The Field of Religion and Ecology: Addressing the Environmental Crisis and Challenging Faiths more

The Field of Religion and Ecology: Addressing the Environmental Crisis and Challenging Faiths Tony Watling This article is concerned with “religion and ecology” or religious environmentalism. It analyses how religious traditions are used to understand and interact with the environment and environmental issues, suggesting ways of relating to these that are different from and possibly less destructive and ecologically harmful than those of the modern secular worldview. It argues that religious traditions may thereby be gaining new private and public relevance, while perhaps also being changed in the process, becoming more environmentally friendly and ecumenical. The article ethnographically and qualitatively analyses a “field of religion and ecology” comprising ecologically minded academics and representatives of various religious traditions who promote such ideas, stimulating new eco-spiritualities and theologies, possibly even a new eco-religious movement. It also explores the environmental re-interpretation of several religious traditions within the field, highlighting not only some influential images and views but also any commonalities or convergences that are arising or being encouraged between them. I will seek to analyze how religion and religious concepts can be (diverse and dynamic) sources of communities, images, morals, and vocabularies for articulating human identity with and responsibility for nature, particularly in response to a secular identity and secularly defined nature that is resulting in environmental destruction. Religious concepts have been prominent in discourse on environmental responsibility: for example, “caring for creation”, “co-creation”, “Earth goddess”, “Earth theology”, “ecological sin”, “integrity of creation”, “nature as Eden”, “stewardship”. Such ideas stress that the environment demands a wider sense of identity than the merely human, a sense of an ecological and spiritual whole beyond reductionist and materialist concerns, one that would temper hubristic human selfcentredness and embrace the wider community of life. Environmental concerns and the religious thought and action they provoke may, therefore, be challenging concepts of personal and social identity, including religious identity, forcing reassessment and change. Environmental issues may thus provide a new context in which religious traditions, or individuals and groups within them, may reinterpret their beliefs, challenge dominant views, and regain legitimacy and public relevance through re-imagining the environment providing explanations of and answers to environmental problems. This essay will analyse ways in which the field of religion and ecology, encourages, stimulates, uses, compares, and combines different religious traditions to understand and re-interpret the environment and the human relationship to and role within it, challenging environmentally destructive views and actions and (ideally) contributing to new environmentally responsible ones. In this it seeks to provide a concrete example of the dynamic development of and possible role of religion in the modern world. It argues that an ecological consciousness may be arising and coalescing within religious traditions, stimulated by the field, centred on ecologically aware individuals and groups within them. The result may be a field that in effect constitutes a new environmentally based religious movement in which different traditions express diverse and/or common and syncretized environmental views. Exploring this question, I will also analyse a sample (inevitably limited and somewhat simplified) of environmental views stressed in the field by academics and representatives of two Eastern and two Western religious traditions, Buddhism, Chinese traditions, Christianity, and Islam, examining how these different religious ideas of nature may challenge or set boundaries for environmental attitudes and behaviour (and thus also challenge and change the traditions). These issues probe the consistency and rigidity versus flexibility and fluidity of religious beliefs in the face of moral urgency and social commitment. They highlight the process of religion, ways in which traditions can be and are used, re-interpreted and re-empowered in response to the modern worldview (which is itself a process) in a changing and endangered world. Religion and the Environmental Discontents of the Modern World 1 We are currently facing an environmental crisis in which the works of what J. Baird Callicott calls homo petroleumus threaten the Earth’s ecosystem in a biocide that is seen as the defining challenge of our age.1 The necessary response involves more than economic or technological adjustments and extends to moral, social, and spiritual issues. This puts in question a particular cultural view of the world: the modern secular worldview, described as the Enlightenment mentality that has arisen in the last five centuries. Proponents of this worldview initially saw it as a way to liberate individuals from dependence on the natural environment, seen as bound up with superstition and the Christian church, by placing priority on reason, objectivity, and progress. There thereby developed a self-centred desire to dominate and transcend the natural environment, manipulating it to humanity’s needs, with little thought of the consequences or of the moral issues involved. In this scheme, humanity and environment are separated; the previous animistic ways of perceiving the environment, which saw nature as a living sacred cosmos, were replaced with a secular mechanical one, with nature reduced to material resources without life or spirit. The resultant worldview has thus become the dominant social form, defining truth and reality, leading to what has been described as a disenchantment or desacralisation of the world.2 Tu Weiming sees this as the crisis of modernity, an inability to experience nature as the embodiment of spirit, seeing it merely for economic or technological needs, resulting in an ecological illiteracy and bio-phobic destructiveness where humans, for Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, make macro-phase (environmental) changes with micro-phase wisdom.3 Such a disenchanted or desacralised way of looking at the world is of course socially constructed (as was what it replaced) for what is known as environment or nature is a complex, diverse, and malleable concept always a social practice.4 Counter-stories and critiques (a politicization of nature) are thus seen as able to create wider awareness of and diverse access to the construction of reality, possibly enabling a change away from a dominant anthropocentric view of nature to more bio-centric ones that see it and humanity as interdependent and mutually beneficial (while being aware of modern successes and the dangers of a simplistic romanticising of nature). Such views, it is hoped might then also lead to ecologically responsible lifestyles based on changing human beliefs and practices from alienating, de-valuing, and manipulating the environment to thoughts of inter-connectedness, re-evaluation, and care.5 Because this may demand a radical change in lifestyle religion has been invoked as a means of achieving this, via a reenchantment or re-sacralisation of the world, involving wisdom and reverence for life.6 Religion has been seen as disempowered and in decline in the modern world, its meanings no longer relevant within the dominant secular worldview and institutional churches losing control of social life to secular bodies (i.e., secularisation, privatisation). However religion (or secularisation) may not be so static or unified a phenomenon as previously thought (this may be a consequence of modern Western bias, as, for example, Talal Asad argues;7 of the (liberal) differentiation of society, separating the religious and the secular, defining the former as unified traditions concerned with spiritual, private beliefs, not practical, public issues). Rather it may be more dynamic and volatile, a complex process of individual and social, official and unofficial, private and public, actions in particular contexts. It may, therefore, still have a role in the world and be a valid way of inspiring, mediating, ordering, or recreating personal and social (environmental) beliefs and identities (or, in Grace Davie’s terms, “memories”), albeit in more diverse and dynamic forms than previously thought (with, for Peter Berger and Jose Casanova for example, desecularisation and de-privatisation possibly occurring). This may particularly be so as the deleterious effects on the environment of modern technology evoke an ethical response from individuals whom modernity has isolated from the moral resources needed to address those effects. New avenues of explicit and implicit awareness, belief, and action may thus result, within traditional religious traditions, diverse spiritualities, or new religious movements (hence “spirituality” is often evoked as a usable (diverse, fluid, malleable, practical) concept alongside or replacing “religion”).8 Linda Woodhead and Paul Heelas, for example, suggest several coexisting or conflicting religious responses to the modern world: “religions of difference”, which distinguish between God and humans and nature (e.g., charismatic, fundamentalist views); “religions of humanity”, which balance the divine, humans, and nature (e.g., liberal religion, denominationalism); and “spiritualities of life”, which adopt a holistic perspective and assert an identity between the divine, humans, and nature (e.g., New Age, Neo-Pagan views).9 2 There may be a lot of ferment here then, then, this providing a context where new religious forms can arise (with possibly both secularisation and sacralisation, old faiths and new movements, occurring). An “ethical religion” or “world theology”, for example, might coalesce around global ethical issues, such as the environmental crisis. It may allow religions to regain moral, political, and social capital as well as to inspire new attitudes and actions. In this sense, religions, for Peter Beyer, Jose Casanova, John Esposito and Michael Watson, and Jeff Haynes, for example, may engage the problems created by modern society and create innovative responses, undertaking a universal trans-social role defining and maintaining the global common good, becoming resources for recreating private beliefs (for example existentially reconnecting individuals to nature) as well as publicly addressing issues (such as the environmental crisis). They may thus gain significance, legitimation, and influence via a discursive space of public interaction, questioning modern society and forcing it to reflect on its beliefs, structures, and actions. In this way religion may enable the discontents of the modern world, the crucial global issues, to be addressed and overcome, providing alternatives that ethically unite humanity (although still in a western liberal democratic and dialogic format (initially, it is possible religions can challenge and change this)).10 Peter Beyer, in particular, sees environmentalism as one possible way to revitalize religion and influence the global system, in an ecotheology that would have eschatological implications for all of humanity. In this scheme, religion would address residual matters of the dominant system (i.e., its ethical, environmental, or social consequences), bridging the gap between private and public, linking religious function (belief) and performance (application, public influence). Here environmental issues provide an arena for religious expression, not only as critical matters of public concern but also as indicators of root causes of the problems, which are seen as moral and spiritual values, with religion being necessary for their resolution. Religious environmentalism may thus become a social movement based on religious resources, giving meaning to and promising the power to overcome the consequences of modern secular values and structures. Assuming a priestly and prophetic role religion would then present the environmental crisis as a problem of disordered or unjust human relations and provide the ideological and organisational resources to conceptualise these and deal with them.11 To do this however, religions may need greater private and public environmental consciousness. The Judeo-Christian tradition, for example, most famously for Lynn White, has been seen as antienvironmentalist through anthropocentric views and this and other (Eastern) religious traditions, seen as more bio-centric and environmentally friendly, have been seen as world-denying, concentrating on personal salvation (or as being part of political regimes that are ecologically destructive, for example the Marxist Chinese system).12 These may be somewhat limited interpretations, nevertheless, an explicit and overt ecological awareness on the part of religious traditions, a non-anthropocentric re-interpretation of humanity, nature, and the sacred that extends beliefs, ethics, identity, and sacredness beyond humanity to nature as a whole, has been encouraged and growing during a period that Roderick Nash terms the “greening” of religion. In its modern form this stems from the1980’s within developments in the American National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches and in the work of, for example, Thomas Berry, Wendell Berry, Fritjof Capra, John Hart, Jurgen Moltmann, Theodore Roszak, and Paul Santmire, but it can be traced back further through, for example: John Cobb and the influence of Alfred North Whitehead and Teilhard de Chardin’s “process philosophy” in the 1970’s; the recognition of religious viewpoints outside the Judeo-Christian (Asian faiths, indigenous traditions) and Richard Baer and the “Faith-Man-Nature” group of American eco-theologians, influenced by St Francis of Assisi and Aldo Leopold’s “Land Ethic” in the 1960’s; Joseph Sittler’s “Theology for the Earth” in the 1950’s; and earlier to David Henry Thoreau and John Muir in the nineteenth-century and John Ray and Alexander Pope in seventeenth-century.13 In particular, to consolidate and further this religious greening there has arisen what has been described by two of its leading exponents, Bron Taylor and Mary Evelyn Tucker, as a “field” of religion and ecology; an academic, religious, and social arena that seeks to enable the exploration and promotion of ecoreligious ideas to be located and carried out, spiritual awareness of nature deepened, and religious ecological activism encouraged.14 Religion in this scheme (in diverse ways within multiple traditions) is seen as having the means to engage the modern secular worldview and environmental issues, addressing private 3 preferences and public consequences. It is seen as being orientated to something other than egoism and materialism, highlighting the order, interdependence, and spirituality of the world, with humanity as one part within it not as dominant. It is also seen as offering the means to experience creative force (of a deity or of nature), defining humanity’s place in the cosmos, as well as people’s obligations to each other and to other life-forms, reinforcing personal and communal connections to wider truth. Religious traditions are seen as having the moral authority, collective vision, and legitimating narratives to provide existential and social guidance, as well as the critical and prophetic potential (and numbers of adherents) to challenge destructive lifestyles and stimulate change, tempering human environmental action with humility, respect, and reverence.15 The Field of Religion and Ecology The field of religion and ecology coordinates and encompasses a range of literatures and actions (hovering between the academic and the practical, the why and the how, aiming for a fluid self-reflexive approach) involving religious traditions, new religious movements, and environmental movements (including reflections from science, public policy, and ethics) that is coalescing (or being created) into a recognised religious and social form. A few recent influences on and actions within it include:16 1. The meetings in Assisi, in 1986, sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund, resulting in the Religious Declarations on Nature, in which religious traditions stressed their concern for the environment and how their faiths lead them to care for it; 2. Global Forums of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders, from 1988 to 1993, especially their 1990 meeting Preserving and Cherishing the Earth: An Appeal for Joint Commitment in Science and Religion; 3. The Joint Appeal (for the environment) in Religion and Science, a statement by religious leaders at the Summit on the Environment in 1991; 4. Activities since 1993 by the National Religious Partnership for the Environment in the U.S.A and the Religion and Ecology Group of the American Academy of Religion; 5. Activities since 1995 by the Alliance of Religions and Conservation in conjunction with the World Wildlife Fund and the World Bank, for example the Sacred Gifts for a Living Planet conference in 2000; 6. Declarations by the Dalai Lama, Pope John Paul II, and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I in the Religion, Science, and Environment Symposia from 1994 to 2002; 7. The United Nations Environment Programme, Interfaith Partnership for the Environment, for example the World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders in 2000; 8. Religious input in the UN-stimulated Earth Charter Initiative, a statement of ethical principles aimed at guiding humanity toward a sustainable future. Perhaps the most in depth engagement occurred from May 1996 to July 1998 in the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University when a series of ten conferences under the title Religions of the World and Ecology were organized, led by academics Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, stimulated by theologian Thomas Berry, and attended by around seven-hundred academics, religious leaders, and environmental specialists. Each conference covered a major religious tradition (Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism, indigenous traditions, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, and Shinto) and explored it for images and views that could be related to ecology. Following these conferences, and arising out of their dialogue (and extending it), the Forum on Religion and Ecology was initiated in 1998.17 Its goals include: 1. Identifying ecological attitudes and practices within traditions; highlighting resources within cosmology, ritual, sacrament, and scripture; analyzing commonalities and identifying common ground on which to base discussion and action; 2. Establishing religion and ecology as an area of academic study; fostering research; organizing conferences and curricular resources; linking religion to wider environmental movements, 4 business, education, and the media; and contributing to a functional environmental ethics grounded in religious traditions; 3. Providing books, essays, and official statements, on and by religious traditions and intersecting areas such as gender, economics, ethics, policy, and science, as well as providing examples of environmental action by religions, in what are called “engaged projects”.18 Alongside these initiatives the most recent major addition to the field and acting somewhat as focal point is Bron Taylor and Jeffrey Kaplan’s Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature (in conjunction with the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture and the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture).19 This aims to explore the relationships between humans, their diverse religions, and the Earth, examine religious perceptions of the Earth (environmentally friendly or otherwise), and assess if and how religions might be reshaping the ecological, political, and religious landscape. In doing this it analyses and promotes the major debates, events, figures, groups, theories, and traditions, within the field. In a sense it demarcates a territory, an emerging and evolving discipline. All major thinkers and activists in the field contributed to it, for example (there are over five-hundred): David Abram; Catherine Albanese; David Landis Barnhill; J. Baird Callicott; Christopher Key Chapple; John Chryssavgis; John Cobb; Calvin DeWitt; Richard Foltz; Roger Gottlieb; Jon Hart; Dieter Hessel; Laura Hopgood-Oster; Stephanie Kaza; Steven Kellert; Fazlun Khalid; Satish Kumar; Joanna Macy; Daniel MaGuire; Jay McDaniel; Sally McFague; Bill McKibben; James Miller; Jurgen Moltmann; Vasudha Narayanan; Max Oelschlaeger; Larry Rasmussen; Steven Rockefeller; John Seed; Paul Santmire; Donald Swearer; Hava Tirosh-Samuelson; Mary Evelyn Tucker. The articles (over one thousand) cover a wide variety of subjects exploring not only the major religious traditions and eco-religious organisations but also areas such as, for example, animism, biocentric religion, biophilia, creation myths, Deep Ecology, the Earth Charter, Earth First!, Eco-feminism, eco-justice, Eco-Paganism, the Epic of Evolution, Gaia, geophilia, goddesses, natural law, nature religion, pantheism, perennial philosophy, re-earthing, religious naturalism, shamanism, and totemism, and influential figures such as Ansel Adams, Thomas Berry, the Dalai Lama, Charles Darwin, Mohandas Ghandi, Aldous Huxley, Aldo Leopold, James Lovelock, John Muir, and Arne Naess. Such initiatives aim to reclaim and reconstruct religious traditions or stimulate new ones so as to promote flourishing human-earth relations. They see transformative possibilities in religion, seeing it as a legitimate, meaningful, and powerful way of inculcating environmental consciousness, able to reconceptualize attitudes to the environment and existentially engage humanity with it, and politically and socially engage ecological issues and stimulate ecological concern. No one religious tradition or new movement, one hegemonic worldview acting in isolation, is seen as appropriate, however. There is seen a need to go beyond (oppressive, destructive) static hegemonic interpretations (of religion or nature). What is seen to be needed is a diversity of views, actions, and discourses in communication with one another, used in a self-reflective not a self-promoting way. In this way truth claims are seen as respected but different avenues to truth explored, the common ground being the Earth itself. 20 The methodology suggested for this includes:21 1. The historical and textual investigation of cosmological and scriptural ideas, identifying and stressing ethical codes and ritual customs that pertain to ecological issues; 2. Evaluating the present relevance of tradition and widening religious beliefs to include other worldviews and non-human nature; 3. Suggesting ways of adapting different traditions in a creative modification, ecumenically using or combining elements, either where they are needed or where they interact on specific issues; 4. Making an amalgam of new ideas, practices, and organizations activating the human imagination toward a celebration of life and dynamizing human energy toward participating in and encouraging its flourishing. 5 Such an approach is envisaged as moving beyond dogmatism to a shared sense of the common good of the planet, revivifying rituals and symbols in connection with the biological context, combining transcendence and immanence via the presence of the divine in the world and enlarging ethics to include eco-centric concerns. In this way the aim is not only to stimulate new ecologically based religious thinking within traditions but also to create shared religious-ecological vocabularies and actions. There is seen a need for mutually enriching cross-cultural comparisons of religious concepts of nature.22 Religious traditions, then, for Max Oelschlaeger and Mary Evelyn Tucker, are seen as able to and needing to provide new primary values and sources of social direction, new ecological cosmologies, symbols, rituals and ethics. Religious metaphors in this sense are seen as enabling understanding and able to shape thought and action. They locate personal and social identities in particular places and practices by recreating conceptions of the world and the human place in it. They provide ethical rationales for behaviour through relating a meaningful, persuasive, cosmological language that suggests, evokes, and inspires by stating paradigmatic truths defining possibilities and limitations, implying or prescribing ethical principles and actions, combining the ought and the is. Creation stories, for example, for Oeslchlaeger, legitimate the present by locating it in sacred time, providing a common cognitive legitimacy and meaningfulness, linking moral orientations and actions to accounts of cosmic origins. Different creation stories may also coalesce around common ground, for example, the inter-relation of humanity and nature (e.g., a “caring for creation” metaphor). Rethinking or re-appropriating accounts of creation may in this sense stimulate a rethinking of ecological behaviour. New ecological religious metaphors are thus seen as able to alter conceptual systems and stimulate new perceptions and actions, creating cultural change. They may thus create a new imaginative language involving co-operation and reverence for life, re-rooting humanity in the Earth evoking wider environmental identity and passion.23 The field of religion and ecology thus encourages and initiates the re-assessment of religious traditions for ecological metaphors and themes, exploring their differing concepts of nature, with the aim of challenging modern secular views of the environment and humanity’s role in it (as well as challenging the traditions themselves). Questions posed to stimulate such religious and ecological re-interpretation and reimagination include:24 1. 2. 3. 4. What cosmological dimensions in traditions help relate humans to nature? How do traditions and sacred texts challenge or support nature as a resource? What core values within traditions might lead to an environmental ethics? Is it possible to identify responsible ecological practices within traditions? In the final section, therefore, I will concentrate on some influential metaphors and themes stressed in the field’s ecological re-interpretations of Buddhism, Chinese traditions (Confucianism, and Daoism), Christianity, and Islam and assess any commonalities or convergences between them that might highlight new eco-religious forms. This is an inevitably selective group, dependent on space and chosen for contrast and comparison; Hinduism, indigenous traditions, Jainism, Judaism, or Shinto, all explored in the Harvard conference series and concepts such as Deep Ecology, Gaia, or the Epic of Evolution, could also be explored in this way.25 Such interpretations themselves are of course new religious forms, the “Buddhist”, “Confucian”, “Daoist”, “Christian”, and “Islamic” views I analyze are particular recent ecologically based interpretations of diverse, historical, and often context dependent traditions, using them as constructive sources of environmental ideas, by environmentally aware individuals or groups, and have not been without challenge (and my selection, taking their main points, inevitably simplifies their ideas). The idea of unified “religious traditions” or “world religions”, for example, following Tomoko Masuzawa, may be questioned (especially when assessing Eastern forms which are, quite diverse) these being seen as Western based concepts and constructions appropriating and unifying contextual and diverse social forms.26 Nevertheless the ideas expressed, while recognising context and diversity and the dangers of re-appropriating traditions, and accepting the limitations of categorising religion this way, show how religion is creatively and dynamically (and in the field of religion and ecology, reflexively) being re-addressed in the modern context, 6 how religious individuals and traditions (which are fluid living traditions) may be re-assessing their views, recovering forgotten ecological themes or stimulating new ones and interacting and possibly converging. Religious Traditions and Ecology: Re-Imagining the World Buddhism “The Six Great Elements are interfused and are in a state of eternal harmony. The Four Mandalas are inseparably related to one another. When the grace of the Three Mysteries is retained (our inborn three mysteries will) quickly be manifested. Infinitely interrelated like the meshes of Indra’s Net are those we call existences”. These lines from a (Shingon) Buddhist poem, for Paul Ingram, are seen as highlighting a Buddhist organic, holistic view of nature. Here the six elements, earth, water, fire, wind, space, and consciousness, highlight the timeless, non-dual, harmony of the universe, existing within (inter) dependent co-origination in which beings co-arise in the interactions of mutual causality with the aim of existence being to become aware of and experience this. To achieve this, four mandalas (paintings of the Buddha in colours representing the interpenetrating elements) offer visualisations for meditation on harmony, integrating three mysteries, body, speech, and mind. This is correlated with Indra’s Net of many-sided jewels, each reflecting the other, highlighting their (and the world’s) interdependence, what happens to one to one thing in the universe affects all other things.27 These ideas highlight what Stephanie Kaza and Alan Sponberg call “Green Buddhism”, a movement that uses Buddhism as a source for environmentally friendly advice.28 In this scheme Buddhism is seen as an “ecological religion” with concern for nature integral to its beliefs and practices. Buddha’s Four Noble Truths, the universal reality of suffering, the cause of suffering through desire, freedom from desire as freedom from suffering, and freedom as lying in moral discipline and spiritual depth, are especially highlighted for their ecological importance. The basis for any Buddhist environmental ethics, therefore, is argued as being the recognition that disharmony and suffering (dukkha; alienation from the world) is caused by trishna, an illusory, obsessive, selfish attachment to existence and desire for autonomy within an egoistic “I-self”, and to overcome this (a non-self, anatman, rejecting autonomy and separate self) requires moral and spiritual learning to realize the true nature of things (which is the ontological interrelation of the world), and to create a oneness with it, abandoning desires and the need to possess, and overcoming ignorance in a “we-self” that is equivalent to enlightenment. In this sense, then, non-attachment to self is empathy with and commitment to the whole of nature, a healing process and healthy mind in mental balance, based on an emphatic caring at the core of one’s being, a non-heroic self that values nature intrinsically, not for its usefulness.29 These ideas are linked to Buddhist teachings concerned with dharma, here meaning path to truth and things in nature, highlighting interdependence. All beings are dharmas or have dharma-nature (a universal essence in life). All have the potentiality to express this and act communally and compassionately, within (leading to) the sangha, or community, and to become enlightened, namely to be liberated from suffering (something that for David Landis Barnhill can be extended in a “Great Earth Sangha” where nature is the community). In line with such ideas the doctrine of karma, or cause and effect, and samsara, or rebirth, where all thoughts, words, and deeds shape experiences in the future via reincarnation, link life in an interrelated moral continuum: good and bad actions lead to better or worse rebirths and ultimately enlightenment.30 To achieve such enlightenment, for Donald Swearer, involves understanding personal karmic history, then humanity’s karmic history, and finally the principle underlying suffering in a vision of interdependence and a model for moral reasoning.31 Alan Sponberg sees this as a hierarchy of compassion in which, unlike Western views, progress is an evolution of consciousness toward the cultivation of interdependence and responsibility towards life.32 This is a progress away from selfishness and consumerism, a virtue ethic of threefold-learning of morality, meditation and insight, leading to loving kindness, and ahimsa or non-violence. It involves a mindful awareness and living as well as a middle path, moderate, restrained lifestyle, providing stability and balance, highlighted by traditional precepts such as not creating evil, practicing good, or actualizing good for others (and the eight-fold path of right understanding, 7 intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration; an ideal bodhisattva or enlightened practice exemplified by Buddhist monks).33 Chinese Traditions: Confucianism and Daoism For ecological purposes Chinese religions are seen as sharing a worldview that is organic, vitalistic, and holistic, viewing the universe as a creative, harmonious, process, in what is termed sheng-sheng, or production and reproduction. In this scheme the universe is self-generating, with heaven and earth, spirit and matter, interdependent via ongoing processes and relationships. The aim of life is to realize harmony with the natural rhythms of the cosmos in accordance with “the Way (things are)” (Dao), the primeval wisdom of reality.34 This non-duality of traditional Chinese thought is linked to the concept of qi that is seen as both (immanent) material and a spiritual “vital energy”. The qi circulates in accordance with certain principles, the most basic of these being the oscillation between yin and yang (female and male, negative and positive). Relational change, therefore, is the principal characteristic of the cosmos and correct human existence is an attempt to align oneself with the principles governing changes so as to flow with rather than resist them. This involves nourishing and channelling the qi, bringing about relational balance in the landscape or the body and thereby the qi to flow (e.g., in feng shui or traditional medicine).35 For Mary Evelyn Tucker, Confucianism and Daoism interpret and experience this Chinese worldview in different ways. The former she sees stressing harmony within human society the latter a spontaneous closeness to nature. Confucianism is viewed as stressing social and political commitment, correct relations among peoples and correct practice in the form of rites and ritual behaviour to mirror cosmological processes. Daoism by contrast is thought to encourage withdrawal from political affairs in order to cultivate a more direct engagement with natural processes. In this scheme in an ecological sense Confucians might encourage moral education and responsibility, while Daoists might stress the unfolding of natural processes and non-involvement.36 Confucian views have been represented as a cosmic humanism because in traditional Chinese thought human beings form one body with the cosmos. Humans are seen in a unified, mutually responsive triad with heaven and earth, their higher sentience and highest expression of qi linking the two in what has been called an anthropocosmic view (humanity in an ecological sense may thus have a special role, charged with enhancing the balance of nature). Humans are situated within the organic processes of nature and exist in concentric circles of relationships, radiating outward from the family, with a mutual reciprocity of obligations and a larger sense of common good, something which for Tu Weiming, enjoins them to take part in cosmic transformation.37 This requires, for Joseph Adler and Robert Weller and Peter Bol, a relational resonance in tune with a cosmic resonance, a mutual response to the myriad things. Human thoughts, feelings, and actions, thereby respond to movements of qi, both within individuals and in the world. Appropriate responses to these movements must accord with li, the patterns of the cosmos.38 Confucian humanity, then, involves continuous self-transcendence, overcoming egoism through practicing jen, or humaneness. Its highest exemplar is the sage, who is attuned to the environment (the Dao), instantiating the perfection of both the natural and social orders in thought and action.39 A central concept in Daoism is seen as wu-wei, roughly translated as “non-action” (or “non-assertive action”) involving yielding rather than assertion, softness rather than hardness. Here, appropriate actions are those that produce the best results from a minimum of effort, avoiding over-doing and letting the desired result come about as if by itself. The aim is to mirror the Dao and the “self-so-ness” of its operations, to be like water soft and yielding, yet ale to wear away rock. This is in accord with the Dao, which is empty yet full of potentiality, allowing things to develop in their own ways. In this scheme Daoist ecology would not then be an intellectual principle; knowing would involve comprehending existence through relationships attuned to the rhythms of the cosmos, improving them not by manipulation but by perfecting that attunement.40 Daoism in this scheme is seen as trusting natural processes to operate as they are supposed to, in harmony, with humanity aligned to this, enabling the harmony. In this sense non-action is compassionate whereas action can cause unintended problems by upsetting the harmony. The practical result of this is asceticism, following nature’s ways.41 8 Christianity When seeking resources within Christianity for sound ecological attitudes those in the field of religion and ecology stress several biblical themes: God created a harmonious world with humans in His image in order to enable a relationship with Him and with creation; humanity sinned against this, seeking selfawareness, thereby becoming alienated from God and creation; God provides the means to overcome this in a new creation, namely Jesus. Added to these are the commandments to love God and love your neighbour and that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. These themes are thought to provide the groundwork for an earth-centred Christianity valuing nature, highlighting a balanced, reciprocal mutuality among God, humanity, and creation. Human rebellion against God or lack of respect for creation, in this scheme, harms this mutuality, causing deterioration in nature. Human respect for God and care for creation do the opposite.42 Central to such ideas is the “integrity of creation”, the idea that the world was (and continually is) created and sustained by a just, loving, and righteous God, being His gift, made to reveal His creativity. Creation, therefore, matters to God (He sees it as “good”) and worships Him in its being (it reflects His perfect intent, being His “book of works” or, for John Chryssavgis, an “icon” of Him, and thus has intrinsic worth). Therefore, to worship or fear God in a human sense means caring for creation. To abuse it is to abuse God. Creation in this sense will be witness to humanity’s care or abuse, and an administrator of retributive justice.43 Humanity thus has a special role in creation by virtue of imago Dei. This is interpreted not as dominion over the world but responsibility for it. Humans are seen as God’s stewards, in fellowship with other creatures and embedded in the environment yet given the covenantal task of tending it, being called to be humane neighbours of creation, interacting with it in a empathic, interdependent, “I-Thou” (rather than an instrumental “I-It”) way. In this sense biblical rules and laws concerning the treatment of nature, for example the “Sabbath” principle of letting the earth rest and recover, are seen to imply that creation is to be enjoyed in the fruitfulness of bio-diversity. In a similar way psalms are seen as encouraging celebration of nature, while earth elements (bread, earth, oil, water, wine) in rituals or ideas such as “the salt of the earth” or Jesus as “vine”, are seen as highlighting divine presence in nature.44 However, the effects of sin in this sense means that humanity does not care for creation as God intended because we are fallen, self-centred, alienated from creation and doing harm to it. To overcome sin, then is to recover a right harmonious relationship to God and creation. To this end, God became incarnated in Jesus and embodied (or, for Duncan Reid, “en-fleshed”) in nature, demonstrating the need for self-sacrifice. Other authors, for example Matthew Fox and Sally McFague, extend this theme, referring to a ‘cosmic Christ’ who redeems not only humanity but all of creation. In this respect the world is also seen, again by Sally McFague, as part of God’s body, being a dynamic relational system evoking and mediating the sacred.45 Along similar lines for several authors, for example Denis Edwards and Mark Wallace, the Holy Spirit, seen as present at creation as a life-giving force and as still dwelling in the world, courtesy of Jesus, provides a useful approach to the environment. It seen as creatively present in evolving creatures and natural processes affirming matter in a “deep incarnation”, giving intrinsic value to life and providing the “power of becoming”: the possibility of redemption and the capability of attaining the perfection of a new creation by guiding humanity to discern an appropriate (caring, harmonious) way of acting. 46 Nature is thus not just the setting for salvation but integral to it. In a similar way, the concept of Wisdom (inherent in creation, embodied in Jesus), is also seen, for example by Celia Deane-Drummond, as providing an environmentally friendly Christianity, where a “wise” (caring, harmonious) interaction with the environment follows from discerning the Holy Spirit with the teleological goal of the redemption and beatification of creation. Given that wisdom is viewed in her ancient guise as Sophia, and thus as female, this strain of thought links with feminist theology (in “eco-feminism”, for example the ideas of Rosemary Radford-Reuther) in the struggle to overcome patriarchal transcendence (God as father or king, creating dualism and alienation from and domination of nature), stressing maternal immanence (God as mother or companion, creating holism and kinship with nature) and an ethic of partnership with nature (here the exemplar is St Francis).47 Islam 9 Islamic ideas about ecology (seen as possibly addressing the environmental issues in a particular nonWestern way) are seen as derived from the Qur’an, argued as replete with references to nature, the words and deeds of Mohammad that are seen as showing concern for natural resources, and the fiqh-law, or codified norms, and the Sharia, or divine law, which are seen as stressing the importance of nature and animals. These sources are seen as supported by the fact that the term “Islam” is derived from salam-silm meaning peace, security, and wholeness.48 Unity, therefore, is argued as being the essence and impetus of Islam. Tawhid, or the unity of creation, in this sense, is part of the oneness of God and is an interlocking pattern of peaceful and just relationships. To be Islamic, therefore, is to establish tawhid and to promote peace and justice through moderate behaviour. All of creation, in this sense, is an interdependent family of God. If one part suffers all suffer, in what is termed ulm-al-nafs, or self-injury. Such a sense of unity means that the divine and nature are inseparable, with the environment (and all life-forms) being a sign or mirror of God, being ayat or sunnat Allah, the “way of God”.49 The environment, in this sense, for Ibrahim Ozedmir, is also seen as able to be “Muslim” in that it submits to God’s will working, for S. Nomaul Haq, according to amr, or commands, in an ordered pattern of relationships (in a similar way, it may be seen as a “mosque”, a means of purification, where one practices submission to God). To defile the environment, therefore, may be blasphemous and impious. Paradise is seen as a garden, and life on earth a preparation for it, so making a garden of the earth is pious, and, for Mawil Izzi Dien and S. Nomanul Haq, concepts such as haram, sacred precincts, and hima, or common or protected land are seen to provide promise for environmental protection (bringing to life (ihya) dead wastelands (mawat)).50 In line with such ideas, Islam is seen as promoting a “cosmology of justice”, an existential social contract for human action within a world in a just balance where Muslims are called to critically establish social and environmental justice. This is stressed, for example by S. Nomanul Haq, as being humanity’s amr, a covenantal vice-regency or servant-ship, termed khalifa, in which humans are seen as the trustees and guardians of creation, learning and applying the divine signs of the Qur’an, and nature, in a unified, caring way, to benefit all life. Among the privileges seen as thereby conferred are free-will and the faculty of reason, the ability to assess mizan, or the due balance of creation, and the ability to behave justly, balancing human needs with those of nature. This is thus seen as conferring a moral commitment to act with moderation, given that extravagance or waste are against God‘s design. In this scheme, to be “Muslim” humanity must, like nature, submit to God‘s will, God‘s purpose for it. It is God who owns nature, not humanity. While nature submits automatically, however, humanity ought to do so, having free will, and to bring this “ought” and the “is” of action together is the privilege and risk of being human.51 This human amr is related, for example by Saadia Chishti, to fitra, or humanity‘s primordial place in creation. In this scheme, true humanity is connected to nature, not separate from it, and must use its talents to care for it, acting, for Nawal Ammar and Daniel MaGuire, with haya, reverence or dignified reserve, the opposite of hubris. The aim, for Mawil Izzi Dien, is to encourage hisba, the application of good and removal of evil. It is exemplified by the muhtasib or volunteer, while the Five Pillars of Islam (almsgiving, fasting, pilgrimage, ritual worship, and testimony) may also be seen in this light. This is the “striving” or greater jihad, the inner struggle to purify the self and to behave correctly. In this sense, humanity is the moral telos of creation and it is suggested, for example by Frederick Denny, that what may be needed is a more recognisable “green jihad” with humanity, for Mohammad Parvaiz, being musleheen (correctors, rectifiers, or reformers), creating peace, justice, and order in nature, rather than mufsideen (corruptors, mischiefmakers, spoilers), causing israf and fasad, wastefulness and disorder (in a true fulfilment of Islam as din alfitra, or “religion true to the primordial nature”, this being a unified creation).52 Conclusion This essay has sought to analyse and highlight ways in which religion is engaging the modern world and being re-interpreted, possibly revitalised and re-empowered, with respect to an environmental crisis thought to be a result of modern thought and action. Environmental issues, in this sense, provide an arena for religious traditions to address crucial private and public matters, providing communities, rituals, and vocabularies for humanity to use to understand the environment and articulate environmental concern. In 10 this, they are also challenged to adapt or extend their views, to environmentally, and thereby possibly ecumenically, re-assess traditions and/or stimulate new movements. The field of religion and ecology seeks to promote and encompass such religious environmental engagement, providing common environmental purpose and a shared commitment, encouraging and comparing environmental concern and an understanding among traditions, and then channelling their diverse views into mutually enriching dialogue, ethics, and action. The aim is thus to stimulate a religious (and ideally broader, i.e., influencing the secular) re-imagining of the environment and humanity’s relationship to and place within it and actions towards it. In this essay I have analysed such engagement and explored some environmentally based religious views, some different conceptions of nature, expressed by environmentally minded academics and representatives of several religious traditions, co-ordinated in the field of religion and ecology. The Eastern traditions of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism, for example, are interpreted as viewing nature as a sacred, holistic, interconnected process, a reciprocal web of life, although humanity (by overcoming desire and selfishness) may have the ability to enhance this ecological balance, tapping into a natural life-energy. The Western traditions of Christianity and Islam, by contrast, are envisaged as seeing God as creating and sustaining nature, which mirrors Him and thereby has intrinsic value, with humanity having a special but flawed place, charged with tending nature but failing due to sin, in need of recovery by embracing the spirit and wisdom of God. Such views are seen to challenge the modern secular view in which humanity is dominant and active, nature passive and static. Instead they stress an active, balanced, interdependent, sacred environment, of which humanity is an integrated but disruptive part, whose role demands attention. At present, where the field of religion and ecology involves different religious traditions (or new movements) being re-interpreted in parallel such re-imagination may work to inspire individuals and groups within them to rethink their ecological attitudes and engage in dialogue or, possibly, competition, allowing both “conservative” and “liberal”, “traditional” and “new” views. In this sense it may inspire new official eco-theologies or popular eco-spiritualities. Further dialogue may also allow a possible convergence of views as traditions learn of and influence each other. It is possible that views may coalesce or syncretize, stimulating a new environmentally based religious movement. For example, in line with the ideas of Libby Bassett, John Brinkman and Kusumita Pedersen, Roger Gottlieb, and David Kinsley I have drawn out the following shared attitudes from my previous analysis that might lead in such directions:53 1. The environment is seen as having intrinsic worth, virtue of it being in a state of constant (divine) creation. It is envisioned as a balanced, interdependent whole; 2. The world is a reciprocal web of life infused with a flow of energy or spirit. It embodies, mirrors, or worships the divine; 3. Humanity, by virtue of its self-consciousness, has a limited but special role. It is part of the web of life, yet enables creation to achieve its harmonious state; 4. Anthropocentric, egoistic human action upsets the ecological and spiritual balance, being destructive (an unnatural state); 5. Humanity needs to experience the flow of energy and spirit and wider environmental being and embrace selflessness (its natural state); 6. The ideal human role is moderate, non-violent, and relational with minimal accumulation, consumption, or waste (a life of self-sacrifice). Such possibilities may or may not occur but they do highlight the powerful metaphoric resources and social and cultural avenues available to religious traditions to provide a sense of moral urgency at and explanations for environmental issues as well as highlighting alternative eco-centric views. In the process they may challenge, adapt to, or mould modern ideas, recreating individual conceptions of self-identity and social and ecological practices. Questions may be raised concerning the challenge of reconciling different traditions or differences within them, the fact that it is a liberal process with overarching ecumenical concerns, and possible western bias in what constitutes religion and nature (that of unified sets of beliefs and a thing needing to be protected). There are also questions concerning the ability of traditions to challenge 11 the dominant secular system or of them being accepted and allowed to do so (i.e., the separation of the religion from politics), and the fact that religious concepts might be simplified in the process, becoming deprived of their deeper religious relevance. Of course counter arguments are that recognised and consistent religious concepts and traditions (used reflexively) may be needed to provide a foundation to address environmental issues and coordinate action and that religious traditions are never static, adherents interpret them in different, complex or simple, ways dependent on context, which means they are open to reinterpretation (as are concepts of nature and secular views) and re-empowerment (especially as religion, nature, and secular society are not necessarily separate but rather may be mutually constitutive arenas; for many religious traditions ecology or politics are inherent to their practice). The point to recognise is that the field of religion and ecology, and religion itself, is a complex (often self-aware) process, a variety of beliefs and actions in continuous assessment in an encounter with modern secular beliefs and actions and their consequences (and with the environment). Understanding and exploring this may enable greater appreciation of how religion may develop and evolve, decline or survive, and possibly be relevant and influential. 12 1 1. Callicott, J.B. Earth's Insights: A Survey of Ecological Ethics from the Mediterranean Basin to the Australian Outback (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1997), pxiii; see Gardner, G. T, Invoking the Spirit: Religion and Spirituality in the Quest for a Sustainable World (Worldwatch Paper 164, Washington, D. C: Worldwatch Institute, 2002), p7; Tucker, M.E. 2003. Worldly Wonder: Religions Enter Their Ecological Phase (Chicago and La Salle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Company, 2003), p10; 2 2. Kinsley, D, Ecology and Religion: Spirituality in Cross-Cultural Perspective (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1995); McGrath, A, The Reenchantment of Nature: The Denial of Religion and the Ecological Crisis (New York, London: Doubleday/Galilee, 2003); Oelschlaeger, M. Caring for Creation: An Ecumenical Approach to the Environmental Crisis (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994). 3 3. Tucker, M.F, and Grim, J.A. Series Forward, In Buddhism and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and Deeds, Tucker, M.E, and Wi1liams, D.R., eds:xv-xxxiiiv (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997); Weiming, T. Beyond the Enlightenment Mentality. In Worldviews and Ecology: Religion, Philosophy, and the Environment, Tucker, M.E, and Grim, J.A., eds:19-29 (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994). 4 4. See Eder, K. The Social Construction of Nature: A Sociology of Ecological Enlightenment (London: Sage Publications, 1996); Evernden, N. The Social Creation of Nature (Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press, 1992). 5 5. Berry, T. The Great Work: Our Way into the Future (New York: Bell Tower, 1999); Gardner, G.T, Inspiring Progress: Religion’s Contributions to Sustainable Development (New York, London: W.W. Norton and Company, 2006); McGrath, “Reenchantment”; Oelschlaeger “Caring for Creation”; Tucker, “Worldly Wonder”. 6 6. Gardner, “Invoking the Spirit”, “Inspiring Progress”; Gottlieb, R. S, A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and Our planet’s Future (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); Nasr, S.H, The Spiritual and Religious Dimensions of the Environmental Crisis. In A Sacred Trust: Ecology and Spiritual Vision Cadman,D, and Carey, J., eds:119-148 (London: The Temenos Academy, 2002); Oelschaleger, “Caring for Creation”; Tucker, “Worldly Wonder”; Tucker and Grim, “Series Forward”; Tucker, M.E, and Grim, J.A. Introduction: The Emerging A1liance of World Religions and Ecology, Daedalus (Vol. 130, Issue 4:1-22, 2001). 7 7. See Asad, T. Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons for Power in Christianity and Islam (Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press, 1993). 8 8. There is a large body of literature on these issues, for some useful examples see Berger, P., ed. The Desecularization of the World: Essays on the Resurgence of Religion in World Politics (Washington: Ethics and Public Policy Centre, 1999); Beyer, P. Religion and Globalization (London: Sage Publications, 1994); Bruce, S. Religion in the Modern World: From Cathedrals to Cults (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996); Casanova, J. Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994); Davie. G. Religion in Modern Europe: A Memory Mutates (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); McGuire, M.B. Religion: The Social Context (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 2000); Woodhead, L, and Heelas, P. Religion in Modern Times (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000). 9 9. Woodhead and Heelas, “Religion”, 2-4. 10 10. See Beyer “Religion and Globalization”; Casanova, “Public Religions”; Esposito, J.L, and Watson, M., eds. Religion and Global Order (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000); Haynes, J. Religion in Global Politics (London and New York: Longman, 1998); Woodhead and Heelas, “Religion”. 11 11. See Beyer, “Religion and Globalization”. 12 12. See White, L, Jr. The Historic Roots of Our Ecological Crisis, Science (Vol. 155, pp1203-7, 1967); Snyder, S. Chinese Traditions and Ecology: A Survey Article, Worldviews: Environment, Culture, Religion (10, 1, 2006, pp100-134); Tucker, “Worldly Wonder”. 13 13. Nash, R, The Greening of Religion, In This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment, Gottlieb, R., ed:194-229 (New York and London: Routledge, 1996). 14 14. Taylor, B, and Kaplan, J, eds., The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature (London and New York: Thoemmes Continuum,2005), pviii; Tucker, “Worldly Wonder”, 23, 32; see Tucker, M.E. Religion and Ecology: Survey of the Field, In The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Ecology, Gottlieb, R.S, ed:398-418 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) . 15 15. Gardner, “Invoking the Spirit”, “Inspiring Progress”; Gottlieb, “A Greener Faith”; Oelschlaeger, “Caring for Creation”; Tucker, “Worldly Wonder”; Tucker and Grim, “Introduction”, “Series Forward”. 16 16. See Bassett, L, Brinkman, J.T, and Pedersen, K.P., eds. Earth and Faith: A Book of Reflection for Action (New York: United Nations Environment Programme, 2000); Gardner, “Invoking the Spirit”; Nash, “Greening”; Taylor, “Religious Studies”; Tucker, “Worldly Wonder”; Tucker and Grim, “Introduction”, “Series Forward”. 17 17. See Tucker, “Worldly Wonder”; Tucker and Grim, “Introduction”, “Series Forward”; www.environment.harvard.edu/religion. Websites were accessed September-November 2006. 18 18. There is a large body of literature in this area, for an overview see Taylor and Kaplan, “Encyclopedia”. 19 19. See Taylor and Kaplan, “Encyclopedia”; www.religionandnature.com. 20 20. Gottlieb “This Sacred Earth”; Nasr, “The Spiritual and Religious”; Tucker, “Worldly Wonder”; Tucker and Grim, “Introduction”, “Series Forward”. 21 21. Gottlieb “This Sacred Earth”, 10-11; Tucker and Grim, “Introduction”, 16-17, “Series Forward”, xxii. 22. See Tucker, “Worldly Wonder”. 23. Oelschlaeger, “Caring for Creation”; Tucker “Religion and Ecology”. 24. Tucker and Grim “Introduction”, 4. 22 23 24 25 25. See Watling, T. New Cosmologies and Sacred Stories: Re-Imagining the Human-Environment Relationship via ReligioScientific Metaphor and Myth, forthcoming in European Society for the Study of Science and Theology (ESSSAT) volume Issues in Science and Theology, 2007. 26 26. Masuzawa, T. The Invention of World Religions (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2005); see Asad, “Genealogies”; Snyder, “Chinese Traditions”; Williams, D.R., Introduction, In Buddhism and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and Deeds, Tucker, M.E, and Wi1liams, D.R., eds:xxxv-xlii (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1997). 27 27. Ingram, P.O, The Jeweled Net of Nature. In Buddhism and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and Deeds. Tucker, M.E, and Wi1liams, D.R., eds:71-88 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997), pp.75-9. 28 28. Kaza, S. Green Buddhism. In When Worlds Converge: What Science and Religion Tell Us about the Story of the Universe and our Place in It. Matthews, C.N, Tucker, M.E, and Hefner, P., eds:293-309 (Chicago and La Salle: OpenCourt, 2002); Sponberg, A. Green Buddhism and the Hierarchy of Compassion. In Buddhism and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and Deeds. Tucker, M.E, and Wi1liams, D.R., eds:351-376 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997). 29 29. Gross, R.M. Toward a Buddhist Environmental Ethic. In Worldviews, Religion and the Environment: A Global Anthology. Foltz, R.C., ed:163170 (Belmont, CA: Thompson/Wadsworth, 2002); Kaza, “Green Buddhism”; Swearer D.K. The Hermeneutics of Buddhist Ecology in Contemporary Thailand: Buddhadasa and Dhammapitaka, In Buddhism and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and Deeds. Tucker, M.E, and Wi1liams, D.R., eds:21-44 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1997), Principles and Poetry, Places and Stories: The Resources of Buddhist Ecology, Daedalus (Vol. 130, Issue 4:225-242, 2001).. 30 30. Barnhill, D.L. Great Earth Sangha: Gary Snyder’s View of Nature as Community, In Buddhism and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and Deeds. Tucker, M.E, and Wi1liams, D.R., eds:187-218 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997); Callicott, “Earths Insights” ; Kaza, “Green Buddhism”; Kinsley, “Ecology and Religion”. 31 31. Swearer, “Principles and Poetry”. 32. Sponberg, “Green Buddhism”; see Kaza, “Green Buddhism”; Kinsley, “Ecology and Religion”. 32 33 33. Gross, “Buddhist Environmental Ethic”; Ingram, “Jeweled Net”; Kraft, K. The Greening of Buddhist Practice, In This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment. Gottlieb, R.S, ed:484-498 (New York and London: Routledge, 1996); Maguire, D.C. Sacred Energies: When the World‘s Religions Sit Down to Talk about the Future of Human Life and the Plight of the Planet (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000); Sponberg, “Green Buddhism”; Swearer, “Principles and Poetry”. 34 34. Kinsley, “Ecology and Religion”; Tucker, M.E. Ecological Themes in Taoism and Confucianism. In Worldviews and Ecology: Religion, Philosophy, and the Environment. Tucker, M.E, and Grim, J.A., eds:150-160 (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1994); Weiming, T. The Continuity of Being: Chinese Visions of Nature. In Worldviews, Religion and the Environment: A Global Anthology. In Foltz, R.C., ed:209-217 (Belmont, CA: Thompson/Wadsworth, 2002). 35 35. Kinsley, “Ecology and Religion”; Weller, R.P, and Bol, P.K. From Heaven-and-Earth to Nature: Chinese Conceptions of the Environment and their Influence on Policy Implementation. In Confucianism and Ecology: The Interrelation of Heaven, Earth and Humans. Tucker, M.E, and Berthong, J., eds:313-341 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998); Weiming, “Continuity of Being”. 36 36. Tucker “Ecological Themes”; see Callicott, “Earths Insights”; Kinsley, “Ecology and Religion”. 37 37. Cheng, C. The Trinity of Cosmology, Ecology and Ethics in the Confucian Personhood, In Confucianism and Ecology: The Interrelation of Heaven, Earth and Humans. Tucker, M.E, and Berthrong, J., eds:211-235 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998); Weiming, T. The Ecological Turn in New Confucian Humanism: Implications for China and the World, Daedalus (Vol 130, Issue 4:243-264, 2001). 38 38. Adler, J.A. Response and Responsibility: Chou Tun-i and Confucian Resources for Environmental Ethics. In Confucianism and Ecology: The Interrelation of Heaven, Earth and Humans. Tucker, M.E, and Berthrong, J., eds:123-149 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1998); Kalton, M.C. Extending the Neo-Confucian Tradition: Questions and Re-conceptualization for the Twenty-First Century. Confucianism and Ecology: The Interrelation of Heaven, Earth and Humans. In Tucker, M.E, and Berthrong, J., eds:77-101 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1998); Weiming, “Continuity of Being”, “Ecological Turn”; Weller and Bol, “From Heaven and Earth”. 39 39. Adler, “Response and Responsibility”; Cheng, “The Trinity”; Kalton, “Extending the Neo-Confucian”; MaGuire, “Sacred Energies”. 40 40. Ames, R.T. The Local and the Focal in Realizing a Daoist World, In Daoism and Ecology: Ways within a Cosmic Landscape, Giradot, N.J, Miller, J, and Xiaogan, L., eds:265-382 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2001); Kirkland, R. “Responsible Non-Action” in a Natural World: Perspectives from the Neiye, Zhuangzi, and Daode jing, In Daoism and Ecology: Ways within a Cosmic Landscape, Giradot, N.J, Miller, J, and Xiaogan, L., eds:293-304 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2001); Xiaogan, L. Non-Action and the Environment Today: A Conceptual and Applied Study of Laozi’s Philosophy, In Daoism and Ecology: Ways within a Cosmic Landscape, Giradot, N.J, Miller, J, and Xiaogan, L., eds:315-40 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2001). 41 41. Kinsley, “Ecology and Religion”; Kirkland, “Responsible Non-Action”; LaFargue, M. “Nature” as Part of Human Culture in Daoism. In Daoism and Ecology: Ways within a Cosmic Landscape. Giradot, N.J, Miller, J, and Xiaogan, L., eds:45-60 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2001). 42 42. McFague, S. An Ecological Christology: Does Christianity Have It? Christianity and Ecology: Seeking the Well-Being of Earth and Humans. In Hessel, D, and Reuther, R.R., eds:29-46 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2000); Reuther, R.R, Conclusion: Eco-Justice at the Center of the Church’s Mission. In Christianity and Ecology: Seeking the Well-Being of Earth and Humans, Hessel, D, and Reuther, R.R., eds:603-613 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2000). 43 43. Bauckham, R. Stewardship and Relationship. In The Care of Creation: Focusing Concern and Action. Berry, R.J., ed:99-106 (Leicester: InterVarsity Press, 2000); Chryssavgis, J. The World of the Icon and creation: an Orthodox Perspective on Ecology and Pneumatology, In Christianity and Ecology: Seeking the Well-Being of Earth and Humans. In Hessel, D, and Reuther, R.R., eds:83-96 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2000); Mische, P.M. The Integrity of Creation: Challenges and Opportunities, In Christianity and Ecology: Seeking the Well-Being of Earth and Humans. In Hessel, D, and Reuther, R.R., eds:591-602 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2000). 44 44. Bauckham, “Stewardship”; Kinsley, “Ecology and Religion”; McGrath, “Reenchantment”; Reuther, “Conclusion”. 45 45. Fox, M, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988); McFague, S, The Body of God: An Ecological Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993); Reid, D. Enfleshing the Human: An Earth Revealing, Earth Healing Christology, In Earth Revealing, Earth Healing: Ecology and Christian Theology. Edwards, D., ed:69-83 (Collegeville; Wallace, M.I, 2001). 46 46. Edwards, D, For Your Immortal Spirit Is in All Things: The Role of the Spirit in Creation. In Earth Revealing, Earth Healing: Ecology and Christian Theology. Edwards, D., ed:45-68 (Collegeville; Wallace, M.I, 2001); Wallace, M.I, The Wounded Spirit as the Basis for Hope in an Age of Radical Ecology. In Christianity and Ecology: Seeking the Well-Being of Earth and Humans, Hessel, D, and Reuther, R.R., eds:51-72. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2000). 47 47. See Deane-Drummond, C, The Ethics of Nature (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004); Reuther, R.R Gaia and God: an Eco-feminist Theology of Earth Healing (New York: Harper San Francisco) 48 48. See Chishti, S.K.K, Fitra: An Islamic Model for Humans and the Environment. In Islam and Ecology: A Bestowed Trust. Foltz, R.C., Denny, F.M, Baharuddin, A., eds:67-82 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2003); Nasr, S.H. Islam and the Environmental Crisis, In Spirit and Nature: Why the Environment is a Religious Issue, Rockefeller, R.C, and Elder, J.C, eds:83-107 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992); Nomanul Haq, S. Islam and Ecology: Toward Retrieval and Reconstruction. Daedalus (Vol. 130, issue 4:141-178, 2001); Ozdemir, I, Toward an Understanding of Environmental Ethics from a Qur’anic Perspective, In Islam and Ecology: A Bestowed Trust. Foltz, R.C., Denny, F.M, Baharuddin, A., eds:3-38 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2003). 49 49. Chishti, “Fitra”; Nasr, “Islam”; Said, A.A, and Funk, N.C. Peace in Islam: An Ecology of the Spirit. In Islam and Ecology: A Bestowed Trust. Foltz, R.C., Denny, F.M, Baharuddin, A., eds:155-184 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2003). 50 50. Izzi Dien, M.Y. Islamic Environmental Ethics, Law, and Society, In This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment. Gottlieb, R. S, ed:164173 (New York and London: Routledge, 1996); Nomanul Haq, “Islam and Ecology; Ozdemir, “Toward an Understanding”; 51 51. Izzi Dien, M.Y, Islamic Ethics and the Environment, In Islam and Ecology, Khalid, F, and O’Brien, J, eds:25-36 (London and Herndon, VA: Cassell, 1997); Nomanul Haq, “Islam and Ecology“; Ozdemir, “Toward and Understanding“. 52 52. Ammar, Nawal, H, An Islamic Response to the Manifest Ecological Crisis. In Worldviews, Religion and the Environment: A Global Anthology. Foltz, R.C., ed. 2002:376-384 (Belmont, CA: Thompson/Wadsworth, 2002); Chishti, “Fitra”; Denny, F.M. Islam and Ecology: A Bestowed Trust Inviting Balanced Stewardship, Earth Ethics (Vol 10, no. 1, 1998); Izzi Dien, “Islamic Ethics”; Maguire, “Sacred Energies”; Parvaiz, M.A, Islam on Man and Nature, In Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature, Taylor, B, and Kaplan., eds:875-879 (London and New York: Thoemmes Continuum, 2005). 53 53. Basset, et al, “Earth and Faith”, 78, suggest points of agreement in environmental ethics that they see major traditions agreeing on; Gottlieb, “A Greener Faith”, 42, picks out themes which for him provide the foundation for a new eco-theological worldview and moral code; Kinsley, “Ecology and Religion”, 227-232, highlights what he sees as common recurrent themes in relation to religion and the environment.