Doctoral Candidate in Theology, Ethics & Culture
• Yale Divinity School - MA Ethics
• Goshen College - BA Religion; Peace, Justice & Conflict Studies

Research Interests

Luke Beck Kreider works in religious ethics and the environmental humanities, focusing on environmental and political thought in the Christian tradition. His primary areas of teaching and research include religion & ecology, environmental ethics, religion & conflict/peace studies, and Christian social thought. His dissertation, “Theologies of Peace and Ecologies of Violence,” puts environmental and political theologies in critical conversation about a range of connections between environmental change and violence, introducing “ecologies of violence” as a problem for Christian ethics. At UVA he co-designed and administers a new interdisciplinary Master’s concentration in Religion, Politics & Conflict, and also coordinates the Sanctuary Lab, a multi-disciplinary research initiative investigating relations of cultural and ecological change at sacred sites across the world. His research in the environmental humanities has been supported by grants from the Environmental Resilience Institute and the Institute for the Humanities & Global Cultures.

Publications

• “Varieties of Anabaptist Environmentalism and the Challenge of Environmental Racism,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 94, no. 1 (Jan 2020).
• “Christian Ethics and Ecologies of Violence,” Religions 10, 509 (Aug. 2019): 1-22.
• “Religion and Climate Change,” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 43 (2018): 85-108. (Co-authored with Willis Jenkins and Evan Berry).
• “Mennonite Ethics and the Ways of the World,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 86, no. 4 (Oct. 2012), 465-492.
• Assistant Editor, The Routledge Handbook of Religion & Ecology, ed. Willis Jenkins, Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim (Routledge, 2016).
• Guest Editor, Mennonite Quarterly Review Special Issue on Anabaptist Environmental Thought, 94, no 1 (Jan 2020)
• Book Review of Mark Douglas, Christian Pacifism for an Environmental Age (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019), MQR 94, no. 1 (Jan. 2020).

Selected Conference Presentations

• "The Fog of War: Christian Ethics and the Environmental Consequences of War.” Society of Christian Ethics. January 10, 2020.
• "Armed Ecology: Religion, Race, and Environmental Imagination at Malheur.” American Academy of Religion, November 26, 2019.
• "Arteries of the Nation: Religious Nationalism and Environmental Imaginaries in the Jordan River Valley.” American Academy of Religion, November 18, 2018.
• "Humanity After Nature: Human Rights and Ecological Restoration.” Theorizing Human Nature: Bridge, Barrier, or Both? University of Notre Dame and University of Chicago Fourth Annual Graduate Student Conference, February 25-27, 2018.
• "Varieties of Anabaptist Environmentalism and the Challenge of Environmental Racism.” Rooted & Grounded: A Conference on Land and Christian Discipleship, April 20-22, 2017.
• "Climate Justice, Political Reconciliation, and Religious Ethics.” American Academy of Religion, Southeastern Regional Meeting, March 3-5, 2017.
• "Ecological Violence and Political Reconciliation: Why Climate Justice and Peacebuilding Need Each Other.” Huskey Research Exhibition, March 23, 2016.   
• "Moral Development and the Islamic Ethics of Pluralism.” Jefferson Scholars Foundation Forum for Interdisciplinary Dialogue, September 24-25, 2015.

Teaching

• Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Adjunct Faculty (2019)
  • Creation Care: Theology, Ethics, & Spirituality
• University of Virginia, Teaching & Programs Assistant in Religion, Politics and Conflict (2016-20)
  • Proseminar in Religion, Politics and Conflict
  • Practicum in Religion, Politics and Conflict
• University of Virginia, Teaching Assistant (2014-18)
  • Religion, Ethics and Environment
  • Global Ethics and Climate Change

  • Religion, Violence and Strategy

  • Theology, Ethics and Medicine

  • Theological Bioethics

• Goshen College, Visiting Assistant Professor of Peace, Justice and Conflict Studies (2013-2014)
  • Religion, Conflict and Peace

  • Dynamics and Theologies of Reconciliation

  • War, Peace and Nonresistance
  • Violence and Nonviolence
  • MLK Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement
  • Peace, Justice and Conflict Studies Junior Seminar
• Goshen College, Adjunct Professor of Religion (2013)
  • Environmental Theologies and Ethics
• Defiance College, Adjunct Instructor of Religion (2012)
  • Approaches to Religion

Fellowships, Honors, and Grants

• Research Grant, for “Ecological Methods Lab,” Institute of the Humanities and Global Cultures, Buckner W. Clay Endowment For the Humanities, University of Virginia, 2017.
• Graduate Environmental Resilience Fellow, Environmental Resilience Initiative, University of Virginia, 2016.
• Second Prize, for “Ecological Violence and Political Reconciliation,” Huskey Research Exhibition, 2016.
• Baden-Württemberg Exchange Fellowship, University of Heidelberg, Theology Faculty, 2012.
• Mary Cady Tew Prize for Excellence in Ethics, Yale Divinity School, 2011.