Cracks in the Ice II

(Continued from the preceding post.)

‘Better Late Than Never’

Would no response from religion have been better than being late and short?  No. The response has, at least, provided some foundation for a potential recovery following collapse. Has enough of a foundation been laid to carry a green theme through the coming collapse and into an undefinable future? That is hard to tell. Authoritarian governments have in the past incorporated strong ‘green’ themes. This is not to imply that environmental advocates could work easily with authoritarian, even fascist governments as collapse progresses. In the US, the situation becomes even more complex because of religion. Having watched the situation during the Bush Administration of 2000-2008, and currently, it is not stretching the point to perceive of an increasingly close alignment between rightist governments and the Christian Right. With one exception, it is hard to see a green component in such a comingling. The exception might be the increasing vilification and demonization of environmental advocates, much as has been done to ethnic and religious groups by rightist advocates. As some of the environmental tipping points actually tip we might also see a tendency to blame the messenger.

All governments require control. While consent of the governed might be the basis of democratic government, command and control is the essence of authoritarian governments and the hidden heart of organized, institutional religion. In the US the years from 2000-20008 have demonstrated how quickly the electorate will surrender its civil rights in time of threat and the period since then has demonstrated how easily the Congress can be neutered. In addition, the rage of those attracted to the jack-boot set will grow as the global food crisis deepens, the economic situation worsens, and job loss continues. In the US, this rage may, as it has with other authoritarian governments at other times, provide ready recruits for those movements that tend to support the political right. Energized by methamphetamine, the sacrament of the poor ‘heartlander’ and Southerner (although not limited to these regions) and whipped into a hate-filled fury by those thousands of preachers whose messages are broadcast nightly from hundreds of radio stations scattered across the United States, there is little question that conditions are rapidly becoming such that these movements may find fertile ground for rapid recruitment and development.

This note is a comment on the belated response of religions and theologies to Earth in Crisis. The work undertaken in the field of ecotheology should, however, indeed must continue. As an institution, religion has many tragic failings but its response to the world environmental crisis isn’t one of them, it is simply late; no more belated, however, than any other institution of society and a bit ahead of some. Depending on the length and ‘depth’ of societal collapse, the work in ecotheology, if it survives, may provide a partial foundation for recovery. We have all been a day late and a dollar short and now we will pay the price. How much we can salvage for the future remains the question. In his book Black Mass, author Ronald Wright tells us that “…this new century will not grow very old before we enter an age of chaos and collapse that will dwarf all the dark ages in our past.”

Now, however…

the world waits

for events to

turn

for cities to

burn

for plagues to

churn.

(For a fully referenced paper on this subject please access http://www.greeninstitute.net/ scroll down the left side of the page to the note on the Interdisciplinary Initiative and click.)

Cracks in the Ice I

From the mid-1990's to around 2004, I had the opportunity to continue my work in conservation biology while studying religion and theology at Emory's Candler School of Theology and Columbia Theological Seminary,two fine schools in the Atlanta area.  I also spent quite a bit of time flyinjg back and forth to the San Francisco Bay area to pursue studies in the Wisdom Traditions at Wisdom University.  These studies, combined with my fellowship at the Green Institute led to a series of articles on environment, religion, theology, and eschatology. For a fully referenced papers on this subject please access http://www.greeninstitute.net/, scroll down the left side of the page to the note on the Interdisciplinary Initiative and click.

As a child, in an American blue collar family I was exposed to the frequent use of common, often colorful sayings. Two that I remember establish the dimensions of the impact of the response of religions and theologies to Earth in crisis. Someone was either ‘a day late and a dollar short,’ or ‘better late than never’ (it seems that both frequently applied to me, especially during my teens). These two sayings appear to set the boundaries of the response of religions and theologies to environmental crisis and establish the polar tensions acting on those responses.

In 1967 historian Lynn White published a much acclaimed and much abused article stating, essentially, that the roots of our ‘ecologic crisis’ were found in the fundamentally exploitive nature of Judeo-Christian theology. I did a project listing the number of titles dealing with what we might now call ‘ecological theology’ or ‘ecotheology.’ I used White’s article as a starting point in time. Regardless of what position one may take to White’s claim, and the fact is that many took positions, the dialogue on this subject became rich, and the citations rapidly grew in number. The dialogue spawned a number of manuscripts and articles ranging from stern disavowal to reluctant acceptance of White’s thesis, including a number of acquiescent mea culpa’s.

‘A Day Late and a Dollar Short’

The academic speculation gave way to praxis, the doing of things, as church after church launched Earth-friendly projects to reduce energy consumption, replace Styrofoam cups with pottery, xeriscape the church grounds, and dozens of other well-intended eco-friendly actions. Stiffly resistant denominational hierarchies slowly began, in the light of new information about Earth in crisis and pressure from the pews, to develop and publish denominational positions on environmental issues. Even the usually resistant Roman Curia weighed-in to tell the world that pollution is a sin. Religious groups now study ‘God’s Gift of Water’ and ‘Protecting and Healing Rivers,’ under the guidance of Psalm 24:1 (KJV) and other guidance from religious teachings.

Academics, even less likely to change than the Roman Curia began, sometimes painfully, to develop theological foundations from ancient texts. These newly discovered threads were sometimes woven together with newly discovered ‘truths’ into social and cultural fabrics such as ecofeminism. Everybody (except the most conservative Christians) seemed to buy-in and stake out turf and conservative religionists have also lately started to come around. As I have said in a previous posting, “The growing interest in the relationship between religion and ecology is nowhere more apparent than the recent efforts of Harvard University's Center for the Study of World Religions to codify these relationships.” The project has produced a number of books on the subject in what is called the ‘Religion and Ecology’ series. Educational institutions offer study in the field of religion and nature. The American Academy of Religion’s biannual meetings have very well-attended sections that deal with papers in ecological theology. The religious focus on the environment appears to be an irreversible theme of theological inquiry and religious life.

All of this time, however, Earth has been warming and people are talking of ‘tipping points.’ The ice is cracking and melting. Even the most optimistic scientific prognosticator is less and less optimistic with each day that passes without significant action from the governments of the world. An increasingly strong case can now be made for catastrophes of such magnitude that the collapse of societies may be anticipated. It is increasingly apparent that for all that we have hoped, for all the new paradigms and the carefully (and sometimes carelessly) woven theologies, it may be too late.

I explored this concern in a note titled ‘Creation Spirituality as a Post-Apocalyptic Paradigm’ available online at http://www.creationspirituality.info/TomBaughArticle.htm. In the article I pointed out that we live in possibly fatally challenging times in which:

“Three factors have come together to fashion, in our time, a crisis with potentially staggering dimensions. For the first time in history our weapons have grown in number and capacity so that humanity is now capable of near total destruction. The second factor of grave concern is the rapidly changing environmental condition of Earth. Humanity has so severely damaged natural systems that recovery is most likely impossible. We are now only on the outer edge of an ecocaust of staggering proportions. The Ecozoic Era had a relatively gentle birth as a concept in the latter part of the last century but it will have a very difficult adolescence in the coming Dark Age. The third factor in this tragic trinity is religion.”

(Continued in the next post.)

 

Transitions Part II

(Continued from the preceding post.)

What paths have theologies and religions taken on these issues?  How does this multidimensional, cross-cultural communion of saints view the trinity of God, humanity, and other nature?  Is there pattern we can discern?  If we loosely use the terms ultraconservatives, conservative, mainline, and progressives, we can see a pattern of religious and theological response within Christianity that goes something like this.  On the ultraconservative side, where there is any sensitivity to these issues, there is a slow but growing awareness of an Earth care responsibility based on a view that places God at the top of the heap, humanity at the top of what are referred to as the 'created orders,' and everything else being created by God for human use. Also, these theologies frequently view the cosmos as being fixed in time and space.  That really doesn't leave much room for the evolution of anything, and evolution is the unifying principle of the biological sciences, thus, making claims coming from those sciences very suspect. Two other factors make it difficult for environmental issues to enter into Christian theologies of the  Christian Right.  The first is the focus of many of these theologies on an immediately pending apocalypse at the end of which is predicted , the return of Jesus, the Christian Son of God. You see, if the perousia is just around the corner, why worry about warming temperatures, melting ice, and the extinction of species.  A second factor is the focus of the ultraconservative Christians on political power.  On the far Christian Right, the Dominionist movement, according to their leadership, is dedicated to insuring that the US becomes a Christian nation that will be the primary building block in a Global Christian empire.  These predisposition to apocalypse and the development of a theocratic Christian nation in the United States block any attention to environmental concerns, except as a cause to rally against.

Moving on from the Christian far right or ultraconservatives, to the conservative, within the big Christian tent, that is those who are Evangelical Christian but not necessarily literalists or fundamentalists, or dominionists, (and who do not believe that to be Christian one must be a member of the US Republican Party) we encounter a shift in thinking toward a stewardship in which humanity is charged by God with the responsibility of caring for the Creation. We are, according to these perspectives, God's stewards on Earth.  But these folks struggle with the nature of that stewardship.  What does it mean to be God's steward? What relationship do we have to the other species of the Creation? What is it that we are asked by God to do in terms of Earth and all of her habitats and inhabitants? What does Jesus drive asks the Christian evangelical Jim Ball? And, how does all of this fit in with the primary concern of Christianity, that being the salvation of the individual soul?

How about at the center of things, with the Mainline churches? Here we find  a great and wonderful stew of intellect and activity with Anglicans, Catholics, Lutherans, Orthodox, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and many other denominations and sects.  It is here, at the center, if you will, that we find the theological concept that God is, somehow, fully expressed in the smallest particle of the universe, the smallest quanta of energy, and the least significant of the natural processes.

If we take one more step and look at what are referred to as postdenominational, and similar theologies, sometimes referred to as 'progressive,' we can add cosmogenesis to the broadening paradigms. From a theological sense, cosmogenesis views the universe and God as coevolving. Some form of evolutionary thought is at the root of cosmogenic theologies. On this end of the spectrum we see humanity opening itself up to the rest of creation, embracing it as being integral with humanity. Here, we encounter the use of concepts such as 'oneness' and 'unity' to relate humanity to the fullness of creation. In these theologies, even God may be viewed as evolving.

We could take the same journey that we just have with Christianity and visit the entire communion of green saints and, if we did, we would find essentially the same things happening whether it is Hindu, Baha'i, Islam, or any of the other religious faiths of the human project. The important point is that religion and theology are greening and will continue to do so. I would suggest that religious focus on the environment is an irreversible theme of theological inquiry and religious life.

In the current age we spend a lot of time looking out at the stars and wondering if we are alone in the universe. May I suggest that we are not alone. We share Earth with millions of other species. We are not alone and we have never been alone. We just act that way, and I think that the time for change has long come.

(For a referenced version of these thoughts please go to http://www.greeninstitute.net/, look down the left side of the page and click on Interdisciplinary Initiative.)

Transitions Part I

In the early 2000’s I was appointed a Fellow with the Green Institute (http://www.greeninstitute.net/). During that time I studied, analyzed, and wrote about the increasingly intense activity at the intersection of religion, theology, and environment.  Around the same time, I was instrumental in forming the Religion and Conservation Biology Working Group within the Society for Conservation Biology(http://www.conbio.org/workinggroups/Religion/. I am President Emeritus of this organization and an active member.

 NASA Photo

Over the past several decades we have experienced a growing ecological awareness, nationally and internationally, on a number of cultural levels, in many different sectors of society, and in a number of other societies and cultures. Along with this awareness has come an increased anxiety about the ways in which humans impact Earth and its resources and the results of these impacts on human well-being and the well-being of Earth.

The first views of an apparently very fragile Earth from space, those incredible pictures call Earthrise taken from the surface of the Moon, the publication of the disturbing book Silent Spring (Carson 1962) and the developing awareness of the impacts of human population increase and climate change, have all worked to establish a perception that the planet faces environment crisis of serious magnitudes.

Other forces were also at work at that time.  The dawning of the Age of Aquarius in the 1960's and 1970's and the influence of the so-called 'new religions' or 'New Age' religions had an increasing role in informing the religious communities in the West of possible links between religion and environment. The evolution of the science of ecology, the development of the interdisciplinary field of conservation biology, and the growing sophistication of the environmental sciences as well as the focus on the plight of an increasing number of species had much to do with raising general and religious consciousness. Anthropological studies contributed to the knowledge that humanity had always been fairly hard on the environment it occupied, often with disastrous results. Sociological studies and a lot of direct observation made it obvious to even the most skeptical that bad environmental choices and practices often fall most heavily on the poor and dispossessed.

All of this activity, and much more, converged to inform and energize the mainline Christian denominations in the West and, increasingly, religions world-wide, at least those that were not already energized. It was, therefore, inevitable that religion and theology would be drawn into growing environmental concerns. The question was, "If we are on the edge of environmental crisis what role, if any, did theology and religion play in the crisis and what role or roles might theology  and religion assume in helping to resolve the crisis?

There were those who placed the blame for environmental degradation directly at the door of religion and theology. The most famous of these accusers was historian Lynne White who, in his 1967 paper The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis, (Science, Vol 155:3767, pp 1203–1207) laid the blame squarely at the foot of Western religion, at the door of Christianity.

Regardless of the seat of blame, theology and religion responded. Some responded more than others and some are still in the process of figuring out if they should respond and, if so, how?  Many denominations and sects if the West, as well as Orthodox Christianity, developed formal statements linking their denomination to environmental and Earth care issues.  This is increasingly true for all except the most ultraconservative of those denominations and sects.

The growing interest in the relationship between religion and ecology is nowhere more apparent than the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology and the earlier efforts of Harvard University's Center for the Study of World Religions to codify these relationships.  The Harvard project has produced a number of books on this subject in what is called the 'Religion and Ecology' series. The academic response has not ended with books and is not limited to Yale or Harvard.  Brilliant scholarship has been presented by a growing number of other scholars.  Some schools now offer lower division course work and advanced degrees in the evolving field of ecotheology. The American Academy of Religion's biannual meetings have specific sections that offer papers in ecological theology and praxis. These session are well attended and present a rich offering of thought linking religion and ecological and environmental issues, across the span of the religions of the world.  The academic effort continues with the recent formation of International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture and its journal Religion and Nature. Professional societies such as the Society for Conservation Biology, have established working groups to address the relationships between conservation and religion.

(Continued in the next post.)

Religion and Conservation Biology

In July 2007 I initiated the Religion and Conservation Biology Working Group of the Society for Conservation Biology http://www.conbio.org/workinggroups/Religion/. Because of this, I'm sometimes asked to prepare comments addressing the intersection of religion and environmental work.  The following was prepared for Volume I of the Encyclopedia of Sustainability. The reference for this note appears at the end of this short comment.

Conservation Biology is an integrated, interdisciplinary response to the world biodiversity crisis. This relatively new field draws from a wide range of scientific disciplines in order to document the extent of Earth’s biodiversity, the impact of the human project on that biodiversity, and to formulate and apply approaches to conserve and restore that biodiversity.

Religion matters to this discipline because conservation of habitat and biodiversity takes place in a social and cultural context. Religion is frequently a major component of that context. Religions have played a substantial role in formulating views of nature and defining relationships of the roles of humanity in nature thus linking religious life and practices with habitat and biodiversity. For this reason, religions can help make essential and substantial contributions to rethinking and responding to the conservation of species.

Religions also appear to be increasingly responsive to environmental issues and the religious focus on the environment may well be a developing and continuing theme of theological inquiry and religious life. The principles and practices and knowledge of conservation biology can contribute to those whose environmental perspective has, in the past, been primarily informed by religion and theology.

The converse is also true in that an understanding of religious concepts and practices and how they are applied to governance and daily life, is equally essential to the implementation of effective and lasting conservation management strategies. Recognition of this important link is obvious in the increasing number of specialists in conservation organizations whose primary mission is to explore the religious and theological links with natural systems and to help develop and implement culturally attuned conservation strategies.

Finally, the imposition of conservation strategies on cultures in the lesser developed countries is giving way to the cooperative development of approaches to use and conserve habitat and biodiversity in sustainable ways. In fact, it might be easier to develop cooperative relationships between religions and conservation science in the lesser developed areas than in western nations where substantial tensions between various aspects of science and specific expressions of religion continue to exist and often obscure the critical nature of environmental issues. But even here we may be seeing increasing collaboration.

Please cite the above note as follows:

Baugh, Tom. (2010). Conservation biology. In Willis Jenkins (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Sustainability, Vol. 1: The Spirit of Sustainability, p. 82. Great Barrington , MA : Berkshire Publishing Group.

THE PROMISE

In the morning light,

the snows on distant peaks

reflect the hope of spring to come,

and a promise is fulfilled.

In the morning light,

the tide rises against a sandy beach

and falls again with the passage of the day,

and a promise is fulfilled.

In the morning light,

a river flows between its banks

through fields and farms and crops that grow,

and a promise is fulfilled.

In the morning light,

we rise to greet a day of hope

of meadows green

of flowers in bloom

of tides that surge

in an earth restored

in a promise fulfilled.

The Spirit of the Thing II

(Continued from the preceding post.)
What calls us here today?  Why do we gather?  What connections do we seek? 

To learn about plants?  Yes. To meet others interested in plants? Yes, that also.

But maybe something else?  Something more enveloping and inclusive…a more basic connection?

I think it may be the spirit of the thing.

What does it mean to speak of the spirit of something?

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines spirit as a life-giving force…an animating principle…the essential or real meaning of something. In other words ‘spirit’ is the essence of something.

It is the spirit of the thing, the essential or real meaning of our connection with life that draws us here today. 

When Charles Darwin encountered his first tropical forest near Rio de Janerio in 1832 he spoke of experiencing, and I’m quoting him,  “…wonder, astonishment and sublime devotion…” Darwin sensed the spirit of those wonderful green mansions in which he stood.

The destruction of those green mansions has been compared by Darwin to “…burning a Renaissance painting…”  We have a lot of Renaissance paintings going up in smoke in the forests of this Earth...millions of acres every year.

Even in these mountains we can smell that smoke. Even with a growing awareness, we still have too much smoke. Our rivers and streams all too often run red with the soil of erosion. Our national, regional, and local conservation areas become increasingly surrounded with development .

It is a tough time for life on Earth. Colleagues of ours who study threats to species and habitats…who study extinctions…tell us that we are in one of the great extinctions of life on Earth.  Life has faced five major extinctions in its four billion years on Earth. The last extinction was caused by a meteor that inconveniently dropped in on us.

But the current extinction…the sixth extinction…is the only extinction caused by one species…by us…by humanity. 

The last time I was up on the Blue Ridge Parkway, I remembered a quote from William Bartram in which the great naturalist talked about his visit to the area around Franklin, North Carolina. Bartram said “…from the most elevated peak…I beheld with rapture and astonishment, a sublimely awe filled scene of power and magnificence, a world of mountains piled upon mountains.”  If we are here today it is very likely that we love these mountains. I really don’t know any other term to use. We have made our connection here. We sense the spirit of this place.

I’m sure most of us here have felt that awe.  We live in an incredibly beautiful and profoundly impressive part of the world with mountains piled upon mountains covered with layer after layer of the very plants we have come here to study.  Think of what we experience on almost any spring hike in these mountains.  Even during the worst of the drought years our springs trickled out from among the rocks and our diminished but still running streams. 

What may not be so obvious to many of us is that we live in one of the world’s more exciting laboratories of evolution. The creation of life is the heart and soul of these mountains and valleys…their essence, their spirit, if you will. In these coves and hollows and on these slopes unique, fascinating forms of life have evolved…have made those connections that we call natural communities. And we’re here today to make our connection with all of that.

We sense that we are part of this…part of the spirit of life on Earth and in these mountains.

The Spirit of the Thing I

Early In 2010 a number of North American native plant devotees gathered at the North Carolina State Arboretum in Asheville to spend some time considering the native vegetation of the Southern Appalachian Mountains.  I was asked to open the gathering with a reflection on the reason for our gathering.

I’ve been reflecting.

I’m old enough to do that now, you know…to reflect.

When you’re young they won’t let you reflect. You have to do, not reflect.  If you’re reflecting they think you’re lazy.  I never could get my parents to understand that. “Tom get up and mow that lawn,” my father would say. “But Dad, I’m reflecting.”  For some reason he didn’t buy it.

When you get older, you have to reflect because they won’t let you do.

But I’ve out-foxed ‘em because I not only still do, I reflect on my doing and on the doing of others.

And today I’m going to share some of those reflections.

As some of you know, I’m a biologist with specialization in ecology and a career in natural resource management and conservation biology. I’ve also been fortunate in doing additional graduate academic work and fieldwork in aspects of the humanities and social science. Because of my transdisciplinary background, my reflections often center on the life that we share this Earth with and on the ways in which we perceive that sharing.

My ecological training draws me to think about things in terms of connections…for example, how do plants and animals relate to and interact with each other and with the nonliving environment? That, by the way, is the basic question of ecology…that question of interaction…of connections…of interdependence.  Every species, our own included, is linked, directly or indirectly, with a multitude of others in a community of plants and animals and, genetically…with all life on Earth since the beginning.

What are some of these connections? How does some of this interdependence work out? Well…the plants that we are here to celebrate today …provide food, shelter, and nesting sites for other organisms. On the other hand, many plants depend upon animals for help in reproduction. Insects pollinate flowers and animals spread seeds and provide nutrients from their bodily wastes. Some species have become so adapted to each other that neither could survive well, if at all, without the other.

But the interaction of living organisms does not take place on a passive environmental stage. Ecosystems are shaped by the nonliving environment of land and water—solar radiation, rainfall, mineral concentrations, temperature, and topography. The world contains a wide diversity of these physical conditions that, in turn create a wide variety of environments: freshwater and oceanic, desert, grassland, tundra, and these beautiful forests and mountains that surround us with their rock outcrops, bogs, heaths, their cove forests and dozens and dozens of other habitats and communities.

(Continued in the next post.)