Abstract
Keywords:religion, environment, religion environmental movementAbstractThe view that emerged in the social science and religious literature is that Judeo-Christian tradition was in part responsible for the environmental crisis by fostering a or mastery-over-nature orientation. Despite the growing significance of the environmental movement, most church bodies had not addressed the problem officially until the early 1990s. Several national and faith-based organizations evolved to catalyze interest and organize the movement. This paper examines whether those efforts resulted in a significant change in environmental attitudes, beliefs, or behavior among the religiously involved. Using data from the General Social Survey for 1993, 2000, and 2010, results indicate that the respondents' denominational identification, grouped in terms of its liberal, moderate, or fundamentalist orientation, was weakly but significantly associated with several indicators of environmentalism for all three study years. These associations remain relatively consistent throughout this period, suggesting little change overall in the relationship between religious identification and environmental concern.IntroductionReligion's role in the environmental crisis in America has been extensively discussed in the literature. In 1967, Lynn White attempted to explain the root cause of the world's mounting ecological crisis. His article, published in Science, blamed the problem on Judeo-Christian values. White asserted that the Judeo-Christian tradition encouraged an anthropocentric orientation which is inimical to environmental concern. In particular, the mandate to dominate and exploit nature for human ends resonated with Western technological mastery over the world. This view undermined the long held notion of many primitive religions that humans cannot exceed the confines of the natural world with impunity. White concluded his argument by saying that . .we shall continue to have a worsening ecological crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence save to serve man (1967, p. 1207).While White's thesis pertained mostly to macro level and historically specific social change, research has followed the implication of his thesis for understanding the relationship between religion and environmental concern at the individual level (Eckberg and Blocker, 1996). Along this line, many studies have supported a negative relationship between conservative religiosity and environmental concern (Hand and Van Liere,1984; Eckberg and Blocker, 1989; Guth, Kellstedt, Smidt, and Green, 1993; Guth, Green, Kellstedt, and Smidt, 1995), although some studies have found little to no correlations between the two (Boyd, 1999; Greeley,1993; Hayes and Marangudakis, 2000, 2001). Further research has shown that religious commitment is not inimical to more environmentally responsible behavior (Haluza-Delay, 2000; Hitzhusen, 2007; Kanagy and Willits, 1993). This line of argument suggests that acceptance of a dominance over nature orientation does not necessarily equate to poor environmental attitudes and actions. In general, the view emerging from the literature is that fundamentalist or conservative Christianity is associated with lower levels of environmentalism while religious liberalism tends to be more supportive.The potential theological causes of this association are not well understood. Some have argued that the dominion mandate is more likely to be affirmed by more Biblicist theological traditions (Hand and Van Liere,1984). Other analysts suggest that the negative relationship between conservative Christian and environmentalism is less theological and more cultural, particularly given the religious right's hostility toward what is perceived to be a liberal and modernist cause (Eckberg and Blocker, 1996). The disparate nature of many of these findings is due in part to the unique methodological features of each study (Eckberg and Blocker, 1996; Djupe and Hunt, 2009). …
Highlights
Religion’s role in the environmental crisis in America has been extensively discussed in the literature
While a significant number of studies have examined the relationship between religiosity and environmentalism, few if any studies have examined whether environmental attitudes, beliefs, and behavior have changed among religious individuals over the course of the past two decades, a time when several of the major church bodies have made public environmental statements
For 1993, the patterns of means across categories of religious orientation for each year are similar—religiously unaffiliated are less Progrowth, more willing to pay for environmental protection, more likely to perceive environmental threats, more likely to report environmental activism, and more likely to recycle
Summary
Religion’s role in the environmental crisis in America has been extensively discussed in the literature. White asserted that the Judeo-Christian tradition encouraged an anthropocentric orientation which is inimical to environmental concern. The mandate to dominate and exploit nature for human ends resonated with Western technological mastery over the world. This view undermined the long held notion of many primitive religions that humans cannot exceed the confines of the natural world with impunity. White concluded his argument by saying that “. . .we shall continue to have a worsening ecological crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence save to serve man” White concluded his argument by saying that “. . .we shall continue to have a worsening ecological crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence save to serve man” (1967, p. 1207)
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