Faculty
J. Ronald Engel
Professor Emeritus
A.B., Johns Hopkins University
B.D. (with the highest distinction), Meadville Lombard Theological School
M.A. and Ph.D. (with distinction), University of Chicago Divinity School
B.D. (with the highest distinction), Meadville Lombard Theological School
M.A. and Ph.D. (with distinction), University of Chicago Divinity School
Ron Engel is Professor Emeritus at Meadville Lombard and Research Fellow, The Center for Humans and Nature, with offices in New York and Chicago.
Ron Engel graduated from Meadville Lombard in 1964 and taught in the fields of religious ethics, theology, and ministry at Meadville Lombard 1964-2000. He also served as Lecturer in Ethics and Society at the Divinity School, University of Chicago 1977-2000, as a member of the Environmental Studies Faculty, The College, University of Chicago, and in a variety of collaborative teaching relationships with the Lutheran School of Theology and McCormick Theological School.
Ron helped pioneer the new academic fields of environmental ethics, history, and theology/philosophy. Through his work with the Eco-justice Working Group of the National Council of Churches, and as co-director of the MacArthur Foundation-funded Program on Ecology, Justice, and Faith in the Chicago Association of Theological Schools, he contributed to the movement for eco-justice within the Unitarian Universalist and ecumenical religious community.
He became active in international work on behalf of global ethics in the course of research with UNESCO. In 1984 he founded the Ethics Working Group in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). He was a core member of the international drafting committee for the Earth Charter and is currently a Friend of the Chair of the Commission on Environmental Law of the World Conservation Union, an elected member of the International Council of Environmental Law, and member of the steering committee of the Global Ecological Integrity Group. He current co-leads two international projects — Earth Democracy and Global Constitutionalism; and the Biosphere Ethics Initiative.
Ron has been a strong advocate for public ministry in the Unitarian Universalist Association and has written and lectured widely on the religious, ethical, and philosophical dimensions of the democratic ecological faith in world history. With Neil Shadle in 1964 he co-founded the Unitarian Universalist Center for Urban Ministry and in 1966 the Neighborhood Commons, the first community-development corporation in Chicago which continues today as the largest black-owned housing cooperative on the northside of Chicago. Ron was a co-founder of Collegium: Association for Liberal Religious Studies, and in 1998 was recognized as its Distinguished Scholar.
In addition to numerous essays in books and journals, Ron is the author of Sacred Sands: The Struggle for Community in the Indiana Dunes, which won the Meltzer National Book Award; editor of James Luther Adams: Voluntary Associations; co-editor of Ethics of Environment and Development: Global Challenge, International Response; co-author of Governance for Sustainability: Issues, Challenges, Cases; co-editor of Democracy, Ecological Integrity, and International Law; and co-editor of The Earth Charter: A Framework for Global Governance.
He is a member of the editorial boards of the American Journal of Philosophy and Theology, Environmental Conservation, and Worldviews: Environment, Culture, World Religions.
Read more about Ron at the webpage dedicated to him in the Library section.