Rallying Believers to Pax Gaia

Ifyou 're pro-God,you must be Green, suggests Yales Farum on Religion and Ecology By Neil Maghami

Summary: The Forum on Religion and Ecol­ ogyat Yale Universitycalls itselfthe "largest international multireligious project of its kind. " Its organizers characterize it as an academic initiative, but a careful inspection reveals that it is more of an effortto prosely­ tize-with a specificgoal of rallying religious believers to Big Greens banner.

ealthy foundations, together with the organizations funded by those Wfoundations, make up the infra­ structure of the environmentalist movement. Without that infrastructure, the movement would be just another vocal special-interest group. Leveraging foundation grants to fuel its net­ work of tax-exempt 50l(c)(3) organizations, Big Green wields enormous power. It influ­ Mother Earth; Grim and Tucker; and a scene from a YouTube video featuring Thomas Berry. ences government regulation, intervenes in more on religious environmentalism, see the that thirty years of good science could political campaigns, lobbies elected officials, December 2013 Green Watch and the June address these problems. I was wrong. and alters, often directs, public policy-not 2009 issue of our sister publication Organi­ The top environmental problems are just in Washington, D.C., but through inter­ zation Trends.] selfishness, greed and apathy, and to national bodies like the United Nations. deal with these we need a cultural and Yet that isn't enough. For Big Green, it isn't Watch out for FORE spiritual transformation." sufficient to have influence over policy and The article on "Spiritual Ecology" in the Speth, by the way, was founderof the World policymakers. Big Green wants to create online, purportedly objective encyclopedia a climate in which its ideas predominate. Wikipedia, outlines the Green religionists' Resources Institute and co-founder of the Some parts of the environmentalist coalition way of thought: Natural Resources Defense Council and are trying to achieve the movement's goals an advisor to Presidents Jimmy Carter and Despite the disparate arenas of study Bill Clinton. The Wikipedia article goes on piecemeal, one lobbying success or election and practice, the principles of spiritual victory at a time, but some audacious thinkers to praise the leading lights of the Spiritual ecology are simple: In order to resolve Ecology movement. on the environmentalist Left believe they can such environmental issues as depletion accomplish those goals must faster by chang­ of species, global warming, and over­ ing the terms of the debate-by promoting consumption, humanity must examine Green-tinted theology: environmentalism as and reassess our underlying attitudes June 2016 religion. and beliefs about the earth, and our spiri­ This under-the-radar, religion-focused initia­ tual responsibilities toward the planet. Rallying Believers to Pax Gaia tive-this effort to co-opt religious believ­ U.S. Advisor [sic] on climate change, Page 1 ers into warriors for the environmentalist James Gustave Speth, said: "I used to cause-is fueled by grants fromfoundations. think that top environmental problems Green Notes The leading example: the Forum on Religion were biodiversity loss, ecosystem col­ Page 6 and Ecology (FORE) at Yale University. [For lapse and climate change. I thought According to Wikipedia: difference in the status of spiritual ecol­ Fred Lucas noted in the August 2013 issue Among scholars contributing to spiritual ogy prior to and since their work. of Green Watch's sister publication Founda­ tion Watch. ecology, five stand out because of their As noted, FORE was founded by Mary exceptionally high creativity, productiv­ Evelyn Tucker andJ ohn Grim. They started Working together, Grim and Tucker were ity and impact: Steven C[.] Rockefeller, the organization in 2006 and serve today as contributing editors for the Encyclopedia Mary Evelyn Tucker,John Grim, Bron its coordinators. of Religion (second edition), organizing Taylor and Roger S. Gottlieb. Grim is currently a senior lecturer and 12 articles on religion and ecology. They Mary Evelyn Tucker andJohn Grim are senior research scholar at Yale, teaching describe themselves as "historians of reli­ the dynamic forcesbehind Yale Univer­ courses that draw students from the School gions." Their specific academic interest lies sity's Forum on Religion and Ecology, of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Yale in the "interconnections" between religions an international multi-religious project Divinity School, the Department ofReligious and ethical traditions, their respective sacred exploring religious world-views, texts, Studies, the Institution for Social and Policy texts and rituals, and "the relationships hu­ ethics and practices in order to broaden Studies, and the Yale Colleges. mans have with the natural world." Tucker's understanding of the complex nature of specialization is Confucianism, while Grim's He is editor of the "World Religions and current environmental concerns. is in North American Indian belief systems. Ecology" series from Harvard Divinity Both studied at differentpoints in their career Steven Clark Rockefeller is an author of School's Center for the Study of World Re­ under eco-theologian Thomas Berry. numerous books about religion and the ligions, which includes such works as Indig­ environment, and is professor emeritus enous Traditions and Ecology: The Interbe­ The Forum grew out of a series of confer­ of religion at Middlebury College. He ing of Cosmology and Community. Grim ences on religion and nature/ecology held played a leading role in the drafting of has been a professor of religion at Bucknell in 1996-1998 and organized by Grim and the Earth Charter. University. At Sarah Lawrence College, he Tucker through Harvard's Center for the Roger S. Gottlieb is a professor of taught courses on Native American (i.e., Study of WorldReligions. Some 800 "envi­ Philosophy at Worcester Polytechnic In­ American Indian) and IndigenousR eligions, ronmentalists and international scholars of stitute and is author of over 100 articles World Religions, and Religion and Ecology. the world's religions participated," according and 16 books on environmentalism, Grim is president of the American Teilhard to the Forum's website. religious life, contemporary spirituality, Association, named for the philosopher and The series touched on every major world political philosophy, ethics, feminism, Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who faith-Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hindu­ and the Holocaust. promoted a quasi-mystical idea that earth ism,Jainism, Buddhism, Daoism (Taoism), evolved and is evolving: from inanimate Bron Taylor at the University ofFlorida Confucianism, Shinto, and "indigenous" matter to a world of biological lifeto a sphere religions. coined the term "Dark Green Religion" of human thought. to describe a set of beliefs and practices Various foundations funded the confer­ Tucker is a senior lecturer and research centered on the conviction that nature ence series, including V. Kann Rasmussen scholar at Yale University where she holds is sacred. Foundation, Nathan CummingsFoundation, appointments in the Divinity School and in Germeshausen Foundation, Albert and Vera Each of the above has cultivated his or the School of Forestry and Environmental List Endowment, John D. and Catherine T. her own niche in this emerging field of Studies. She is also a research associate at MacArthur Foundation, Sacharuna Founda­ academic thought and pragmatic action. the Reischauer Institute ofJapanese Studies tion, Surdna Foundation, and the Winslow Taken together they may be best consid­ at Harvard. ered as mutually reinforcing in synergy. Foundation. With Brian Swimme (professor at the There is a very substantial qualitative California Institute of Integral Studies in The IO conferences produced 10 academic volumes from Harvard. All l O books have the Editor: Steven J. Allen San Francisco), Tucker created The Jour­ ney of the Universe, which consisted of a same opening essay by Grim and Tucker, in­ Publisher: Scott Walter book published by Yale University Press, cluding the following statements that provide Address: 1513 16th Street, NW a PBS film, and an "educational series of insight into the views of these "historians of Washington, DC 20036-1480 interviews." She wrote Worldly Wonder: Re­ religion": Phone: (202) 483-6900 ligions Enter TheirEcological Phase (2003). While in the past none of the religions of E-mail: [email protected] She is a member of the Interfaith Partnership the world have had to facean environ­ Website: CapitalResearch.org for the Environment at the United Nations mental crisis such as we are now con­ Environment Programme. From 1997-2000, fronting, they remain key instruments Green Watch is published by Capital she served on the International Earth Char­ in shaping attitudes toward nature. The unintended consequences of the modem Research Center, a non-partisan education ter Drafting Committee, and is a member of the Earth Charter International Council. industrial drive for unlimited economic and research organization classified by the The Earth Charter is an attempt to enshrine growth and resource development have IRS as a 501(c)(3) public charity. Reprints "sustainable development" as a guiding prin­ led us to an impasse regarding the sur­ are available for $2.50 prepaid to Capital ciple forthe global community and "largely vival of many life-forms and appropriate Research Center. blames capitalism for the world's environ­ management of varied ecosystems. The mental and socioeconomic problems," as religious traditions may indeed be criti-

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Tucker claimed that 10,000 religious leaders work brought him into contact with younger terranean region-theologically, a relation­ were involved with the People's Climate academics who became friends and collabo­ ship between humans and the earth that is March. Thirty religious leaders released a rators-Tucker and Grim among them. very different from the one in the prevailing joint statement on the occasion of the march, The intersection of religion and the envi­ beliefs among mainstream Christians, Jews, declaring that "climate change stands today ronment figured ever more prominently in and Muslims. (Note that the United Nations, as a major obstacle to the eradication of Berry's published works, which include The under a 2009 General Assembly resolution, poverty. Severe weather events exacerbate Dream ofthe Earth ( 1988), The Great Work: refersto Earth Day as "InternationalMother hunger, cause economic insecurity, force dis­ Our Way Into the Future (1992), Evening Earth Day.") placement and prevent sustainable develop­ Thoughts: Reflecting on Earth as Sacred To save the planet from environmental ment. The climate crisis is about the survival Community (2006), The Sacred Universe: destruction and establish the Pax Gaia, of humanity on planet earth, and action must Earth, Spirituality, and Religion in the Berry invested great hope on the world's reflect these facts with urgency." Signatories Twenty-first Century(2009) and The Chris­ universities: included Christian leaders representing a tian Future and the Fate of Earth (2009). variety of denominations, as well as Jewish, Here I propose that the religions are Jain, Hindu, and Islamic authorities. Of the above works, perhaps the best in­ too pious, the corporations too plun­ troduction to Berry's thought is The Great dering, the governmenttoo subservient If you "green" the world's religions, you Work. In the book, he argued for a funda­ to provide any adequate remedy. The "green" the thinking of faith communities mental transformation of the human species' universities, however, should have the on public policy questions such as Global relationship with the Earth. Heaping scorn on insight and the freedom to provide the Warming and environmental rules and regu­ corporations for their single-minded pursuit guidance needed by the human com­ lations. Political questions can be rephrased of gain, Berry predicted that "The distorted munity. The universities should also as ethical and moral questions, turning op­ dream of an industrial technological paradise have the critical capacity, the influence ponents of Big Green into "bad" people. is being replaced by the more viable dream over the other professions and other Thomas Berry, Green priest of a mutually enhancing human presence activities of society. In a special man­ within an ever-renewing organic-based Earth ner the universities have the contact Who was Thomas Berry, the mentor of community." The "Great Work" of the title is with the younger generation needed to Tucker and Grim? therefore the task of engineering the shift to reorient the human community towards Berry was an advocate of "deep ecology," this new form of human organization. Berry a greater awareness that the human ex­ a system of beliefs in which human beings singled out "Western cultural expression" as ists, survives and becomes whole only pose a threat to the rights of ecosystems. In the source of much of the world's ills. within the single great community of this belief system, people can avoid violating the planet Earth. "We need to reinvent the human at the spe­ ecosystems' rights by engaging in simple liv­ cies level because the issues we are con­ It's unclear what purpose univers1t1es ing (that is, eschewing moderntechnology), cerned with seem to be beyond the compe­ would share in a Berry-transformed world. by preventing the development of wild areas, tence of our present cultural traditions, either Would they still functionas laboratories and and by restricting the numbers of humans. individually or collectively. What is needed research centers, fostering technological Berry was bornin Greensboro, North Caro­ is something beyond existing traditions to progress? Or would all that come to an end, lina, in 1914. According to one biographer, bring us back to the most fundamental aspect as they concentrated on the urgent indoc­ Berry by age eight "had concluded that com­ of the human: giving shape to ourselves. The trination of the young into a new political mercial values were threatening life on the human is at a cultural impasse. In our efforts consciousness? planet." In 1933, he entered a monastery of to reduce the other-than-human components Another part of the shift proposed by Berry the Passionist order, and he was ordained in of the planet to subservience to our West­ apparently involves a societal shift towards 1942. He received his doctorate in history ern cultural expression, we have brought solar power. As he wrote in The Great Work: from The Catholic University of America. the entire set of life-systems of the planet, He came to call himself a cosmologist (an including the human, to an extremely dan­ Our primary concernmust be to restore expert on the origin and fate of the universe) gerous situation. Radical new cultural forms the organic economy of the entire planet. and a geologian ("earth scholar"). "Geolo­ are needed. These new cultural forms would This means to foster the entire range of gian" is an obsolete term for geologist. For place the human within the dynamics of the life-systems of the planet. All are need­ 12 years, he was the president of the planet rather than place the planet within the ed. It means that we must establish our American Teilhard Association. He died in dynamics of the human." basic source of food and energy in the 2009 at age 94. sun, which supplies the energy for the If one takes Berry at his word, this is not a transformationof inanimate matter into He combined his background in European call for small-scale reforms, but for a mas­ living substance capable of nourishing intellectual history with intensive study of sive, wrenching, wholesale change to civili­ the larger biosystems of Earth. Eastern religious/ethnical traditions, includ­ zation as we have known it. Berry once sum­ ing Confucianism. Over his career, Berry marized this shift as a move towards a Pax He dismissed human interest in space explo­ had long-term professional associations Gaia, "the peace of Earth and every being on ration as a signal not of growing technologi­ with Fordham University and the Riverdale the Earth." The term evokes Gaia (Mother cal capability, but a symptom of our species' Center of Religious Research, along with Earth) worship and the ancient pagan faiths general immaturity in its relationship to the the American Teilhard Association. This that flourished at one time across the Medi- umverse:

Page4 Green Watch June 2016 Our concernfor space exploration, in the has made about $140 million in total grants I've observed that many people support­ expectation that we will have used up to 160 organizations. ing this view don't like to hear counter­ Earth and will need to move the human Its work is centered on the idea that "human arguments; they don't like to hear about venture out into other planets, is to waste how what they are calling for-curbing activities lie at the core of most environ­ irreplaceable resources and to neglect human access to inexpensive forms mental problems, and human creativity and much-needed research into the organic collaboration are at the heart of solving the of energy, for example-would mean world of this planet. Our excitement deliberately impoverishing millions of problems these activities create. The envi­ about the possibility of colonizing Mars people in developing countries. Where's ronmental mission of VKRF is to support is something of a child-like delight. We the "social justice" in that? the transition to a more environmentally imagine something strange and exciting resilient, stable, and sustainable planet. We The Forum is another example, by the in some farawayplace while we remain believe best practices for promoting sustain­ way, of how much fundingthe environ­ insufficiently interested in the wonders ability will be most effectively developed mentalist movement has access to -they in our immediate surroundings and their through an integrated systems approach have the resources to fill every possible well-being in the future. and one that furthers the involvement of an niche, including fashioning Green ap­ [Editor's note: For the story of how the Left informed public in environmental decision peals to religious believers. ruined the U.S. manned space program, see making." The Forum on Religion and Ecology is a this month's issue of our sister publication .... Germeshausen Foundation: This foun­ cleverly camouflaged effort not to study Organization Trends. -SJA] dation's support of the Forum amounted differentreligions, but to actively influence Forum funders to more than $1 million between 2008 and faith communities and their views of the en­ 2014. Kenneth Germeshausen, an engineer vironment. Tucker and Grim see in religion, Closely linked to the Forum at Yale is the tax­ and inventor, and his wife Pauline set up and in religion-based ethics, opportunities to exempt Thomas Berry Foundation, which, the foundation in 1967. Based in Boston, it shape public opinion and influence political as stated in its IRS filings, "undertakes its action. programmatic activity" through the Forum is now led by Nancy Klavans, the couple's daughter, and reported assets of$29 million for Religion and Ecology. The Foundation, If the ultimate goal is Berry's Pax Gaia, how based in Woodbridge, Connecticut, reported at the end of 2014. Klavans has also served will the world get there? Tucker has called just $142,000 in net assets in 2014. The as an "oversight trustee" at the Thomas Berry for a shift from a "western Enlightenment Foundation. The foundation's website de­ Foundation has described this "program­ mentality emphasizing radical individual­ scribes Kenneth Germeshausen as "a prolific matic activity" at times as representing ism to an Earth community mentality of a inventor" who "held more than 50 patents." "direct charitable activities." shared future." .,.. Tides Foundation: This shadowy organi­ Grim and Tucker are managing trustees of When fullyrealized, this "Earth community" zation has been a conduit for contributions to the Thomas Berry Foundation, which they could move to implement the global Green helped found in 1998. There is a separate the Thomas Berry Foundation. Records show shift contemplated in Berry's The Great committee of oversight trustees, and Grim Tides provided Thomas Berry with $300,000 Work. A new relationship between the human in 2004 and $456,000 in 2005. and Tucker appear to collect no salary for species and the planet would be consecrated by the world's religions, marrying Green their work on the foundation. But almost The simple life all of the Thomas Berry Foundation's sup­ ideology to theological authority. We have to Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise port to the Forum underwrites the costs of pursue an environmentalist agenda because Institute has noted the connection between events, books, etc. that raise the profile of God (that is, Mother Earth) wants us to. the monastic life of Thomas Berry and the Grim and Tucker within the "religion and eco-leftist agenda of the Forum on Religion Then there will be Pax Gaia, the sort of ecology" field. and Ecology, which was founded by two of "peace" that comes when all resistance is The Thomas Berry Foundation appears to Berry's followers.Berry is credited as the co­ ended. exist mainly to pool financial contributions founder of the Green Mountain Monastery, Neil Maghami is a freelance writer and fromsympathetic grant-making foundations located in Greensboro, Vermont. Said Ebell: frequent contributor to Capital Research in support of the Forum's work. Some no­ Monasteries follow a very simple way Center publications. table examples: of living, including producing their own .,.. V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation: This food and perhaps some small items for sale. There's something admirable there, New York City-based foundation memo­ The Capital Research Center but ...the world as we know it cannot rializes Danish entrepreneur Villum Kann is a watchdog over politicians, [replicate that] model. The productive Rasmussen, who made a fortune through his bureaucrats, and special inter­ world, so to speak, provides the space invention of a special form of roof window. ests in Washington, D.C., and in Created in 1991, with assets of $89 million for monasteries to exist. The monastery all 50 states. Please consider at the end of 2014, the foundationhas a spe­ model isn't going to work for the whole contributing to CRC. cial focus on "strengthening environmental world. That's something we should keep research." Between 2002 and 2006, the foun­ in mind when the Berrys of the world go Scott Walter dation provided $400,000 in grants to the out and preach the need for more simple President Thomas Berry Foundation. The foundation ways of living.

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