Faith and Nature

In 1967, historian Lynn White Jr. famously (notoriously?) published "The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis" in Science. He concluded that Christianity was the foundation of modern society's relationship with nature because it separated humans from nature and because God commanded humans in Genesis to have dominion over the rest of creation. For many critics of so-called Western civilization, White hit the nail squarely on the head. For many others, White was overly selective in his reading of the Bible, not seeing alternative interpretations, and ignoring the legion of environmental problems in non-Christian societies.

Despite the place of science in environmental sustainability, faith matters in these efforts. (Since the GreenHumanist is a North American, largely surrounded by Judeo-Christians, this blog will focus on that faith.) This blog is not meant to analyze, support, or criticize White's claims but to offer some examples for those so inclined to see the Judeo-Christian tradition in different ways and to furnish a few examples from history.

White himself highlighted St. Francis of Assisi as an example within the Christian tradition--as founder of the Franciscan Order--of one who could see God's work in all Creation. St. Francis famously preached to the birds. White nominated St. Francis as patron saint of ecologists.

Closer to home, John Muir (the nearest thing Americans have to a patron saint of environmentalism) rejected, or more properly adapted, his father's strict Campbellite religious convictions. He developed instead a passionate, evangelical Christianity that saw in nature an egalitarian reflection of God's love. My favorite passage of Muir's comes from a letter to a schoolteacher friend in 1872 where he wrote: "We all flow from one fountain Soul. All are expressions of one Love. God does not appear, and flow out, only from narrow chinks and round bored wells here and there in favored races and places, but He flows in grand undivided currents, shoreless and boundless over creeds and forms and all kinds of civilizations and peoples and beasts, saturating all and fountainizing all." To Muir, God had not granted dominion to humans over nature. Instead, God had created the world with all creatures being morally equal. Such was the radicalism of Muir's faith.

Disturbed by White's claims in his Science essay, Wendell Berry, one of the America's greatest agrarian writers, published an impassioned essay in The Gift of Good Land (1981) that offered a different perspective from White's. To Berry, God offered the Promised Land to humans but placed conditions on that gift. That land must be inherited by successive generation, unharmed. The Creation was a gift but was not meant to be used without great care. It must be cared for; it must be stewarded. This stewardship principle is perhaps the most influential one today within Judeo-Christian communities interested in intermingling faith and nature.

My last example comes from the United Church of Christ (UCC), a mainline Protestant denomination. In 1987, the UCC published a scathing report, Toxic Wastes and Race: A National Report on the Racial and Socio-Economic Characteristics of Communities with Hazardous Waste Sites. This report revealed a pervasive correlation between racial minorities, poverty, and the presence of toxic waste. That is, if you were poor and/or African American or Latino or American Indian, you were significantly more likely to live within close range of toxic waste and its attendant health issues. This issue, now widely known as environmental racism or environmental (in)justice, had been comparatively ignored by mainstream environmental organizations. That it took a report by a church speaks volumes about the power of faith. Two years ago, the UCC published an updated report.

These days many Judeo-Christian communities are stepping up to make environmental stewardship an important part of their missions. Climate change, in particular, has become an issue that some conservative Christians have felt called to address. Books by prominent environmentalists that explore the religious components to the problems and solutions to ecological problems, like E. O. Wilson's The Creation, are reaching new audiences.

One thing typically missed in discussing Lynn White's argument is that he concluded if religion was at the root of the problem, it was also at the root of the solution. It is useful to remember that. So, if you are a member of a faith community, urge it to engage in reformulating its relationship to the Earth.