On ecology, does religion have what it takes?

National Catholic Reporter, July 17, 1998 by Arthur Jones

Christians, repent. You've nothing to lose but your comfortable way of life. Slaveholders heard a similar message some two centuries ago. The world didn't end when slavery was abolished -- but an affluent way of life for some surely did.

Now all Christians (all of us in the West today anyway) are going to have to come to a reckoning with our lifestyles if the Christian critique of the planet's current dire ecological trajectory is taken seriously.

Ecological policy "cannot be decided by cost-benefit analysis. It cannot be left to bottom-line economics. Social capital, spiritual capital need to be factored in before it is laid before the `free market' world."

So summarized Mary Evelyn Tucker when we talked by phone at the conclusion of a conference on Christianity and Ecology earlier this year at the Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions.

Tucker, with John Grim -- both of Bucknell University -- is project codirector of the most concerted effort yet to fred common religious ground as the basis for a workable world, ecologically and economically speaking. The Christianity conference was only one in a stream at the center that has attracted more than 600 scholars and activists -- on Buddhism and Ecology, Confucianism and Ecology, Shinto and ECology, Hinduism and Ecology, Indigenous Traditions and Ecology, Judaism and Ecology, Islam and Ecology, Taoism and Ecology and Jainism and Ecology.

There's to be a culminating conference of representatives of all the religions at Harvard, Sept. 24-27, and a United Nations conference Oct. 21.

Can Christianity contribute?

During the Christianity segment, Sallie McFague of the Vancouver School of Theology rephrased that and bluntly asked: "Is Christology enough? Christianity's long absence from concern with nature has resulted in a lack of understanding of what it :is and how Christians should relate to it."

And if Christology does have it, what does it look like? According to McFague, "it" looks like the incarnate Christ joining with the prophetic Jesus: a God "who is with all of creation, especially the poor," a God with, for example, a word of judgment about global warming "unlike President Clinton's painless policy on the issue which will `create a wealth of new opportunities for entrepreneurs.'"

In her conference presentation, McFague quoted a New York Times editorial on global warming that contended that "innovation, incentives and the free market can get the job done without serious economic turmoil."

Added McFague, in effect summing up what concerned Christians will push, promote or preach, "An incarnational Christology takes a dimmer view: too little and too late for a country with 5 percent of the world's population, 22 percent of its wealth and 25 percent of its emissions."

McFague's answer will unsettle Christians and unnerve corporate America and the political axis from the mildly left-of-center to the extreme right:

"The impact [of climate change] on other peoples, especially Third World ones, and on nature itself," she said, "is not considered by Clinton's statement or the Times' -- only economics."

But how will a religious ecological vision be translated into action?

"One step at a time," answered conference codirector Tucker. "This is only a two-year project getting it off the ground. The religions are finally gaining their voice, gaining their confidence and gaining their role."

McFague asked if Christians have what it takes. Do religions per se have it?

The moral force of religion historically has been proved, replied Tucker, on issues of slavery, civil rights, intolerance and oppressed peoples. "The historical record is there."

What the conference overall is attempting to do, said Tucker, is to select issues and sectors and individuals who are sympathetic to the role of religion, morality, environmental ethics, and who realize as well that they want to be "in partnership."

She gave as an example the issue of bio-diversity -- what religions can say about the specialness of creation and the importance of a variety of life forms. The Christian stance would intersect with that of, for example, Edward O. Wilson, the biologist whose new book, Consilience: The Unity, of Knowledge, deals with the reconciliation of humanities with science. "Wilson would be a sympathetic partner," she said.

Will the corporate world view this process as an enemy?

"Some will It would be naive to say no, admitted Tucker. But there is a counter-example, she said, in James Wolfensohn, head of the World Bank, who is interested in the social and spiritual development that can be incorporated into economic issues.

"It can't all be done at once," said Tucker. "It is very important from our perspective that we do this strategically and that we don't walk out on a high diving board and proclaim, `Religion has gotten the message, and here's how the corporate world should respond.' I think we should be much more sophisticated than that. We've got to figure out where are the niches of dialogue, and the World Bank is such a niche."