Religion and the Environment

Journal of Religion & Society Supplement Series 3 The Kripke Center 2008 ISSN: 1941-8450 Religion and the Environment Edited by Ronald A. Simkins Unlikely Alliances Notes On A Green Culture of Life Jennifer Ladino, Creighton University Introduction [1] One wintry morning last January while driving to campus, I turned on the radio to discover an interview-in-progress on NPR’s All Things Considered – a segment of their series “Crossing the Divide,” intriguingly titled “Evangelists and Environmentalists Join Forces.” Eric Chivian, a biochemist at Harvard, and Richard Cizik, vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals, were describing how they had formed a political alliance to grapple with “so-called life issues.” Their first order of business, they agreed, was to combat global warming. As Cizik’s qualifier “so-called” suggests, not everyone agrees on what a “life issue” is, or should be. Since I had been thinking quite a bit about the idea of a “culture of life” and the possibilities for “greening” this popular rhetoric, I was fascinated by the common ground these groups were finding. Of course, there are some seemingly fundamental differences between the worldviews of “evangelists” and “environmentalists.” In the words of the biochemist Chivian, Cizik might have assumed he and other secular scientists were “latte-sipping, Prius-driving, endive-munching, New York Times-reading snobs. And we [scientists] might have seen them as Hummer-driving, bible-thumping, fire- breathing . snake-handling fundamentalists.” That these sorts of stereotypes circulate, and that they are troubling, is certainly true. But are they insurmountable obstacles in the way of a shared political vision? Not necessarily. 146 Religion and the Environment [2] Lest I replicate such stereotypes, let me say a few words about the categories I am using in this essay. First, I want to acknowledge and engage the simplistic binaries that function so powerfully in our world, even while recognizing that these binaries are never quite so simple. Broadening the categories that Chivian and Cizik represent, I will instead work with “the religious right” and “secular humanists.” Following E. O. Wilson and others, I am employing the phrase “secular humanist” to encompass environmentalists and scientists who do not allow religious doctrine to shape their environmental beliefs.1 I will consider the religious right as an expansive category including, most prominently, evangelical Christians.2 I sometimes revert to “left” and “right,” realizing that these categories, like the others, are murky. In the two case studies that follow this introduction, I will attempt to map these binaries in such a way as to break them down into the more nuanced categories that better reflect the complex belief systems of real people. [3] The apparent incompatibilities between the religious right and secular humanists often involve oversimplified conceptions of “the other” combined with misunderstandings about environmental issues. Some of the more contentious ideological differences include: • The belief in creationism versus the belief in evolution; • The skepticism about, or outright denial of, global warming versus an urgent desire to take action on that issue; • The belief in dominion over nature versus the belief in responsible stewardship or environmental protectionism; • The debates over “right to life” issues, primarily abortion and euthanasia, but more recently including stem cell research. Undergirding these issue-based disagreements are ideological assumptions about how “the other” views morality and lives life. The right often accuses the left of moral relativism, while the left thinks moral absolutism is a form of totalitarianism, especially when morality becomes legislated. Political and scholarly discourse often perpetuates these accusations. For instance, notable scholar and cultural critic Henry Giroux laments the rise of religious fundamentalism in the U.S. for its “rampant anti-intellectualism” and “Taliban-like morality” (313). As such divisive rhetoric indicates, there are clearly very real obstacles to finding common ground on environmental and social issues. [4] Faced with such binary divisions, the idea of “life” as something we all share, something that could unite rather than alienate people with different beliefs, demands further reflection. Popular usage of the phrase “culture of life” tends to connote two major issues – abortion and euthanasia – especially after the high-profile Terry Schiavo case. Perhaps some readers 1 See Wilson (3-4) for an outline of the competing worldviews of secular humanists, like himself, and religious figures, like the imaginary pastor to whom his recent book is addressed. 2 Again, I acknowledge the oversimplification in doing this. For instance, the religious right sometimes includes Catholics, as in the powerful conservative group Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT). This alliance has produced a series of joint declarations surrounding the issue of life, contributing to the reduction of the idea of life to a handful of issues (primarily abortion) and promoting a binary (good/evil) conception of the world. For a discussion of ECT, see Lauritzen. Journal of Religion & Society 147 Supplement Series 3 Religion and the Environment will share my surprise, then, at discovering that the best-known recent source of the phrase, Pope John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae (EV), did allude to the environment as one of the major issues such a culture should address. A look at the late Pope’s expression of this agenda suggests that bringing the environment to life, so to speak, could be a way to foster both environmental and social justice. [5] The (binary) formulation of a human struggle between a culture of life and a culture of death – a formulation that seems to reinforce the kinds of left-right divisions I have been discussing – frames EV. Even so, a careful reader should perceive a more comprehensive vision for social justice as the major impetus behind the culture of life outlined in this text. Indeed, The Gospel of Life mentions a range of issues that are all important to its mission of promoting the common good and protecting the weak, including “opposing poverty, hunger, war, torture, environmental degradation, and the death penalty” (Lauritzen: 16). Specifically, here is some of what the former Pope had to say about the environment in 1995: As one called to till and look after the garden of the world (cf. Gen 2:15), man has a specific responsibility towards the environment in which he lives, towards the creation which God has put at the service of his personal dignity, of his life, not only for the present but also for future generations. It is the ecological question – ranging from the preservation of the natural habitats of the different species of animals and of other forms of life to “human ecology” properly speaking – which finds in the Bible clear and strong ethical direction, leading to a solution which respects the great good of life, of every life. In fact, “the dominion granted to man by the Creator is not an absolute power, nor can one speak of a freedom to ‘use and misuse,’ or to dispose of things as one pleases. The limitation imposed from the beginning by the Creator himself and expressed symbolically by the prohibition not to ‘eat of the fruit of the tree’ (cf. Gen 2:16-17) shows clearly enough that, when it comes to the natural world, we are subject not only to biological laws but also to moral ones, which cannot be violated with impunity” (42).3 The language here echoes environmental discourse, emphasizing our “responsibility towards the environment” and the “ethical direction” necessary to anticipate the well-being of “future generations.” Challenging the popular criticism that Christianity, especially in its creation story, justifies the exploitation of nature by humans (see White for the oft-cited expression of this criticism), the Pope acknowledges the limitations the Bible places on that purported “dominion,” reminding us that ours is “not an absolute power.” Perhaps most importantly, this encyclical suggests that a sense of environmental ethics should apply to “every life” – a phrase that gestures toward social justice for all people even as it asks to be interpreted more broadly, to include more than just human lives. Unfortunately, the environmental dimensions of this text have fallen away in mainstream discourse. Likewise, 3 The quotation is a reference to his 1987 encyclical, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (30 December): 34. Notably, Tucker references this quotation along with other Catholic teachings that could be used to help articulate a shared global ethics (101-12). She argues that we must “expand CST to include the environment as a primary context for sustaining life on the planet” (96). Journal of Religion & Society 148 Supplement Series 3 Religion and the Environment the social agenda outlined in The Gospel of Life has been reduced to a few select issues that play out in the political arena.4 This reductive politicization of the catch-phrase “culture of life” fuels the left’s urge to pigeonhole the right as morally totalitarian on individual rights but neglectful of broader issues like poverty, war, and the environment. [6] Environmentalists are pigeonholed in their own ways, as secular humanists with no moral ground to stand on. To echo the Pope’s words, they are accused of ignoring “moral laws” in favor of biological ones. It is partly the eco-centric ideology of environmentalism that has put off the religious right, and many others, who see environmentalism as “a ‘liberal’ cause that prioritize[s] the needs of plants and animals over those of human beings” (Cizik in Martin’s NPR interview). But, more and more environmentalists, most notably those involved with the environmental justice movement, have begun to shift their priorities and recognize that environmental issues are social and moral issues – that is, they are integral to human life as well as to the natural world.

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