Towards a Progressive Theological Framework for Sustainable and Eco-centric Environmentalism: A Challenge to Contemporary Global Religions

It cannot be denied that the whole of humanity is currently facing a worsening state of ecological crisis. If not taken care of immediately, environmental catastrophes may obliterate living beings from the face of the earth. It is not an exaggeration to assert that humankind is the foremost cause of the present global ecological imbalance. The Hindu adage, “karma always returns full-circle” is indeed applicable to humankind’s current environmental woes. Our abuse of nature will always return to us full-circle: back to its originator—humankind. If Nature’s warnings are not heeded, humanity will inevitably reap “ecological karma” in the form of environmental calamities and destruction.

In the West, various “New-Age” ecology movements blame the Judaeo-Christian worldview as the culprit of our present ecological crises. They assert that the whole ecosystem will always be the victim of environmental destruction for as long as Jewish and Christian theologies continue to teach the anthropocentric view that “man” is the ruler of nature and that he is the “overlord” empowered by God, for the “man” is tasked to dominate and control the whole of creation. The “New-Age” ecology movements claim that the West’s exaggerated worship of science and high technology is the logical outcome of Judaeo-Christian ecological anthropocentrism. Thus, they opined that theological anthropocentrism is to be blamed for our present ecological woes and the massive destruction of our environment. This is the view of Lynn White, Jr. who in his now classic article, “The Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis” unequivocally points his finger to Western Christianity’s worldview of “ecological domination” and “theological anthropocentrism” as legitimizing ideologies of the West’s exploitation of nature (See, Lynn White Jr., “The Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis” in Science, 10 March 1967: pp. 1203-1207.). However, this accusation is largely simplistic at best, since such an accusation is based on a misunderstanding of scriptural passages by both modern empiricistic proponents of secular thought as well as on the naive understanding of the doctrine of dominion and stewardship theology among conservatist and fundamentalist Christians of the West.

How should progressive Christianity therefore envisage the proper and pro-active eco-centric understanding of the relationship between humanity and Creation? Judaeo-Christian theology begins its environmental theology by asserting that a spiritual person’s ecological duty to Nature is based on the postulate that God is the “Creator of the whole creation”; that He fills, saturates, and permeates Nature or Creation. God loves His Creation and He consistently manifests His Divine Oversight and Concern for it. Sacred scriptural narratives originating from Semitic peoples—whether Sumerian, Babylonian, Judaic, Christian or Islamic—teach that humans are created in the Divine Image; and as such, they are God’s co-workers and co-laborers in the world. Humans manifest God’s attribute in creativity and in recreating the environment with the view towards ecological balance and sustainability. Humans should therefore emulate God in loving, caring, nurturing, and cherishing His creation. This stewardship given by the Creator to humans nowhere includes the permission for humans to abuse, exploit or destroy Nature the way our capitalistic and corporatist financial economies are doing now.

Reading Genesis 1-2, we see God’s affirmation and appreciation of His Creation. Seven-times, God exclaimed: “It is good!” This exclamation is a proclamation of the ontological and primordial goodness of nature. All of His creation is good in its pristine condition. In Genesis 3, God charged humanity to love Nature as a Divine gift and to care for it as worthy steward of this unmerited gift. Even in the Edenic condition, God gave humans the gift of creative freedom. This creative freedom can be expressed in two ways, i.e.: “freedom on the way to God” and “freedom away from God”; “freedom to cooperate with God” and “freedom to repudiate God’s counsels” (See, Rev. Dr. Jacobus Arminius, Table Talks of Dr. Arminius. Swansea: Evangelical Anglican Theological Beacon, 1976; p. 48). Humans are free to choose whether to follow God’s Will or not. Man’s choice if not made wisely will have a destructive effect to himself, to fellow beings, to Nature, and to the whole cosmos.

From the perspective of philosophical pantheism and ecological mysticism, Nature is a dynamic and reflective revelation of God’s presence, a living sacrament of God, and a source of reverential contemplation and meditation for people seeking Transcendence. We can see this spiritual sentiment of reverence for Nature among pre-industrial and pre-high technology animistic and pre-capitalistic societies; which Western capitalism often derisively refer to as the uncivilized Fourth World. However, when unbridled human egotism in the vicious forms of anthropocentrism, unrestrained capitalism, hyper-industrialization, exploitative materialism, extractive imperialism, greedy corporatocracy, and hegemonic globalization took over these pre-high technology and pre-capitalist societies, the ancient and time-honored paradigm of animism characterizing profound pantheistic reverence for Nature was drastically turned upside down. These societies that were newly converted to the skewed Westernized understanding of development (a.k.a., materialism, capitalism, corporatocratic imperialism) began to worship industrialization, “high-tech” gadgets, and the money-capital of the “Almighty West”. Nowadays, humans claim to be the exclusive creator, sole innovator, and maker of the world’s destiny. We have become arrogant and proud of the work of our hands and have totally forgotten that we cannot—at anytime—perfectly replicate the ways of Nature since we can in no way be truly like God, Who is the True Cause and Ground of the existence of everything in the cosmos!

Humankind is continuously descending to pits of degeneracy due to its arrogance, greediness and economic rat-race of living. Instead of producing goods for their necessities, humans produce them to satisfy their conceit, whims and caprice. Genetic structures are even manipulated to set humankind in rivalry to the Creator. Potent weapons of warfare are continuously being produced to prove humankind’s destructive nature. Science and technology, instead of harnessing our full potentials for the good life, opened up venues of massive destruction of Nature, not to mention the annihilation of humanity itself through state-of-the-art weaponry, genetically modified foodstuffs, chemical warfare, virus production, nuclear weapons proliferation and State initiated violence against fellow humans.

Any action that is contrary to the expressed Divine injunctions will always bring one to perdition no matter how one justifies it by anthropocentric propagandizing, and no matter how it is being peddled by the propaganda of so-called economic development. No economic, scientific, and technological development will have a good end if it destroys the ecological integrity of God’s creation—Nature and humankind. There is no real scientific and technological development if this so-called “progress” is devoid of ethical, moral, and scriptural restraint. This is not to say that industrialization, science, economic development and high technology are evil per se. The fruits of progress are extremely beneficial in as much as we are utilizing them for the good of all. As an example, money may be used for charity and various philanthropic projects, but humanity can also turn it into something evil; for vanity, for warmongering and for criminal intents. The media can be used to disseminate valuable information as well as destructive lies. Therefore, our creative freedom and purity of intention are the determining criteria whether neutral phenomena such as industrialization, development and economic progress can be ethically evil or good.

It is therefore imperative for humankind to return to the original intention of God for the entire cosmos. Humankind should utilize its God-given freedom to be a “co-worker” with God in preserving the integrity of His Creation. Humans must manifest their cooperation in God’s creative work by following God’s life-affirming and nature-preserving injunctions. Christianity, and all world religions for that matter—if understood in terms of environmental stewardship and ecological preservation—far from being the cause of the ecological debacle might even contain the keys to the restoration of the wholeness and integrity of God’s creation. It is therefore high time now for various religions to formulate a progressive and sustainable ecological theology that articulates humanity’s sacred duty to labor together with God for the salvation and regeneration of the environmental integrity of the whole ongoing universe. This ethical task of humans cooperating with God to restore ecological integrity and wholeness is the basis for a pro-active theology of holistic environmental redemption.