Feeling Green

Andy Crouch reviews the book, A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and Our Planet’s Future, by Roger S. Gottlieb, in his article, “Feeling Green” in Books & Culture, March/April 2007, pages 32-35. The role religious faith plays in the environmental movement is difficult to determine since there are so many different groups that are playing a role: Catholic, Evangelical, Buddhist, Jewish, Unitarian, Episcopalian, Wiccan, Sufi, Calvinist, Hindu, and more. Even among Evangelicals there is a lot of disagreement, as seen in the conflict between the Evangelical Climate Initiative and the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance, as well as the pressure put on Ted Haggard when he was president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

There are sever reasons for this conflict within Evangelicalism over the environment: First, many evangelicals fear that “creation care” is a wedge issue designed to split the evangelical voters from their allegiance to the Republican party or a left-wing attempt to undermine free-enterprise and economic growth. Second, many fear that environmentalism is a thinly disguised pantheism that sees the earth as “God’s body” and human beings as parasitic parts of the evolutionary web of life.

There is always the danger of creating a policy that sounds good theoretically but is difficult to implement practically. Crouch quotes Gottlieb:

“Yet, many would argue, the very idea of cooperation with rather than domination over nature, though (perhaps) appealing in the abstract, is impossible in practice. Don't humans need to eat, build houses, and watch TV? Don't deep ecologists and ecofeminists use antibiotics to treat their kids' ear infections? And don't we all use computers and drive our cars? Isn't all of this talk of cooperating with nature simply an armchair philosophy that evaporates once we leave our armchairs and start to deal with real life?”

“These questions are not easily answered.”


While most of these questions are red herrings, designed to weaken the force of his opponents’ argument, it is difficult to see how the need for humans to eat can be explained as cooperating with nature. While the Christian tradition asks us to love our enemies, which is difficult, it is not logically impossible, and in fact, it has been done many times throughout history. But to not eat would be logically impossible for anyone to do.

According to Christian and Jewish tradition, man has been given dominion over creation, not to abuse it but to guard, protect and utilize it wisely as a stewardship. Man is the only species with the ability to do this and the only one that can feel guilt when it fails. Man has been created in the image of God and ordained by God as the steward of creation. Much of the foolishness propagated by some environmentalists is a rejection of this belief. By seeing animals and inanimate objects as merely “different” from human beings has resulted in most Christians being unable to work directly with most environmentalist groups.

Environmentalists like to evoke Native American religion as pure and eco-friendly while the historical truth is that it wasn’t as friendly to the environment as they think. Some even quote Chief Seattle as the ideal of an indigenous religious leader, failing to realize that often the words they quote were never spoken by him at all. In fact, much of what is quoted is from a time after he had already converted to Christianity. Evangelicalism has been very friendly to indigenous people and has interacted with them for centuries, as was the case with David Brainerd.

Some environmentalists have tried to put all religions, including Christianity, into one bag, thinking that doctrinal differences and historical perspectives are immaterial. This attitude makes it very difficult for most Evangelicals to cooperate with these groups. Christianity is not concerned merely with internal spiritual experiences but is committed to the historical veracity of the gospel events, which is why we celebrate Easter, Christmas and Communion. Christianity hinges on the truth of historical events and the claims of the particularity and exclusivity of Jesus. The Exodus, the Incarnation, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection are foundational to our faith, not mere individual experiences. Therefore, it is impossible to build a Christian environmental position that disregards these historical truths.

There is an environmentalism that is rooted in historical faith. Jesus modeled both feasting and fasting, abundance and simplicity. Christianity can, and must, speak to the present environmental situation, but it must do so in a way that honors and upholds its view of truth and reality.



You can read this article at: http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2007/002/7.32.html