This was a draft/plan/ideation developed during envs 220 for a potential senior capstone project. This was my early conceptualizing of how i could put my work in envs and rels together in a creative synthesis. This work inspired me to take many different courses and to complete projects related to these ideas as i have continued to consider these questions through college.

Religious Studies and Environmental Studies

Connecting these two areas of inquiry is not new.  Religious rhetoric and imagery have appeared in environmental texts and popular nature writing across time, including Gilbert White Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Gary Snyder, and Joanna Macy, but scholars had not studied the relationship between religion and environmentalism until the 1950s and 1960s (Berry 2013).  In one of the most foundational texts of the religion and ecology subfield, The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis, Lynn White argues that “especially in its Western form, Christianity is the most anthropocentric religion the world has seen,” and he believes that “more science and more technology are not going to get us out of the present ecologic crisis until we find a new religion, or rethink our old one” (White 1967).  White’s conclusion that “Christianity bears a huge burden of guilt” for environmental problems set off an “intellectual firestorm,” the central debate of which tries to answer the question of whether religion, specifically or in general, could be identified as being “good” or “bad” for the environment (Berry 2013).  Articles coming out today are still in direct conversation with White’s paper (Sideris 2007; Berry 2013; Torretta 2015; Ronan 2017).

There are many opinions about which religions are “eco” and which aren’t.  White concludes that time is linear and progressive in the Christian story which favors endless growth over the capacity to sustain which arises, he says, from cyclical time as in Pagan stories (White 1967).  Indigenous American and Buddhist traditions have also been described as “religions of nature,” because of an emphasis on the “interconnectedness of all things.” Part of the fascination with Buddhism as an environmental religion is that it was presented to the West as a “religion of science” (McMahan 2009).  At a much broader scale, the UN’s Faith for Earth Initiative page looks at key texts of 12 major religions and concludes that “all religions agree that the creation is an act of God and should be treated as such” (U.N. Environment 2018).  Such attempts to find environmentalist agreements among various religions are aimed at building collaboration among organizations to further the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals.  But these statements are flattening of the richness and power contained within each religious tradition and are debatable.

In his work on the Anthropology of Islam, Talal Asad, uses the term “discursive tradition” to reorient analysis in a way that sees religions as rich fields of discourse, practice, and meaning (Asad, 2009).  The association between Christianity and the exploitation of nature may explain an assumption that climate deniers tend to be conservative Christians, but it is only one interpretation of one group’s interpretation of a complex tradition.  There are also countless Christian environmental groups that are working on climate change issues (Eco-Justice Ministries, Evangelical Environmental Network, American Scientific Affiliation).  One can’t forget that White also saw Christianity as necessary to finding a solution.  

Religious Environmentalism and Eco Spirituality

Beyond interpretations of nature in religious theology are a variety of other ways these worlds connect and form tensions.  Many faith leaders including the Dalai Lama and Pope Francis are calling upon their followers to take action, and many religious groups have had numerous successes on various environmental issues.  A Buddhist ecology movement of tree ordination is growing in Thailand, where monks “see their religion as critical for providing practical as well as moral guidelines for ecological conservation” (Darlington 1998).  Some scholars and writers have described environmentalism as its own kind of “religion” (Garreau, 2010; Crichton 2003; Zimmerman 2011). Other groups operate according to religious paradigms in ways that some may deem anti-environmental, such as Timber Unity an organization in Southern Oregon working to protect the timber industry and fight legislation such as the carbon tax.  And many who consider themselves secular environmentalists are inspired by a deep spiritual connection to nature. Various environmental ethics including deep ecology and religious naturalism ground activists’ connection with natural spaces. Various “ecosophical” movements like permaculture strive to align livelihoods and food systems with patterns identified in nature, so as to pursue the “good life,” create harmony and live closely with nature (Aiken 2017).

These brief examples illustrate the variety of scales within which religion and spirituality operate: from international communities to activist organizations to within every individual.  Regardless of our actions and beliefs, religious, spiritual, scientific, and other sources of knowledge and meaning drive people on all sides of the environmental movement. My interest goes beyond any particular “religion” but is based in the experience of religiosity and the ways spirituality shapes our discussions and perceptions around wicked issues like climate change.

Systems of Meaning

Historically, religious and spiritual systems have provided answers to many of life’s biggest questions and have supported humans through suffering and times of crisis (Esfahani-Smith 2017).  Because they were one of the first means of social organization, religions form the basis of many human cultures and build the foundations of connection, belonging, transcendence, and storytelling.  These “pillars of meaning” drive all social groups including religions, environmentalist organizations, and even hate groups (Esfahani-Smith 2017). Concepts in psychology, religious studies, and anthropology work to understand meaning making and the impacts of our spiritual experiences and cultural frameworks.  My work follows these same goals, in the context of how individuals and communities attribute meaning to environmental crises such as climate change. In this way, I’ll explore environmentalism as its own discursive tradition, within which a diversity of actors participate according to a dynamic interplay of their religious, spiritual, and scientific knowledge and values.

My Questions

Descriptive

• How are various religions showing up in environmental activist spaces around the world and in environmental discourse?
• Is environmentalism primarily described by scholars and activists through a religious/spiritual or secular/scientific lens?
• Is environmentalism seen primarily through religious/spiritual or secular/scientific lens?
• In the context of discussions about climate change, how does religion show up and in what diversity of ways?
• How do I define religion, spirituality, and environmentalism and in what context do I do this work?

Explanatory

• Why do some religions tend to get “blamed” for environmental issues while others are seen as being the key to the solution?
• In what ways do environmental studies and religious studies overlap in their approaches and what conclusions do they share in common?
• Why have environmental issues become polarized and partisan in the United States (and other places?)?
• In what ways does religion make climate change a particularly wicked problem?
• What brings me to this area of interest and why am I doing this work?

Evaluative

• How might various actors’ religious beliefs/backgrounds/assumptions complicate or otherwise confound the ability for diverse stakeholders to work together in solving environmental problems?
• What might it mean to see environmentalism in religious terms?
• How can social misunderstanding and conflict be understood according to religious and environmental philosophies?
• What happens when we overlap narratives of ecologic crisis and spiritual crisis, and seek to understand them as similar or connected problems?
• How does my positionality influence my scholarship in this work?

Instrumental

• Ought religious values or religious actors be part of the conversation surrounding wicked problems? Why, how?
• What are some environmental movements and solutions that have useful theoretical underpinnings in religious systems?
• How could environmental studies and religious studies as disciplines be combined to explain what is happening between stakeholders of various environmental issues around the world? With climate change?
• How can social connection and belonging be improved so as to improve understanding between stakeholders whose religious and spiritual frameworks take on various meanings with regard to environmental agendas?
• What religious and/or spiritual responsibilities might/do humans have that inspire or prevent environmental action?
• In what ways might climate change as a global and wicked problem be a fruitful catalyst for navigating deep divides between people and improving connectivity beyond times of crisis?
• How ought my positionality influence my scholarship in this work?

Resources

1. Aiken, Gerald Taylor. 2017. “Permaculture and the Social Design of Nature.” Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 99 (2): 172–91. Link.
2. Asad, Talal. 2009. “The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam.” Qui Parle 17 (2): 1–30. Link.
3. Berry, Evan. 2013. “Religious Environmentalism and Environmental Religion in America.” Religion Compass 7 (10): 454–66. Link.
4. Crichton, Michael. 2003. “Crichton: Environmentalism Is a Religion > Hawaii Free Press.” 2003. Link.
5. Darlington, Susan M. 1998. “The Ordination of a Tree: The Buddhist Ecology Movement in Thailand.” Ethnology 37 (1): 1–15. Link.
6. Esfahani-Smith, Emily. 2017. The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life That Matters. Penguin Canada.
7. Garrearu, Joel. 2010. “Environmentalism as Religion.” The New Atlantis. 2010. Link.
8. Hoffman, Andrew. 2012. “Climate Science as Culture War (SSIR).” 2012. Link.
9. IPCC. 2018. “Global Warming of 1.5 ^oC —.” 2018. Link.
10. McMahan, David L. 2009. The Making of Buddhist Modernism. The Making of Buddhist Modernism. Oxford University Press. Link.
11. Ronan, Marisa. 2017. “Religion and the Environment: Twenty-First Century American Evangelicalism and the Anthropocene.” Humanities 6 (4): 92. Link.
12. Sideris, Lisa. 2007. “Evolving Environmentalism: The Role of Ecotheology in Creation/Evolution Controversies.” Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture & Ecology 11 (1): 58–82. Link.
13. Torretta, Gabriel. 2015. “Thomas’ Green Thumb: Ecotheology Beyond Revolution and Reform.” Angelicum 92 (2): 213–32. Link.
14. U.N. Environment. 2018. “How Religions Are Involved in Environmental Protection.” UNEP – UN Environment Programme. July 25, 2018. Link.
15. White, Lynn. 1967. “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis.” Science, New Series 155 (3767): 1203–7. Link.
16. Zimmerman, Michael. 2011. “The Renewal of Religious Environmentalism | HuffPost.” March 27, 2011. Link.