I certainly agree that the local grass roots level are regular folk like you and I. But the locals aren’t usually the leadership that set big picture agendas. That level is where the subtle pantheism sets in. The author I mentioned devoted a significant portion of his life to the movement. He hardly needs to be dismissed because you suspect he doesn’t separate his plastics… (not sure where such suspicion even comes from!)
I actually didn’t know anything about that author. Now I’ll have to get his book, since I do teach and write on the topic. I suspect I will agree with most of what he says (based on a quick google search), tho would take issue with his ideas being used by anti-environmentalists to go ahead with trashing the earth and the people thereupon (if his ideas are being used that way). One can find lots of criticism of any movement or project – which is all good in order to make improvements – but these should not be used to bash well-intended projects to help people and God’s creation. That is my main concern.
There are, as mentioned, many strands to environmentalism (and, yes, some fringe ideas tend to seep into the mainstream movement). I’ve sort of become an “environmental apologist” and feel the need for an “anti-environmental defamation league.” Tho I know your posts are very moderate and do not attack environmentalism overall, just these aspects that go against our Christian faith, etc. We should not throw the baby of pro-life environmentalism out with the bathwater of weirdo ideas.
Also, being a polytheist and pantheist (e.g., actually thinking of the Ganges River as a goddess) – as Hindus do in India – however, does not help the environment much and may even abet in harming it. I have a reading in my Env Anthro class about the belief that Mother Ganges is a powerful goddess and can take any amount of pollution and industrial pollution without harm – so the river is highly toxic and polluted, and still the people insist on bathing in it for its spiritual benefits. Go figure.
One of the bugaboos of Chase, seems to be historian Lynn White’s 1967 article about how Christianity and Western civ are the causes of the current environmental destruction (save for St. Francis, who should be made the patron saint of the environment).
I also have serious problems with White’s article, which I read in the early 70s, partly bec I’m not a “cultural determinist,” but consider the psychological and social (incl relations of family, friends, political, economic) to also impact the human condition (as well as biological and environmental factors); also Christianity is not the only cultural factor impacting us (if it were we’d all be saints like St. Francis
). Here is what I recently wrote about this in a paper under review re climate change skepticism:
White (1967) has suggested that Christianity is at the root of the modern environmental crisis with God’s command to take dominion over the earth, along with the rise of science and modern technology, also from Christian roots. White’s position could be critiqued as cultural determinism. Furthermore, other cultural roots…could also be contributing to destruction of the environment, such as modern Western beliefs, values, and world view, some of these going against Christianity, largely formed by Enlightenment philosophies. America, born during the 18th century Enlightenment, incorporates these in its founding documents and is perhaps most greatly impacted by them. While they may also have roots in Christianity
qua Western culture, they arose partly out of opposition to government and Church oppression in a period of increasing sociopolitical complexity and authoritarianism. The Enlightenment concept of person – foundational to modern Western culture, but predating advances in modern sciences and social sciences – was of autonomous, atomistic individuals, living free of society and its restrictions, who entered into a social contract to form society, retaining their pre-societal natural rights. This view privileges individualism and freedom over community welfare and a healthy environment, and downplays social responsibilities and duties, for instance, as embodied in the Ten Commandments. It lacks foundation in human ecology and the deeply complex human-human and human-nature interconnectedness, but perhaps has even strengthened in modern times, going further against current science and social science, as it articulates with modern conditions and technological advances that lead people to think they are largely independent of nature and each other. By not taking such ecology and interconnections into account, Enlightenment thinking in modern times tends to view ‘creation’ or nature as mere passive ‘resources’ for human benefit and exploitation (Merchant 1980)…
The other side of viewing humans as self-contained and autonomous is viewing the environment as wilderness and wild species beyond human inhabited areas, with polar bears and rainforests its common synecdoches. People sharing these views tend not to consider the environment also to be the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the climate in which we thrive, and the materials with which we eke out a living. The idea that environmental problems can harm people lacks salience…Thus there are other cultural factors beyond Christianity (White’s determinant) – as well as social and psychological factors – that feed into [climate change] skepticism…
We can block out unChristian feelings and ideas and just listen to Pope Francis – that’s the best solution.
