Christian Ecology

Article Tools

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Thin, dry-humored Thomas Berry went even further than Fox. Called "the world's first geologian," this 74-year-old Passionist priest (founder of the Riverdale Center for Religious Research in New York City) announced that religion should adopt a "new story" based on "the spirituality of the earth."

Berry wanted to "put the Bible on the shelf for the next 20 years" and "reinvent the human" in keeping with science's growing knowledge of evolution and the interconnectedness of reality.

As you might suspect, Bible-shelving didn't go over too well with the scriptural Christians at the North American Conference. But limiting one's spirituality to the boundaries of traditional religion wasn't very popular with the creation centered crowd, either. As a result, a series of meetings intended to produce a conference document for church action turned instead into a battleground for religious disputes. Sparks flew-and the conference ended in open conflict.

Yet, despite the split at that NACCE meeting, the ground swell has continued. Quakers now publish environmental manifestoes. Evangelist Billy Graham pronounces that "we Christians have a responsibility to take a lead in trying to take care of the earth." Pastors build solar and superinsulated churches to be better "stewards of God's resources." One reverend, Vincent Rossi of the Holy Order of Mans, finds faith and "earthkeeping" so closely linked in the scriptures that he even states, "To be Christian is to be an ecologist."

At the same time, scholars and theologians of Christianity's sister religion, Judaism, are asserting their religion's environmental heritage. As Richard H. Schwartz states in his book, Judaism and Global Survival, "It is essential that Jews work with others for radical changes . . . based on the important Biblical mandate to work with God in preserving the earth."

There are signs that Christian ecology is poised on the verge of becoming a national force. Wall Street megatrend analyst Dan Blum forecasts that church-led environmentalism will become a major trend in the 1990s. The polled readers of Amicus, the respected journal of the Environmental Policy Institute, state that their number one concern is no longer pollution or conservation—but environmental ethics. Dr. Noel Brown, director of the United Nations Environment Programme, has been so struck by the "essential role" the religious community must have in solving our global problems that he's organized the Environmental Sabbath, an annual global weekend to focus on faith and the planet.

Meanwhile, what did happen to the NACCE, the group that held that Indiana eco-confab? Since that meeting's inconclusive conclusion, a third faction of its membership has come to the fore, led, in part, by that hard-working Kentucky Jesuit, Al Fritsch. Al noted that doctrinal infighting was pointless: the NACCE coalition should work on saving the earth, not debating theology. Besides, "the majority [of the NACCE] are not on either end of the poles of conflict, but are Christocentric, meaning they easily embrace both poles at the same time."

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print