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September 01, 2006
A scientist's plea for Christian environmentalism
by Faithful Progressive
The eminent Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson, winner of the National Medal of Science and two Pulitzer Prizes, writes to a Baptist pastor in the New Republic: A scientist's plea for Christian environmentalism.
Dear Pastor,
We have not met, yet I feel I know you well enough to call you a friend. First of all, we grew up in the same faith. As a boy, I, too, answered the altar call; I went under the water. Although I no longer belong to that faith, I am confident that, if we met and spoke privately of our deepest beliefs, it would be in a spirit of mutual respect and goodwill. I know we share many precepts of moral behavior. Perhaps it also matters that we are both Americans and, insofar as it might still affect civility and good manners, we are both Southerners.
I write to you now for your counsel and help. Of course, in doing so, I see no way to avoid the fundamental differences in our worldviews. You are a strict interpreter of Christian Holy Scripture; I am a secular humanist. You believe that each person's soul is immortal, making this planet a waystation to a second, eternal life; I think heaven and hell are what we create for ourselves, on this planet. For you, the belief in God made flesh to save mankind; for me, the belief in Promethean fire seized to set men free. You have found your final truth; I am still searching. You may be wrong; I may be wrong. We both may be partly right...(snip)
Indeed, despite all that divides science from religion, there is good reason to hope that an alliance on environmental issues is possible. The spiritual reach of evangelical Christianity is nowadays increasingly extended to the environment. While the Old Testament God commands humanity to take dominion over the earth, the decree is not (as one evangelical leader recently affirmed) an excuse to trash the planet. The dominant theme in scripture as interpreted by many evangelicals is instead stewardship. Organizations like the Green Cross and the Evangelical Environmental Network (the latter a coalition of evangelical Christian agencies and institutions) are expanding their magisterium to include conservation--in religious terms, protection of the living Creation.
This evangelical interest in the environment is part of a worldwide trend among religions. In the United States, the umbrella National Religious Partnership for the Environment works with evangelical groups and other prominent organizations, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Council of Churches of Christ, and the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life. In 2001, the Archbishop of Canterbury urged that "it may not be time to build an Ark like Noah, but it is high time to take better care of God's creation." Three years earlier, Bartholomew I, Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church, had gone further: "For humans to cause species to become extinct and to destroy the biological diversity of God's creation ... these are sins." He and Pope John Paul II later issued a "Common Declaration" that "God has not abandoned the world. It is His will that His Design and our hope for it will be realized through our co-operation in restoring its original harmony. In our own time we are witnessing a growth of an ecological awareness which needs to be encouraged, so that it will lead to practical programs and initiatives." Unfortunately, a corresponding magnitude of engagement has not yet occurred in Islam or the Eastern religions.
Every great religion offers mercy and charity to the poor. The poor of the world, of whom nearly a billion exist in the "poverty trap" of absolute destitution, are concentrated in the developing countries--the home of 80 percent of the world's population and most of Earth's biodiversity. The solution to the problems of both depends on the recognition that each depends on the other. The desperately poor have little chance to improve their lives in a devastated environment. Conversely, natural environments, where most of the Creation hangs on, cannot survive the press of land-hungry people who have nowhere else to go.
To be sure, some leaders of the religious right are reluctant to support biological conservation, an opposition sufficient to create a wedge within the evangelical movement. They may be partly afraid of paganism, by which worship of nature supplants worship of God. More realistically and importantly, opposition rises from the perceived association of environmental activism with the political left. For decades, conservatives have defined environmentalism as a movement bent on strangling the United States with regulations and bureaucratic power. This canard has dogged the U.S. environmental movement and helped keep it off the agenda of the past two presidential campaigns.
Finally, however, opinion may be changing. The mostly evangelical religious right, which, along with big business, has been the decisive source of power in the Republican Party, has begun to move care of the Creation back into the mainstream of conservative discourse. The opportunity exists to make the environment a universal concern and to render it politically nonpartisan.
Meanwhile, California passes greenhouse gas bill:
By Mary MillikenThu Aug 31, 9:08 PM ET
California made a bold move to curb global warming by passing on Thursday the first bill in the United States to cap man-made greenhouse gas emissions, an action state leaders hope will be copied across the country.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, frustrated by lack of action from fellow Republican President George W. Bush on reducing heat-trapping gases, teamed up with the state's Democratic majority on the landmark bill.
The bill cleared its last legislative hurdle in the State Assembly in a 46-31 vote, with opposition from Schwarzenegger's own Republican Party. The Senate voted to pass it 23-14 late on Wednesday. Schwarzenegger plans to sign it next month.
The Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 puts California at the forefront of the fight against climate change along with the European Union, and increases pressure on Washington to impose mandatory caps rather than the voluntary measures favored by Bush.
California aims to reduce its emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, a cut of around 25 percent. The biggest sources of heat-trapping gases, such as power plants and cement makers, will be required to report their emissions.
Bush pulled the United States out of the 160-nation Kyoto Protocol in 2001 on the grounds that the mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases would hurt the economy and wrongly excluded developing nations.
Posted by Faithful Progressive at September 1, 2006 12:00 PM
Comments
How can "care for Creation" be an issue when STEWARDSHIP is multifold & has always involved more than dollars-and-cents? How can 5% of the World's population be entitled to almost 40% of the available energy as if it were a right and when billions of the world's poorest people are literally hungry because of nothing more than WHERE they happened to be born?
I grew up pretty poor in the aftermath of the Great Depression & WWII, but everything we ate would be 'organic' in today's terms: we just did not know it: we expected nothing less. It's surely a sign of the times when Wal-Mart has begun to advertize & stock "organic" items: a sign of the times or just opportunism & a chance to counterbalance all of the negative press over employment practices?
When I first travelled to Sweden(Sverige) in 1986, I was overwhelmed with not only the cleanliness but how easy they made recycling with public containers. My first trips to Mexico in WWII were similar, but in the reverse: amid poverty, they hustled pasteboard from Laredo to turn it into cash on their side! What could we be doing so wrong, I asked.
For "bad religion" to dictate & contaminate minds on the environment (i.e., G-d's Creation?) is deplorable. Stewardship should not be a choice but an obligation. This is now the 21st century, and Science in our schools is hobbled by parents distressing the innocence of children via their "bad" religion. We are anything but the envy of the world when IGNORANCE travels from our shores with our citizens who act like denizens! Not until we can boast like by beloved England a "Darwin Street" in every hamlet, village, town & city will we too symbolize that we live environmentalism & conservation.
Stewardship or bust? Ideology must redeem its soul, and the world will then be OUR home!
Posted by: Arden C. Hander at September 2, 2006 05:20 PM
I like the call to a greater expression of environmentalism, something in manistream church-ianity we lack and rarely see as an issue. I think it's high-time we recognized that we have a duty to care for our environment, or at the least, get the ball rolling on solutions. I mean, this is a great piece about the problem but offers no glimpse into practical solutions. What can the local congregation do to better the environment? This is something that might 'sell' if the communities of churches was aware what they could do on a local level. Recycling is great and all, it's the norm actually, but what about the rest of the environment? I like the speech but I also like answers.
Posted by: Societyvs at September 4, 2006 07:46 PM
Societyvs but what about the rest of the environment? I like the speech but I also like answers. Pray and vote for Democrats
Posted by: Monte Schlarman at September 5, 2006 11:24 PM
Part of the problem is the unequal distribution of resources- when you are poor it is much harder to be "green" than when you are rich. Solar panels, for instance, would make a much bigger difference in the lives of poor people compared with the rich (and make a comparatively bigger difference in resource usage), but they are for the most part out of the reach of the people that they could help the most.
Many "green" solutions are actually very effective at helping poor people, if they get the help to get started. I'm thinking about the use of methane digestors in India- they put cow manure in, it generates methane which runs a generator (instead of burning wood or oil for light, conserving those resources and reducing deforestation). The material left over after it has run through the digestor is a far better compost and fertilizer than cow manure itself! The technology is simple, easy to maintain, and once in place easy to work with.
There are many other cases like this- use of solar heat for cooking instead of wood (in India and other areas) is a second example that comes to mind.
In both cases, it is the poor that benefit directly, yet the whole world is better off as well.
If churches were to focus on HELPING people (and listening to the people who can determine what really WILL help), instead of just sending out missionaries to "save souls" (which experience demonstrates usually is more harmful than good), they could make a huge difference in today's world.
Oh, yes... and not connect receiving the help to joining their church, an error that I've heard about time and time again!
Posted by: Bob Bowers at September 7, 2006 11:30 PM
E.O. Wilson is a fine a human as I could ever aspire to be.
Thanks for promoting his letter.
Posted by: Bruce Wilson at September 12, 2006 10:55 PM
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Posted by: jcwsffxi at August 22, 2007 04:43 AM
Thanks for this post. As a person who is environmentally conscious and a Christian I am often labeled a liberal because of it. I don't think it's a political issue--it's a stewardship issue as one of those God has placed in His creation. We are called to care for it and tend to it. A good book that opened my eyes to what God has said about it (not political commentators with agendas) is Norman Geisler's book "Love Your Neighbor: Thinking Wisely About Right and Wrong." It's a good conversation starter--hopefully the church will soon get its head out of the sand and lead the way in the cause for saving our planet.
Thanks again for the post--check out the book.
http://www.amazon.com/Love-Your-Neighbor-Thinking-Wisely/dp/1581349459/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-2085712-9684969?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188245590&sr=8-1
Posted by: Tim at August 27, 2007 11:02 PM
