During my second year of seminary, one of our monthly assignments was to pick a person off a list of religious and spiritual “big names we should know” to research more. Being who I am I looked for the environmentalist on each month’s list. One of the first I found was Reverend Sally Bingham. She really inspired me. Reverend Bingham was a stay-at-home mom who never went to college, but she was so frustrated that the Episcopal church she attended didn’t think climate change was something that should be addressed, she started her bachleors degree when she was 45 and went on to seminary, just so she could speak about climate change from the pulpit. You may not know who she is, but I’ve seen information from the organization she founded out in the lobby, Interfaith Power and Light.
Later lists introduced me to Chung Hyun Kyung, a lay theologian of the Presbyterian Church of Korea. She combines Christian beliefs with those of other religions like Buddhism’s compassion for all living beings for a whole eco-feminist vibe. And, of course, when St. Francis showed up on a list, I had to dig in there. In the middle of all this research, my brother gifted me a lovely book called The Great Conversation by Christian theology professor Belden Lane, who shares insight on finding God in nature gleaned from a long relationship with a cottonwood tree.
Reverend Bingham ended up inspiring me in one more way. In my research, I came across a video of a talk she gave at an Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion summit put on by the program of that name at the California Institute of Integral Studies. I just completed my first semester in that program, working on my masters. One of the classes offered was called Spiritual Ecologies, which looked at how different religions and spiritual traditions approach the human relationship with nature. It was a great class and I’m going to share a bit of what I learned, particularly topics us UUs are likely to be familiar with, recognizing that I could talk all day, which I won’t, and just brush the surface. I’m going to stay away from indigenous spiritual traditions, because appropriation is a thing, I don’t have enough experience or knowledge to attempt to explain those cosmologies, and I think we can rely too heavily on them to back up our seventh principle of interconnection while overlooking the roots of spiritual ecology in our traditions of origin and practice. So, let’s look at some ways Christian, Jewish, and Buddhist traditions, are greening up and where we can find common ground as we address climate change and the other ecological issues of our time.
I opened today with an excerpt from Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’s encyclical on creation care. When he published it in 2015, it created a stir because it was a big step by the Catholic Church into the science of ecology and climate change. Pope Francis came right out and said that we’ve made the Earth an immense pile of filth and blamed greedy industrialists and unrestrained technological advances for ruining it. He didn’t get radical – this is the Catholic Church after all – but he did call for a moderation of our current throwaway culture. Frequent criticisms of the encyclical are that Francis didn’t go far enough in pushing for change to respond to the climate crisis, and that he ignored both the disproportionate effects of climate change on women and the potential of empowered women to address it. Recent changes he’s making as far as the role of women in the leadership of the church make me think he’s at least heard the criticism and is considering it. He seems to reach out to other faiths with more frequency than has been the norm, too. There’s still a lot about Catholic doctrine that puts me off, but the door seems to be open for conversations about climate change and the way we live on this planet, so that’s good.
Pope Francis is inspired by St. Francis of Assisi, who was made patron saint of ecology in 1979 by Pope John Paul II. St. Francis started doing spiritual ecology in the 12th century, a period which, coincidentally, was marked by a rapid expansion of the human population and emphasis on economic growth. Sound familiar? St. Francis’s response was a pulling back from the trappings of wealth, and reverence and compassion for all life, themes echoed in Laudato Si’. I wonder what would have happened if the Franciscan version of Catholicism had won out. Perhaps Pope Francis’s renewal of those ideas will take hold more broadly.
Laudato Si’, along with Rev. Bingham’s Interfaith Power and Light movement and the others I mentioned earlier, are examples of what I consider to be the greening of mainstream religions. Christianity isn’t the only tradition that has had its teachings studied for evidence of ecological awareness and guidance that can be applied to our current-day crises. Martin Buber, a 20th century Jewish philosopher, looked to nature as affirmation of the unconditional presence of God everywhere, and made a push for the recognition of the inherent rights of nature back in the early 1900s. For me, his most meaningful contribution was talking about nature and other-than-human beings as “thou” instead of “it” or “that,” acknowledging the personhood of all of creation, a decidedly animistic perspective not usually seen in the Judeo-Christian realms.
The program coordinator of the Ecology, Spirituality and Religion program told me he has been volunteering on a Jewish-run farm that practices shmita, the practice of leaving the fields alone every seven years and eating only what grows untended, like fruit from trees. Judaism has its own eco movement that draws on Jewish teachings and encourages environmental activism. To hear about the farm, though, was very interesting because those tending it have to let go of the capitalist drive to keep producing no matter what. I find hope in that.
Buddhism is finding the green, too, and some Buddhist practices that are being broadly adopted by other folks, like mindfulness, are giving us tools to work out the complexities of climate change and the other issues of life. The fundamental tenets of Buddhism are not necessarily green. There are Buddhists who say that the central focus is liberation from human suffering, not saving the whole world. And the tenets aren’t even consistent among the traditions within Buddhism, which are several. In any case, contemporary Buddhists concerned with the changing climate and the state of the Earth, especially here in the West, have mined the various traditions for ideas that support environmental action, like non-harming. Non-harming has been applied to the ethics of everything from food production to land use to pollution. Well-known Buddhist environmental activist Joanna Macy connects Buddhism and deep ecology in her writings and teachings.
So what’s deep ecology? Deep ecology is an emerging spirituality that draws on a modern definition of animism and a felt sense of interconnection. Variations of deep ecology have been arising out of some of environmentalism’s direct-action movements. Participants find meaning and motivation for the work in Earth-centered rituals which are repeated and shared until they become a new spiritual tradition of sorts. Deep ecology is based on experiences of awe and connection with nature that lead to questioning beliefs about one’s relationship with nature and contemplating ways to live better. Those questions lead to transformation, sometimes quite profound, of belief of one’s place in the web of life and a recognition of the sacredness of the landscape and all beings. Deep ecology, along with most indigenous spiritual traditions, can be thought of as dark green religions.
If they are dark green, what does light green religion look like? Light green religions practice what might be called shallow ecology, a recognition that there is a problem but focused on making capitalism sustainable while avoiding some foundational changes to the system that’s creating the problem, systems often bolstered by prevailing religious thought and culture. I find UUs more open to change than other religions. I mean, we are usually ahead of others on social and environmental issues. It’s a big reason why I joined this congregation. The seventh principle brings in respect for the interdependent web and reminds us that we are part of it. It’s great that environmental activism is part of our social justice movements. But it’s hard, for me anyway, to accept the toleration of all religious ideas, because some just aren’t green enough and there are still some out there who believe the Earth’s resources are meant to be exploited. We may never find common ground with them, but hopefully they will end up on the fringe and green becomes the rule for all.
I was glad to hear that the social action committee chose to work with GreenFaith. I’ve read the book and heard Fletcher Harper, the founder, speak. The GreenFaith movement keeps growing and its international presence invites voices from the global south and others who are unjustly burdened with the impacts of our changing climate. One of the things Fletcher Harper mentions in his book, which gave me a chuckle, is that he got resistance from within the Episcopal church and was accused of turning Pagan because he cared about the Earth. Now, if Reverend Harper decides to come over to the Pagan side we would welcome him with dandelion wine and a bonfire, but he sounds like he plans to stay Christian. But his responses to claims that honoring nature is not being Christian give us a good way to bridge to those who might otherwise be persuaded to care about climate change.
He says that loving or worshiping nature is often seen as idolatry. That’s wrong, he says. Nature can be respected as divine creation without going as far as saying nature fully embodies the divine. It’s that piece, by the way, that will keep Christianity from being a dark green religion, I think. In any case, the tide of dominionism seems to be turning and I’m hearing fewer arguments justifying exploitation to the detriment of nature and the Earth’s inhabitants based on it.
Personally, I think secularism plays a part in the crisis, too. The science and philosophy of the past few hundred years have focused more on understanding what it means to be human, separate from nature, than what it means to be animal and part of the interdependent web. I’m not saying we shouldn’t do science, I just think we need an integral approach that includes other ways of knowing such spiritual and contemplative practices that help us understand that interdependent web of life we are part of. I like that the UUs are positioned to be middle ground between religion and science.
There’s thousands of years of human history that shows we are inherently spiritual. I don’t think we are going to solve climate change with science alone, because we have to FEEL interconnected, not just read that we are. I think that’s what those emerging deep green religions bring to the party.
There’s something to be said, too, for the limitations of trying to change a system from within, including an established religion. Maybe it’s good to scrap it all and come up with something new, some original cosmology that rights our relationship to the Earth. Will it be influenced by indigenous, Earth-honoring traditions? Sure. But I believe those of us of European descent have to stop looking for other cultures to solve our spiritual dilemmas for us. I’d guess most of us in this room come from families who are Jewish or some flavor of Christian, as I am. I’ve shared some ideas that I hope can help each of us find a way forward without completely rejecting where we came from.
In her book Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer writes about plantain, the short, broad-leafed plant found in many yards. Indigenous Americans called plantain “white man’s footsteps,” because it came from Europe and spread everywhere. Plantain grew everyplace I’ve lived. It grows in my yard here. I always thought it was native. Plantain is a gentle nonnative, though. It’s edible and medicinal, and doesn’t seem detrimental to native plants, so it’s been allowed to naturalize.
Perhaps the invitation is to emulate plantain as we strive to build a broad coalition of religious and spiritual people to respond to a changing climate and the other challenges of our time. To gently stand among those whose roots are deeper than our own, not shading anyone out, and finding ways to heal with and feed others from our own ancestry. And perhaps bringing new spiritual ecologies into being.