Can eco-justice go mainstream?
By JAMES BURBANK
Special to the National Catholic Reporter Albuquerque,
N.M.
The Rio Grande Valley spreads in Edenic splendor of early
springtime beneath the great turtle form of the Sandia Mountains. The river is
a brown streak of liquid glass lined by cottonwoods just greening along the
bank.
Beyond, the city of Albuquerque hulks at the base of the
mountains.
High on a bluff on Albuquerque's sprawling west mesa, the Santa Fe
archdiocese's Madonna Retreat Center overlooks the Rio Grande.
Twenty-six influential New Mexico Catholic and Protestant leaders
are meeting here to discuss what they believe is a revolution that will shake
Christianity to its foundations.
They want to formulate practical ways to move current concerns
about ecological crisis to the theological center of Christian ritual and
practice.
So-called ecotheology has generated a flood of books and articles
as theologists and ethicists have tried to close the gap between contemporary
scientific knowledge and Christian belief.
Early in 1990, a group of 32 internationally eminent scientists
headed by Carl Sagan delivered an open letter to the North American religious
community saying there was no technological fix for unparalleled worldwide
environmental devastation. They called upon religious leaders and churches to
react to the crisis as the only social agents with the ethical power to respond
to "crimes against creation."
In New York on June 3, 1991, religious leaders at the Summit on
Environment promised to take on this challenge from the secular scientific
community. Six years have passed. Is anyone out there listening?
Crimes against creation
Near dusk a few New Mexico conferees lounge in the center's
meeting room looking out through a large picture window to the broad swath of
river turning gold in the late afternoon light. Charles E. Little sweeps into
the room like an affable but prophetic St. Nicholas.
Author of 11 environmental books, Little served as president and
editor for American Land Forum, head of the Natural Resources Policy Group,
senior associate with the Conservation Foundation and executive director of the
Open Space Institute.
Ten years ago he left Washington, D.C., to live in New Mexico. A
member of the New Mexico Conference of Churches Eco-Justice Task Force, Little
is an articulate and persuasive spokesman for his new cause -- ecotheology. He
was active in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s when churches
played a key role in creating social change.
He believes the only way to effect environmental salvation is by
convincing millions of churchgoers that environmental sacrilege must stop. This
conference, sponsored by the Eco-Justice Task Force, is the kickoff for a
series of such gatherings that Little hopes will eventually be held on a
national basis.
Keynote speaker is John Haught, a Catholic theologian from
Georgetown University in Washington and author of The Promise of Nature,
which attempts to re-ground Christian belief in the sanctity of the natural
world. Haught believes the recovery of religious vision is the only way the
earth's ecosystem will survive.
For Charles Little, hope is a big theme these days. One of the
attendees compliments him on his recent book, The Dying of the Trees:
"Your book is great but it's really depressing." Little smiles broadly. He has
struck home. The book, a finalist for the 1997 Los Angeles Times Book
Award, examines the wholesale destruction of America's forests through
clear-cutting, acid rain, ozone layer depletion and resulting ultraviolet
radiation -- all human-caused destruction. After writing the book, Little says
he sank into a period of despair from which he is now emerging.
Little waves a copy of Tom Hayden's new book, The Lost Gospel
of the Earth. "Have you seen this?" he asks. California State Sen. Tom
Hayden condemns mainstream religions for maintaining silence in the face of
corporate and government polluters who are committing what Hayden terms "mortal
sin against God's creation."
"If the churches don't have anything to say about the
environment," Charles Little is fond of proclaiming, "they have nothing to say
at all."
Surrounded on all sides
The mood shifts as conference participants take their seats and
introduce themselves. Most of the group is white, and there are more women
present than men. They espouse the ecofeminist view that exploitation of the
earth and exploitation of women go hand in hand. Participants are educators,
pastors, church members and missionaries, many of whom have advanced degrees in
subjects like marine biology, wilderness theology, ethnobotany and
environmental studies.
"Why do so many Christians seem so unconcerned or even object to
eco-justice? It troubles me," says Paul Seto, a retired Japanese-American
Presbyterian minister from Santa Fe, N.M.
Seto expresses deep spiritual commitment as well as a sense of
isolation that other participants also seem to feel.
The nascent ecotheology or eco-justice movement has had a chilly
reception in this area, where fundamentalists recently offered prize money to
students developing creationist projects for the annual high school science
fair. Fundamentalists have lobbied hard to have creationism taught in
Albuquerque schools along with evolution. To them, ecotheology smacks of New
Age paganism.
People of color in the social justice movement have so far ignored
efforts by the Eco-Justice Task Force to form alliances. Affluent white
environmentalists and indigenous communities have often come to loggerheads
here in New Mexico where employment and poverty are core issues.
Albuquerque's Center for Action and Contemplation, a Catholic
outreach ministry, offers a unique blend of prayer, social action and
internship programs. Permaculture projects at the center's Tepeyac Guest
Residence have recently been criticized by some center staff members for taking
staffers away from their social justice projects to complete work-intensive
natural agriculture.
Permaculture attempts to integrate self-sustaining, pesticide-free
vegetable production with an environmentally conscious lifestyle. Staff members
say permaculture projects, such as installing a natural water collection
system, are an outgrowth and vital expression of their ecotheological concerns.
This values clash between human-centered social activism and earth-centered
ecotheology has caused conflict as some local religious activists apply new
theological understandings that challenge traditional assumptions.
An unlikely Elijah
John Haught seems an unlikely Elijah as he steps to the podium to
address the conference group. He is tall and lanky, and his deliberate
movements reveal him as the Virginia farm boy he is, one of nine children born
to parents who raised chickens, hogs and cattle.
Haught's self-effacing style contrasts with the sophistication of
his message. Can Christianity, with its emphasis on future redemption and
salvation be ecologically responsible, Haught asks. Dualism, otherworldliness,
anthropocentrism, patriarchy and dominion over the feminine powers of nature
have made modern Christianity indifferent to the natural world. Likewise,
secular attempts to demystify and reduce nature to material for human
exploitation have led to the cosmic pessimism of our industrial consumerist
age, Haught says.
He sees three ways in which faith and ecoethics might be
connected:
- First, many Christian theologians -- reacting against charges
that religion is impotent in the face of today's unprecedented environmental
devastation -- have become apologists, citing biblical summons to stewardship
as a call to protect the natural world.
- A second view holds that traditional Christian beliefs and
theology are sufficient in and of themselves and do not have to be altered in
the face of ecological crises.
- A third approach, however, is sacramental ecotheology, which
attempts to reinstill sacredness of earth and universe as an intrinsic value
through which God reveals himself. Nature is a sacramental disclosure of God, a
view compatible with Catholic practice, but, in Haught's opinion, not an
ultimately satisfying proposition.
For Haught, nature reveals the future perfection promised by God,
a central theme that runs through Hebrew and Christian scripture. However,
theologies prevalent today that are concerned primarily with the end of the
world and life beyond death become diverted from that theme. The attention of
believers is thus turned away from dealing with the present.
It is obvious Haught is preaching to the choir, yet he seems
strangely detached from the devastating significance of his message: If
humanity cannot respond to the current trends by reversing ecological
destruction, we may disappear from the face of the earth. Such a dire warning
would more suit fundamentalist radio doom prophets than John Haught, who
concludes his presentation in a quiet voice warmed by a sense of promise.
The next morning Haught is up early. He strolls to the cafeteria
for breakfast as conference participants say morning prayers.
No prophetic voice
"There's no Martin Luther out there," he says. "There's no one
radical prophetic voice speaking out right now in the religious community.
There are so many factions and nothing will really happen until the government
reacts. The call for voluntarism is OK, but what we have now is lip service
from both political parties that are really two wings of the American business
party, all dominated by the ethic of unlimited economic growth. What we really
need is a massive restructuring of life, a redefinition of what it means to be
a man or a woman today, a wider, more encompassing movement that sees the
connection between ecological crisis, economics and poverty."
Throughout the day, groups discuss how they will bring back their
convictions to their communities. There are no earthshaking ideas, no great
practical revelations.
That evening Haught is again a featured speaker, this time
presenting an address for the public at the Newman Aquinas Center near the
University of New Mexico. Attendance is moderate. Conference participants are
geared up, but after the presentation, a couple expresses disappointment.
They had expected Haught to rally the troops, but instead he
delivered an academic address clarifying his view of nature as God's promise.
For Wallace Ford, executive secretary of the New Mexico Conference of Churches,
the presentation is a revelation.
The next morning Ford conducts the closing morning service for the
conference. He talks about the tree as an ecumenical symbol, the sacred tree,
the tree of life, the crucifixion tree, the Bo Tree under which the Buddha sat,
how trees were thought from ancient times to hold up the sky, how they nurture
and sustain us with oxygen. Ford quotes from Alice Walker's The Color
Purple, and he cites Nelson Mandela who planted a tree to keep his hope
alive when he was in prison.
"There is also the tree as promise," Ford says, "a promise of the
universe as opposed to violence, as the social glue that has held societies
together and that now threatens to destroy us. We have a choice -- either hope
or violence. The church is not to be found in any building, but it is the
community of life, the tree of life." Ford produces what he calls eucharistic
seedlings. He holds one of the small trees in his palms as he presents it to a
worshiper.
"Do you accept this as the Tree of Life?" Ford asks.
National Catholic Reporter, June 6,
1997
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