Материал: The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion by John Hinnells

496â Religions in the modern world

have been predominantly Christian and Euro-American capitalist. That does not mean that in the present, Hindus and Buddhists are not cheerfully developing economically and polluting a great deal. It means that the practices which allow such pollution are much less rooted in their religious culture than they are in Western ones.

However, there is at least one fundamental change that Buddhism and Hinduism have to face, and which under the leadership of their respective environmental thinkers, they are facing. While these traditions lack the West’s human-nature dualism, they also lack the tradition of prophetic social criticism which has been essential to Judaism, Christianity and (if to a lesser extent) Islam. That is, they have generally tended towards a kind of social passivity – or at least social quietism – which would make them less contributors to the environmental crisis than inactive witnesses to it. When Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Buddhist teacher who has become widely known in Europe and the U.S., advocated a kind of “socially engaged Buddhism” which requires social activism as much as it does meditation and psychological self-examination, he was roundly condemned by his fellow Buddhist leaders. Such activism, his critics taught, was profoundly unBuddhist! In response Nhat Hanh and other leaders, such as Thailand’s Sulak Sivaraksa, have identified social commitment in general and ecological activism in particular as essential to developing Buddhist virtues (Kaza and Kraft 2000).

Institutional commitment

The new ecotheologies have helped religious people think the meaning of their faiths in new, ecologically responsible, ways. Yet religions are not defined by theologians and professors. Their public identity is determined most powerfully by their public leadership – by Popes and Bishops and large national and international councils and publicly recognized authorities. There may be many who differ with the recognized leadership, but that dissension can only be what it is because there are leaders to dissent from.

It is one of the great accomplishments of the world’s religions that ecological responsibility has not been consigned to a handful of (probably liberal) thinkers. Rather, the world’s religious leaders have stated unequivocally that environmental values are now an essential part of the faith.

Consider for example the dramatic 1997 statement by Bartholomew I, leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians from North and South America, Europe, and Asia.

To commit a crime against the natural world is a sin … to cause species to become extinct and to destroy the biological diversity of God’s creation … to degrade the integrity of the Earth by causing changes in its climate, stripping the Earth of its natural forests, or destroying its wetlands … to contaminate the Earth’s waters, its land, its air, and its life with poisonous substances – these are sins.

(Bartholomew 2004: 229–230)

It is not just Bartholomew’s authority which is critical here, but the fact that the powerful theological language he uses directly contradicts any presupposition that the environmental crisis is merely a technical problem or a flawed policy. His assertion that it is a sin (and that these sins should also be subject to criminal penalty) puts our relation to nature in the category of religious morality – along with sexuality and how we treat the poor. This is a direct expansion of both religion and environmental concern.

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A similar expansion can be found in important statements by Catholic authorities, including Pope John Paul II in particular and various national councils of Catholic Bishops (Hart 2006). In his first year as Pope, John Paul declared St. Francis (one of those traditional yet marginalized ecological voices) the patron saint of those concerned with the environment. Over the next two decades a series of statements revealed two central principles: first, that concern with environmental issues was now to take its place alongside more familiar Catholic social justice concerns such as poverty, abortion, capital punishment, and war. It was now essential to Catholic teaching to resist the cultural and political failures which led to the environmental crisis. Second, that crisis is not defined solely in terms of how it affects people.

This discovery of a transcendent presence in creation, must also lead us also to rediscover our fraternity with the earth, to which we have been linked since creation (cf. Gen 2:7). This very goal was foreshadowed by the Old Testament in the Hebrew Jubilee, when the earth rested and man gathered what the land spontaneously offered (cf. Lev 25:11–12). If nature is not violated and humiliated, it returns to being the sister of humanity.

(John Paul II 2000)

We might note that this is not only a bold and non-human centered environmental declaration; it is also a groundbreaking move for a religious tradition which for many centuries did its best to destroy any religion which honored the earth.

Similar ideas, accompanied by awareness of the consequences of environmental destruction and the need for fundamentally changed values and policies, have been expressed in a series of statements by councils of Catholic Bishops in the Philippines, the Columbia River region of the U.S. and Canada, and America’s Midwest. These statements do not rest with theological claims or moral imperatives, but include challenges to existing social structures. From the Philippines comes a serious questioning of the human costs of “development.” Does all this destruction of rainforest and pollution of water resources really translate into a better life for the ordinary poor Filipino? From the Columbia River watershed comes a clear assertion that all sectors of society bear some responsibility for ecological threats to the area; and that in particular, corporations who clear cut or pollute are responsible for changing their ways and cleaning up the messes they have made (Gottlieb 2006a: 85–95; Hart 2004).

While Buddhism has no central authority structure the way Catholicism does, it does have some internationally recognized leaders. Of these probably the most important is the Dalai Lama. He has made many ecologically oriented pronouncements, linking environmental problems to more comprehensive problems of greed and attachment. And he has also proposed that Tibet be turned into an international ecological refuge and criticized the Chinese government for unecological practices – including the dumping of nuclear wastes – in Tibet (Kaza 2000).

It might well be asked what difference all this makes. For example: doesn’t a good deal of Christian teaching, of whatever variety, stress the importance of humility, peacefulness, and voluntary poverty? Yet if we examine the U.S., an ostensibly Christian country, it is pretty hard to find these values in place. A huge military machine combines with hundreds of millions of guns in the hands of ordinary, “Christian” citizens. The pursuit and exercise of wealth is widely manifest and endlessly celebrated. If Catholic Bishops or the National Council of Churches or the Evangelical Environmental Network call on their parishioners to mend their ecological ways, why should we expect anything real to happen, any more than it does in these other areas?

498â Religions in the modern world

This is an important point with a good deal of truth in it. No simple religious declaration will solve the environmental crisis. Most religious people, like most other people, spend their time taking care of themselves and their family without much conspicuous dedication to stringent moral demands. On the other hand, however, it is not a small thing that religious authorities, who have the ear of billions of people, and enormous financial and institutional resources and social capital, have embraced a green gospel. The religious presence in the anti-slavery and civil rights movements was momentous, and has been vital in anti-war efforts over the last century as well. If a few really good statements won’t solve our environmental problems, they surely will be at least a little – and quite possibly more than a little – help.

Action

Our answer to these questions need not be purely speculative. The true test of religious environmentalism is the way in which religious environmentalists have been involved in environmental activism. This activism can take a wide variety of forms. Indeed on one end public statements, including books, films, and teaching, are themselves a kind of activism. But here I have in mind more focused efforts which can include lobbying governments or even taking part in governments, involvement in ecological restoration or clean up campaigns, public demonstrations and challenges to polluting corporations. Evaluating religious efforts in this context makes abundantly clear the simple fact that throughout the world religious people have joined – in throngs and for religious reasons – the environmental movement. Here is a sampling of cases (Gottlieb 2004, 2006a, b; Palmer 2003; Taylor 2006).

•â In northern California the “Redwood Rabbis” engaged in a public struggle to protect one of the area’s last remaining stands of Redwood trees. They challenged the logging company’s head, a leader in his own Jewish community, with going against Jewish values. Violating legal orders, the group engaged in direct action by planting new Redwood seedlings in the grove.

•â In Tanzania fishermen were dissuaded from their ecologically disastrous policy of dynamite fishing by a local sheik who ruled that the practice was un-Islamic. The fishermen had ignored government decrees and scientific cautions, but were convinced by a religious stricture.

•â In the U.S. the Methodist Church engaged in a focused campaign to demand that Staples stores stop selling paper the production of which led to Dioxin pollution.

•â In India the Sikh religion has committed itself to a three hundred year policy of responsible ecological practices. Since the Sikhs fulfill one of their religious commitments by giving food to the poor – providing tens of millions of meals a day – this means changing their patterns of energy use, packaging, clean up, etc.

•â Religious Witness for the Earth, an interfaith activist environmental group centered in New England, engaged in civil disobedience protesting against the Bush administration’s energy policy, demonstrated at the U.N., and held a 125 mile “Climate Walk” publicizing the dangers of and possible responses to global warming.

•â In Taiwan the Shu Tzi organization, founded by a charismatic nun decades ago and concentrating on charity and relief work in Taiwan and abroad, has included ecological issues in its activities. One year it helped recycle millions of pounds of paper and metal.

•â In the U.S. a loose network of nuns, the “Sisters of Earth,” practice and teach organic agriculture, model low impact living, take part in local ecological efforts, save seeds,

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and monitor and criticize the ecologically destructive practices of local and national governments and transnational institutions such as the World Bank and the World Trade Organization.

•â In a fascinating instance of the intersection of religion, environmentalism, and political life, there is the case of Nambaryn Enkhbayar, the prime minister of Mongolia, who has led a Buddhist oriented attempt to combine economic development with real sustainability, particularly in regard to preserving forests, biodiversity, and Mongolia’s unique seven foot long river fish (the Taimen). In Enkhbayar’s words:

Buddhism considers the creation of a good balance or, let us put it in a broader sense

– of a healthy environment where everyone and everything can enjoy freedom to realize or improve its potential – is the condition for the qualitative development … (Enkhbayar: nd)

The Mongolian population has responded favorably towards these conservation efforts, a remarkable fact given the country’s severe poverty. Religious support for sustainability seems (at least for now) to have made the difference in garnering broad support for ecologically sound, rather than destructive, economic development.

When religions turn green

As I have stressed already, the examples offered here are only a small percentage of what is out there. And indeed the list is growing all the time. If we step back from this large array, and look for trends in what we have observed, some extremely interesting patterns emerge.

First, as religions become attuned to ecological problems and environmental issues they become increasingly open to ecumenical and interfaith efforts of all kinds. A good number of religious environmental organizations and actions have enlisted a variety of religious participants (Gottlieb 2006a, b). Interfaith Power and Light, for example, a national U.S. group focusing on local responses to climate issues, with more than 20 state chapters, includes Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Buddhists, and Muslims among its members. Well publicized statements by important religious figures on global warming have often been signed by leaders of widely different faiths. Religious Witness for the Earth included Jewish, Unitarian, and Episcopalian clergy in its leadership. Even in Israel-Palestine, perhaps the place one would least expect to find interreligious cooperation, Jewish and Muslim leaders have combined forces on common ecological concern, most notably the sadly deteriorated state of the Jordan River.

These cooperative, respectful efforts extend beyond the bounds of familiar, “major” religions. I have already mentioned the newfound Catholic respect for indigenous people’s ecological knowledge. In a remarkable and hopeful story, southern Zimbabwe was the scene of a highly effective coalition of local Christian congregations and traditional spirit medium communities. Facing a landscape ravaged by logging and war, they joined together to plant over 8 million trees, change agricultural practices, and create a new sense of the sacredness of the earth and trees (Daneel 2001). These were religious traditions which in the past would have had virtually nothing to say to each other, nothing respectful in any case. On the Christian side, especially, there is a long and painful history of rejection and contempt for faiths outside the orbit of monotheism. Yet as a member of the Christian side of the coalition put it: “We must be respectful to the Krallheads and Chiefs – or else where will we plant our trees?” (Daneel 2001: 185).

500â Religions in the modern world

Perhaps even more remarkably, there have been well publicized cases of religious cooperation with science. Given the long history of antagonism between these two cultural forces, this is no small matter. As a matter of course most of the new ecotheological writings include extensive references to scientific accounts of ecological problems from global warming to the presence of endocrine disruptors in the food chain. This is true not just for theologians but for statements by religious leaders as well. Science is no longer the “enemy” of truth, but a source of critically important knowledge which is essential if people are to fulfill their religious imperatives: in this case, to preserve God’s creation and to love one’s neighbor (or at least not poison him). This newfound openness goes both ways. In fact, the initial move in a process which led to a widely read “Joint Declaration on the Environment,” which was signed by leading religious figures and leading scientists, was made by those on the scientific side (Gottlieb 2004). They publicly acknowledged that their own technical expertise was incomplete until it was joined with reflections on moral values and the ultimate meaning of human existence – resources, in short, that would be best obtained from religious leaders. Would not Galileo, imprisoned by the Bishops for offering an astronomy the Bishops didn’t like, or John Scopes, who was put on trial for teaching evolution, not find the public cooperation of science and religion a remarkable turn?

The next quite interesting development in ecological religion is the tendency towards a leftist political orientation. It is perhaps inevitable that any serious environmentalism will come up against the tendency of global corporations and repressive governments to ecological destruction and unsustainable practices. Capitalism in particular has always structured ecological consequences as “externalities” – monetary and human costs that are outside the process of buying and selling commodities and making profits. The very idea that a global market – in which subsistence labor throughout the world is replaced by wage labor, local production is reoriented towards export, and what was heretofore accepted as “the commons” (land, water, even air) gets privatized – will meet human needs has been seriously questioned by environmentalists of all stripes, now including religious ones.

To take one example, consider some powerful statements by the World Council of Churches, an umbrella organization representing some 400 million Protestants. The WCC has been a frequent observer and at times participant in international meetings on climate change and in those contexts it has at times vigorously contested the conventional acceptance of economic globalization. For example, in 2003, in preparation for a meeting with the World Bank, WCC general secretary Konrad Raiser questioned “the allegedly irrefutable logic of the prevailing economic paradigm” (World Council of Churches 2003). Simultaneously representatives of 70 member churches signed a document stating that “nothing less than a fundamental shift in political-economic paradigms is necessary.” The pieties of globalization have been rejected by the WCC, for it sees this sweeping change in the world social order as often leading to widespread poverty, more national debt, environmental distress, and increased polarization between rich and poor. Beyond these powerful generalities, in 2000 the WCC criticized British Petroleum, Shell and Exxon-Mobil as examples of “transnational corporations” which not only bore some responsibility for global warming, but which were trying to persuade the public that global warming was not real (Gottlieb 2006a: 125–126).

Perhaps even more impressively, a key concept of politically oriented environmentalism

– the kind that connects environmental concerns to other dimensions of social justice rather than just focusing on conservation of wilderness and wildlife – is not only employed by religious environmentalists, but was in fact largely generated by a particular Christian denomination.