A New Reverence for Life – Part Two

A New Reverence for Life: Redeeming Humanity’s Relationship with the Earth
by Carol Hohle

Part Two: Theological Underpinnings and the Natural World

Faith has played a significant role in shaping the ethics and values of how humanity cares for the earth.  Since the time of the Enlightenment, the traditional Christian anthropocentric view has not been particularly friendly to the environment.  This Christian view has traditionally given humans a prominence that has justified their abuses and maltreatment of the earth and its inhabitants.  “Too frequently and falsely in recent centuries, both the image of God and dominion have been interpreted as the divine grant of a special status making humanity the sole bearer of intrinsic value in creation, or of a special, divine mandate to pollute, plunder, and prey on creation to the point of exhausting its potential.”(4)

The references in Genesis regarding humanity’s “dominion over the fish of the sea …” and God’s blessing to “fill the earth and subdue it” have become the scriptural foundation upon which many have justified humanity’s totalitarian rule over nature.

The references in Genesis regarding humanity’s “dominion over the fish of the sea …” and God’s blessing to “fill the earth and subdue it” have become the scriptural foundation upon which many have justified humanity’s totalitarian rule over nature.(5)  Both Christianity and Judaism have often been accused of being anti-ecological religions.  This, of course, grossly oversimplifies their traditions and histories.  And, this anthropocentric and exploitive view is not consistent with the findings of scholarly exegesis.  Dominion, in both Christian and Jewish theology, is not the dominion of exploitation.  The original meaning of dominion is probably little more than agricultural cultivation, similar to the “tilling and keeping” in Genesis 2:15.  In his extensive study of interpretations of Genesis 1:28 from biblical antiquity to the Reformation, Jeremy Cohen concludes, “Rarely, if ever, did pre-modern Jews and Christians construe this verse as license for the selfish exploitation of the environment.  Although most readers of Genesis casually assumes that God had fashioned the physical world for the benefit of human beings, Genesis 1:28 evoked relatively little concern with the issue of dominion over nature.”(6)

In fact, the historical view of Genesis 1:28 is theocentric – where God, not humanity, is the continuing owner of all of the earth.  The Jewish traditions and ethics of the Hebrew Bible, as explained by Rabbi Saul Berman, existed within a framework of creation being about God, not humanity.  Humanity (shomer) is leasing, or borrowing, the planet from God.  As a borrower (sho’el) humanity must ensure that, at the end of the term of the lease, and at any given moment during the lease, the property is at least as valuable as it was at the beginning of the lease.  Humans, then, according to the Torah are responsible representatives/stewards and must act benevolently and justly in accord with the will of the ultimate owner.(7)

This original concept of dominion is rich with ecological potential.  Religions would do well to preserve and revisit it.  And perhaps, since dominion often has such a tyrannical meaning in contemporary society, other words might be substituted to better convey the original connotations.  Dominion, after all, is a Latin-derived translation from the Hebrew.  Other words, such as guardian, steward, preserver, protector or defender might provide a more accurate and sensitive meaning of dominion.(8)

Another theological underpinning that has helped shape humanity’s attitude about the environment is the natural world itself.  Nature can act as a window to spirituality provoking profound feelings of awe, reverence, mystery and serenity.  John Burroughs, the early 19th Century American naturalist, wrote eloquently of nature’s spirituality, “Nature we have always with us, an inexhaustible store-house of that which moves the heart, appeals to the mind and fires the imagination–health to the body, a stimulus to the intellect, and joy to the soul.”(9)

The spirituality of nature fosters meditation, prayer and contemplation.  The feelings, attitudes and benefits are much the same as those found in religious devotions.  And, as in the case of the contemporary environmental movement, it can evolve into a comprehensive worldview that is undeniably spiritual in nature, not unlike some of the mainstream world religions.   Roger Gottlieb in his newest book, A Greener Faith, maps out the geography of three common characteristics he labels as experiences, beliefs, and actions.

Religious and environmental spiritual experiences both “take us beyond the conventional ego,” Gottlieb observes, “beyond a frame of mind in which we calculate our interests, compete with those around us, struggle for success, seek to control the world to get what we want from it, or unendingly complain about every damn thing we don’t have.  In the experience of God or Ultimate Reality or Spirit, we are less depressed, bored, anxious, and selfish and more grateful, joyous, and serene.  We taste exuberance or tranquility, reverence or awe, a deep confidence in the universe of a sense of how much of the universe will always be an enthralling mystery. Finally, because we feel we have achieved communion with an immensely powerful source of meaning, a force or intelligence much vaster than ourselves with whom we can, in some sense, communicate, we no longer feel so alone.”(10)

Experiencing the spiritual transcendence of nature tends to give rise to beliefs about what the sacred is and how it should be understood.  Some common beliefs include the idea of cooperation with, rather than control of, the environment.  Aldo Leopold, conservationist and forester who developed the “land ethic,” advocated that humans should behave like “plain citizens” rather than “conquerors” of the earth.  “We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity which belongs to us.  When we see it as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”(11)  A belief in cooperation between humanity and the environment fosters a belief in kinship.  When humans feel a part of the natural world they respect it and gain a certain sense of humility and wonder.

Beliefs formed from environmental experiences can be as meaningful to some as traditional religious beliefs around the Trinity, Christ’s resurrection, the Sabbath, or the Five Pillars of Islam are to others.  They not only infuse believers’ values and ethics, they also form the basis of their actions.

Actions, the third of these categories in Gottlieb’s description of spiritual environmentalism, are based on codes of behaviors, rituals, or social and political impetus.  Codes of behaviors can include the spiritual and practical implications of environmental beliefs such as what one would eat, drive, wear, use, how much to use, reuse, recycle, etc.  These environmental rituals serve the same purpose as religious ritual: focusing attention, expressing emotion, and arousing energies in ways that simple verbal responses cannot do.  Lastly, social and political activity in the environmental area usually follows as an outcome of some profound transformation that one has experienced by connecting with the natural world.  When one’s beliefs have changed by one’s experience the change can lead to engagement in social and political action designed to restore and celebrate the earth.(12)

“In traditional religion, we may get the most powerful experiences of the sacred when we are somewhat sheltered from the cares of life, and in environmentalism of nature when we are in the wilderness.  Yet to keep such experiences from being little more than passing moments of emotional uplift, we need to realize that their real function is not momentary exaltation, but to inspire us to bring holiness or love of nature to every aspect of our lives.”(13)

Endnotes:
4.  James A. Nash, Loving Nature – Ecological Integrity and Christian Responsibility (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991), 103.
5.  Genesis 1:26-28 (New Revised Standard Version).
6.  Jeremy Cohen, “Be Fertile and Increase: Fill the Earth and Master It”: The Ancient and Medieval Career of a Biblical Text (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989), 5.
7.  Rabbi Saul Berman, “Jewish Environmental Values: The Dynamic Tension Between Nature and Human Needs,” Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, http://www.coejl.org/learn/je_berman.php (accessed April 12, 2007).
8.  Nash, Loving Nature, 107.
9.  John Burroughs, Leaf and Tendril, EcoTopia, http://www.ecotopia.org/ehof/burroughs/extracts.html (accessed April 30, 2007).
10. Roger Gottlieb, A Greener Faith – Religious Environmentalism and Our Planet’s Future (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 151.
11. Aldo Leopold, Sand County Almanac, quoted in Gottlieb, A Greener Faith, 159.
12. Gottlieb, A Greener Faith, 158-171.
13. Ibid, 157.

PART THREE