Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback Human Rights Defender

Furhagen, Lesa-Belle --- "The Natural World: Does Religion Alienate Us or Connect Us?" [2007] HRightsDef 16; (2007) 16(2) Human Rights Defender 12

• The Natural World: Does Religion AlienateUs or ConnectUs

The Natural World: Does Religion AlienateUs or ConnectUs

Lesa-Belle Furhagen

A traveler was on the roads under the hot sun. He begged for shade. The tree gave it and then the traveler felt like staying with the tree and building his home near it. He needed wood for his home. His eyes fell on the tree. He looked for an axe to cut the tree. Then he begged for a handle for his axe from the tree and the tree gave it. After he made the axe, he cut the tree and built his house. But when the house was built, the traveler cried and felt lonely and hot. Then he left that place in search of shade.

When the Abrahamic faiths look at their sacred texts, their Genesis and Noah stories, it is clear that there exists an intimate relationship between Creator and Creation which cannot be dismissed. So why is it that these three faith traditions have dragged their heels to sit at the environmental table? By understanding some of these reasons, perhaps a contribution can be made to the existing groundswell pushing Judaism, Christianity and Islam to take their rightful place in the environmental struggle, the resolution of which could lead humanity to a spiritual and religious renewal.

When searching for reasons why the three Abrahamic traditions have been slow to address environmental issues, it is helpful to look at how they perceive ‘God’ and our relationship to ‘God’. Lynne White in ‘The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis’ said ‘[w]hat people do about their ecology depends on what they think about themselves in relation to things around them. Human ecology is deeply conditioned by beliefs about our nature and destiny - that is, by religion’. [1] It seems apparent that throughout history our faith traditions have been somewhat complicit in developing an extreme anthropocentricism which has contributed to the current environmental situation.

Matthew Fox, a Christian theologian, argues that there has been a ‘reduction of a Trinitarian Godhead to a single person of the Trinity. What I would call Jesusolatry has so overtaken much of mainline (and all of fundamentalist) Christianity that, in historical terms, we can ask: Isn’t this heresy, the loss of God the Creator and God the Spirit, to the extreme situation of God the Redeemer?’[2]

Judaism, as the first monotheistic faith, has been accused of generating the split between humanity and the environment by repudiating animistic religions, which apportion divinity to various aspects of nature. Whatever the origins of anthropocentrism the faiths themselves, in this case Judaism, have equal teachings and biblical references pointing humanity to environmental stewardship. Whilst the Torah calls for human dominion, interpreters argue over whether or not this implies stewardship. Mordecai Kaplan contends that ‘[a] theology which is not a plan of social action is merely a way of preaching and praying. It is a menu without dinner.’[3] This certainly points to an interpretation of stewardship over dominion.

With over a billion followers, Islam is a faith with perhaps the greatest potential to have an impact on the environmental movement. Like Christianity and Judaism, Islam regards humanity as being at the top of the food chain, however, with a directive from Allah to protect the natural environment. Like the Pentateuch and the New Testament, the Quran reveres the grandeur of a creation springing from God: ‘And it is He who spread out the earth, and set thereon mountains standing firm and (flowing) rivers; and fruit of every kind He made in two pairs, two and two; He draweth the night as a veil over the Day’.[4]

Therefore, given the collective faith histories of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, it seems clear that God the Creator has been diminished in our collective thinking. Aquinas said: ‘A mistake about Creation results in a mistake about God’. Matthew Fox asks the question, ‘[w]hy do we swamp ourselves with biblical scholars as if all revelation is in a 4,500 year-old book and not in creation itself?’[5] Fox goes on to point out that humanity has lost sight of the value of our mystical traditions and their rich teachings about humans and nature:

From Julian of Norwich to Thomas Traherne, from Hildegard of Bingen to George Herbert, from Meister Eckhart to Walt Whitman, from Thomas Aquinas to Annie Dillard, from Nicholas of Cusa to Rachael Carson, from Dante to Wordsworth and William Blake, we are gifted with poets of the soul who speak the truth of the sacredness of our lives, our bodies and the rest of creation.⁶

It would seem to be the case that a modern secular environmentalism is split from religions, which often appear exclusive and divided from each other. Gary Gardner calls for a resolution to the centuries old rift in the West between religion and the sciences. He believes that environmentalism cannot succeed unless it mobilizes religion, ‘that a sustainable world cannot be built without full engagement of the human spirit’.[7] The ecosystem of the planet, or ‘Gaia’,[8] as James Lovelock defined it, does not prefer one religion or political system over another when it comes to environmental sustainability.

So what does this mean for institutional religion? Is it still relevant and will its bureaucracies respond quickly enough to embrace the vocation of environmental stewardship which can only happen in a culture of religious tolerance and acceptance? Institutional religion must expect to play a significant role alongside scientists, environmentalists, politicians and corporations if it is to retain its currency and humanity in the long term. History testifies to the fact that religion has helped determine how we view ourselves and what actions are acceptable. Therefore, given the need for such radical change both in our thinking and practice, it is only logical to look to religion alongside science and technology for providing the way forward in what would seem the most urgent of circumstances.

“Whatever the origins of anthropocentrism the faiths themselves... have equal teachings and biblical references pointing humanity to environmental stewardship.”

Religion has to acknowledge its role as being more than simply a belief in a transcendent deity. It is an orientation to the universe and humanity’s role in it. Religion in its broadest sense is a means whereby society undertakes specific practices and rituals that effect self-transformation and community cohesion. Rather than focusing on an extreme anthropocentricism, the monotheistic religions should refer to those universal stories, symbol systems, ritual practices, ethical norms, historical processes, and institutional structures that transmit a context for humanity embedded in a world of meaning and responsibility, transformation and celebration.

In the end, the environmental crisis is also a spiritual one, which requires, among other things, a spiritual solution that cannot be confined to a single faith tradition. Potentially sitting at the environmental table provides Judaism, Christianity and Islam with the opportunity to come together and find a common spirit based not only in the idea of a Transcendent Deity but also of a world infused with the divine.

“Institutional religion must expect to play a significant role alongside scientists, environmentalists, politicians and corporations if it is to retain its currency and humanity in the long term. ”

Lesa-Belle Furhagen has previously published magazines including HQ and Monument Magazines as well as Associate Publishing Rolling Stone. She is currently enrolled in an MA: Studies in Religion at Sydney University and is the Director of the Kings Cross Interfaith Centre in Elizabeth Bay.

References

1 Lynn White, ‘The Historical Roots to our Ecological Crisis’ in Roger S Gottlieb (ed) This Sacred Earth: Religion Nature and Environment (1996) 184-193.

2 Matthew Fox, ‘The Environment’s Role in Deconstructing and Reconstructing

Theology and Religion’ (2002) Witness Magazine 2.

3 Mordecai Kaplan, Not So Random Thoughts (2^nd ed, 1985).

4 Quran, Sura 13, Ayat 3.

5 Fox, above n 2.

6 Ibid.

7 Gary Gardner, ‘Invoking the Spirit: Religion and Spirituality in the Quest for

a Sustainable World’. Worldwatch Institute Paper 164 (2002) 8 <http://www.

worldwatch.org/taxonomy/term/40> at 2 August 2007.