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[JSRNC 10.1 (2016) 117-126] JSRNC (print) ISSN 1749-4907 doi: 10.1558/jsrnc.v10i1.27519 JSRNC (online) ISSN 1749-4915

______REVIEW ESSAY Religious Ecology: A New Primer ______

Leslie E. Sponsel Department of Anthropology, University of Hawai`i, 2424 Maile Way – Saunders Hall 346, Honolulu, HI 96822-2223, USA [email protected]

John Grim and Mary Evelyn Tucker, Ecology and Religion (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2014), x + 265 pp. (pbk), $30.00, ISBN: 13:978-1-59726- 707-6.

Anyone who explores the subject of religion and ecology is likely to encounter the work of John Grim and Mary Evelyn Tucker, Senior Lecturers and Research Scholars at Yale University in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Divinity School, and Department of Religious Studies. Grim and Tucker are editors of the benchmark book series on Religions of the World and Ecology from the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University. Also, they are founders of the Forum on Religion and Ecology, and contribute guidance and content to its website and monthly newsletter. Their documentary llm, Journey of the Universe, with Brian Thomas Swimme of the California Institute of Integral Studies, won an Emmy award (Swimme and Tucker 2011a). There is a companion book with the same title (Swimme and Tucker 2011b) and a ten-hour DVD series comprised of interviews with leading authorities (Swimme and Tucker 2011c). Now to this far-reaching body of work they have added this new primer, Ecology and Religion. Tucker and Grim are among the foremost contributors to the emerging academic leld that they call religion and ecology. Like most of their work, this book is inspired by their former professor, mentor, and later colleague, Thomas Berry, founder of the History of Religions Program at Fordham University (Berry 1999, 2006a, 2006b, 2009, 2014). Accordingly, Grim and Tucker approach the subject of religion and ecology mostly

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2016, 415 The Workstation, 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield S1 2BX. 118 Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture from a historical perspective with an emphasis on the worldviews and values of the so-called world religions as well as on cosmology. This is a student-friendly book. It is clearly and concisely written with an introduction, ten chapters, and an epilogue. Included are substantial notes and an extensive bibliography. Moreover, there is a set of provo- cative ‘Questions for Discussion’ for each chapter, an especially useful glossary, a long list of online resources, and seven appendices with key documents. The introduction and Chapters 1–5 develop the overall conceptual framework of religious ecology. Chapters 6–9 successively survey the religious ecology of Christianity, Confucianism, Indigenous Traditions, and Hinduism. Chapter 10 focuses on the Earth Charter, while the epilogue looks at the need for creating ecological cultures in the future. In the introduction, Grim and Tucker sketch some of their personal history in contributing to the development of the leld of religion and ecology, including Tucker’s experience in Japan and Grim’s experience with Native Americans. Furthermore, they discuss the continuing inmuence of Berry on their work. Then they outline the series of benchmark conferences on World Religions and Ecology that they facilitated at Harvard, which culminated in summaries in New York City at the American Museum of Natural History and the United Nations. The conferences at Harvard focused on retrieving environmentally relevant aspects of religious traditions and texts from Buddhism, Christi- anity, Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism, Indigenous Cultures, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, and Shinto. These religions were explored in light of contemporary environmental concerns. Seven values that these religions share regarding nature were identiled: reverence, respect, reciprocity, restraint, redistribution, responsibility, and restoration. The authors note that the Harvard conferences were the main stimulus in the creation of the Forum on Religion and Ecology (FORE) and its website. Furthermore, they claim that FORE has become a new moral force for cultivating sustainability and a better future. It currently engages a network of more than 12,000 individuals and organizations in academia and beyond through a monthly email newsletter and other means. FORE was one major catalyst in generating a new leld of academic scholarship. Tucker and Grim also established a new interdisciplinary MA degree program in religion and ecology, bridging the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies with the Divinity School at Yale University.1

1. Also see, for example, Bratton 2008; Jenkins and Chapple 2011; Sponsel 2007, 2014, 2015; Taylor 2005; and Tucker 2006, for overviews of the Àeld.

In Chapter 1, to their credit, Grim and Tucker caution that religions can present serious obstacles to ecological resilience. For example, they can be conservative and thus resistant to considering environmental problems and pursuing action, intolerant of other religions and resistant to interfaith collaboration, and focused on other-worldly concerns and consequently disengaged socially and politically. Moreover, people of faith do not always follow their highest ideals. After the authors identiled such obstacles, however, it would have been helpful for them to have suggested some remedies, as daunting as that may seem. They might also have noted that nature is not always benevolent, with natural hazards sometimes having a devastating impact on humans. The authors recognize that a broad range of individuals outside religious organizations, including many environmentalists, nature writers, artists, and secular humanists, may share moral values and spiritual attitudes toward nature. However, they do not pursue this point further, although devoting a chapter to it would seem especially appropriate for a primer (see, e.g., Sponsel 2012 and Taylor 2010). Grim and Tucker acknowledge the diversity, complexity, ambiguity, and dynamism in religion. They briemy highlight a few perspectives on selected world religions. However, they caution that some that appear to be environmentally friendly, such as Confucianism and Daoism in China, have not prevented environmental degradation. The core of this book is Chapter 2, in which Grim and Tucker assert that religious ecology should connect people in healthy ways with their environment by orienting, grounding, nurturing, and transforming communities. Subsequently, each of these four processes in turn is high- lighted in Chapters 6–9, each using a different religion to make the point. Next they advance their main argument:

Religious ecologies are ways of orienting and grounding whereby humans, acknowledging the limitations of phenomenal reality and the suffering inherent in life, undertake specilc practices of nurturing and transforming self and community in a particular cosmological context that regards nature as inherently valuable (p. 35).

Although this delnition is rather involved, it perceptively encapsu- lates the four processes previously mentioned that are the core of this book. The authors emphasize that this delnition of religious ecologies imparts fresh meaning to the word ‘religion’ by implying a return to a relationship with numinous power through extending it to embrace the elemental wellsprings of life. The next chapter (3) provides a broad survey of the history of intel- lectual ideas about nature in Western philosophy and religion, drawing in particular on the classic studies by Peter Coates (1998),

Clarence Glacken (1973), and Donald Worster (1994), among other sources. Egerton (2012a, b) would have been very useful, as well as a more recent source. In Chapter 4 the authors discuss from a historical perspective how ecologists have studied and valued nature. Scientilc ecology is delned as: ‘the empirical and experimental study of the interactions of living and nonliving components of an ecosystem through energy mow and nutrient cycling’ (p. 62). Key concepts in biological ecology are con- sidered briemy in historical perspective, such as food chain, food web, niche, succession, climax, ecosystem, energy mow, and nutrient cycling. All of this is useful for readers who lack such background, even though superb surveys are readily available (e.g., Marten 2001). It seems to me that it would be desirable to explore in more detail the actual and potential interrelationships between biological ecology and religious ecology with some specilc examples (see, e.g., Uhl 2013). There is little scientilc ecology in the subsequent chapters on different religions. Instead, Grim and Tucker explain, ‘Religious ecologies are functional cosmologies that express an awareness of kinship with and dependence on nature for the continuity of all life. Religious ecologies, then, provide frameworks for exploring diverse religious worldviews, symbol systems, rituals, and ethics as developed in relation to the processes of Earth and of bioregions’ (p. 63). In Chapter 5 the authors describe some of the more important developments in the emerging leld of religion and ecology with a focus on retrieving, reevaluating, and reconstructing human–environment interrelationships toward developing ecological cultures for a more sustainable future. Grim and Tucker very usefully outline the history of Christian religious ecologies and related cosmologies by briemy mention- ing the various contributions of Joseph Sittler, John Cobb, Calvin DeWitt, Sallie McFague, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Leonardo Boff, Matthew Fox, Thomas Berry, and others. This portion serves as a useful update of a previous detailed account (Nash 1989). The authors close this chapter by providing a preview of the religious ecologies of Christianity, Confucianism, Indigenous traditions, and Hinduism, which later are discussed successively in Chapters 6–9. Those four chapters and the closing epilogue include examples from the lrst- hand experiences of the authors in engaging with the subject matter. This adds special interest for the reader. Their experiences are also another indication of their numerous, diverse, and far-reaching involve- ment in facilitating religion and ecology as an academic leld and also as a force in environmentalism. The focus of the next chapter (6) is on the religious environmentalism of a prominent religious leader who has been concerned with the envi-

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2016. Sponsel Religious Ecology: A New Primer 121 ronment for more than two decades, the Green Patriarch, Bartholomew I of the Eastern Orthodox Church. This variant of Christianity views the material world as infused by divine creativity, the ultimate unity of heaven and earth. Consequently, despoiling creation is a sin against God. Since the environmental crisis is ultimately a spiritual and moral crisis, purely secular approaches are limited in dealing with it, a recurrent mantra in this leld. The Green Patriarch focuses on facilitating international, interfaith, and interdisciplinary symposia to call attention to and formulate practical initiatives regarding pollution of the major water bodies of the world. Grim and Tucker participated in lve of these symposia. Like most of the book, however, this chapter is mainly about environmental ideas and short on corresponding environmental actions and consequences. They could have offered much more information about practical initiatives by the Green Patriarch to deal with water pollution, such as the wetlands conservation project in Greece (The Ecumenical Patriarch 2014). Inciden- tally, a fascinating documentary llm titled ‘The Green Patriarch’ nicely complements this chapter (Green Patriarch n.d.). Chapter 7 begins with an interesting account of a visit by the authors with Pan Yue, the Deputy Vice Minister for the Environment in Beijing, China. He holds a doctorate in the history of religion and is a scholarly government oflcial in the tradition of Confucianism. He has pursued the application of Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist principles for the development of an ecological culture in China. Then the authors highlight in historical perspective Confucian ideas about harmony between the interdependent triad of Heaven, Earth, and Human. Nevertheless, they mention how, from 1966–76, the Cultural Revolution, led by Chairman Mao all but extinguished the social inmuence of religion, although in recent decades that is reviving, as also discussed in this chapter. Grim and Tucker note as well that in recent decades economic development has taken precedence over the environment, degrading the latter to the point that pollution of soil, water, and air is endangering the health and livelihood of many millions. Whether the gap between the ideals of Confucianism and the realities of contemporary China can be reduced signilcantly is an open question, according to the authors. Furthermore, there is no harmony for Tibetans, a sensitive matter that the authors do not broach, but which includes rampant exploitation and degradation of their land and natural resources by the Chinese for more than six decades (Buckley 2014; International Campaign for Tibet 2014; Laltte 2013; Sponsel 2012: 161-68). Even so, this chapter remains a most important overview of the subject, and Tucker is one of the world’s authorities on Confucianism (Tucker and Berthrong 1998).

Chapter 8 departs from the approach of Chapters 6, 7, and 9. It focuses on describing in detail a particular ritual of religious ecology, the Winter Dance of the Salish/Okanagan people in the state of Washington. Again, this involves lrst-hand experience, in this case of John Grim, who attended many of these annual ceremonies. Grim (1983, 2001) is recognized worldwide as an expert on shamanism and indigenous religious traditions and ecology. Unlike the three other chapters on particular religions, this one does not attempt an overview of ecologically relevant ideas, which may be wise, given the tremendous diversity of indigenous religious ecologies. Yet, some points resonate more generally, if not universally, with indigenous spiritual ecologies (see, e.g., Harvey 2013). For example, the authors observe that the Salish ‘lifeway does not separate out religion and the spiritual life as an autonomous, individu- alistic, or separate component from community life’ (p. 128). In the conclusion of this chapter, the authors importantly note that in spite of colonialism and other destructive external forces, indigenous religious ecologies have been remarkably persistent and resilient over many generations in particular places (see, e.g., Bodley 2015). The next chapter (9) begins with Grim and Tucker describing their personal experience with one of the most signilcant pilgrimage sites in India. For centuries the Yamuna River has been an important component of Hindu religious ecology as one of several major sacred rivers. Nevertheless, over the last four decades it has increasingly become physically impure because of pollution from rapid industrialization and urbanization. Even so, many Hindus believe that the river can be dirty yet never lose its purity, a religious obstacle to scientilc action to deal with the physical pollution. Thus, one problem is the tension between economic development backed by science, technology, and politicians on the one hand, and on the other religious leaders and devotees. To confront the paradoxes of this dying river and pursue the sustainability of its biological and religious ecologies, Tucker and Grim helped organize conferences to facilitate dialog among religious leaders, historians of religion, scientists such as hydrologists and ecologists, and policy experts. Among the concrete results of the conferences were the Yamuna River Declaration (reprinted in Appendix E) and several specilc recommendations to transcend the fragmented approaches of difference perspectives, levels, and policies. With this chapter (9), Grim and Tucker provide a fascinating and important case study of the complex and difl- cult situation of the Yamuna River. They assert that this paradox of purity and pollution requires transformative action, including constructive and practical dialog and collaboration between representatives of scientilc ecology and religious ecology. However, they conclude that it

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2016. Sponsel Religious Ecology: A New Primer 123 is uncertain whether the immense problems concerning the Yamuna River can be resolved and then pose several questions that remain to be answered. In the penultimate chapter (10), the authors outline the history of the Earth Charter, a world-wide effort over several decades to develop and implement a global environmental ethics, with interfaith dialog having a signilcant input. The Earth Charter is both a document and a move- ment, as revealed in this chapter and in the website by that name. It involved the most inclusive civil society process of dialog, negotiation, and drafting, with thousands of individuals and organizations partici- pating (see, e.g., Lynn et al. 2004). The series of conferences on World Religions and Ecology that were orchestrated principally by Tucker and Grim at Harvard contributed signilcantly to this global initiative, according to the authors. Grim and Tucker point out that a common concern for the environment is emerging to override differences among religions. They identify the key components of the Earth Charter as cosmological context, respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, social equity, economic justice, democracy, nonviolence, and peace. Furthermore, they observe that these remect the seven values identiled above for the welfare of human interactions with nature that are shared by world religions. The remainder of the chapter discusses such matters. These two scholars conclude that the Earth Charter can enlarge conceptions and perceptions regarding sustainable development to encompass ecological, economic, social, and spiritual well-being, thereby providing a comprehensive orienting and grounding for the creation of more ecological cultures worldwide. Here again, however, I crave more discussion beyond ideas to actions and their consequences with respect to the environment. Some of this information is available on the websites of Earth Charter (2014) and FORE (Tucker and Grim 2014). The epilogue outlines the need to integrate ecological awareness and ethical sensitivity toward the environment in creating ecological cultures. It begins with the personal experience of Grim and Tucker on one of the Green Patriarch’s symposium voyages, this time to the Arctic, and, most appropriately, addressing global climate change. This topic is a most ltting conclusion to their primer, although it might have been discussed in more detail (e.g., Moore and Nelson 2010). That global climate change is well under way, and that humans are a signilcant contributing factor, are realities conlrmed by thousands of scientilc authorities internationally, and increasingly by witnesses in many parts of the world to the growing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, among other observations in nature (e.g., Crate and Nuttall

2009). It is no exaggeration to say that this is a threat to the security of humanity and the biosphere, and the greatest challenge for the academic leld of religion and ecology, as championed by Grim and Tucker, among many others. These two scholars reiterate in this epilogue that secular approaches, including science, technology, and government, have not been suflcient. The engagement of the leaders and adherents of the world religions is necessary as well. Grim and Tucker, and this leld in general, challenge humanity to rethink, refeel, and revision its relationship to nature, to repeat the wise admonition of Lynn White, Jr., in his famous 1967 article in Science (see, e.g., Gottlieb 2007). In conclusion, overall my primary concern about much of this book is that it concentrates far more on ideas than actions. Ultimately, it is through actions and their consequences, as well as ideas, with respect to the environment that more ecological cultures will be created. Also in my opinion, much more attention to ecological situations and processes on the ground would have strengthened this book, given its title, Ecology and Religion, as well as some of its assertions. This said, whenever non- biologists address ecology without signilcant background in the subject, they are usually delcient to some degree, whether anthropologists, geographers, historians, or those from other disciplines. Nevertheless, any shortcomings of this book are far outweighed by its most valuable strengths and contributions. Certainly this is a very useful primer on religion and ecology by two luminaries in the leld. It is a major benchmark for at least three reasons. First, it is of special value for instructors and students. Its carefully crafted pedagogical features are a great asset. Second, it is especially useful as a distillation and synthesis of the numerous, diverse, and impressive initiatives and achievements by Grim and Tucker over the last three decades. Third, it is important as part of the Island Press series called Foundations of Contemporary Environmental Studies, thereby helping to establish this new leld of religion and ecology within that domain. For the survival and well-being of humanity and the biosphere, it is crucial that the mutual relevance of religion and ecology be fully recognized, systematically explored, and judiciously developed in depth. This book is imperative reading for anyone interested in the subject.

References

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