Abstract
Scholarship has suggested a “greening” of religions, supposing that faith communities increasingly become environmentally friendly and use their potentials to address environmental challenges. This contribution points to the problems of the supposed “greening” by indicating the ongoing disagreements in many religious traditions over environmental engagement. The disagreements show that religious environmentalism is an embattled terrain that involves actors with different interests, backgrounds, and understandings of their traditions. The authors illustrate that tensions are an inherent part of religious environmentalism, becoming manifest in different views and theologies, ambivalences, misunderstandings, and sometimes mistrust. They distinguish between four types of tensions: (1) intradenominational tensions, (2) interdenominational tensions, (3) interreligious tensions, and (4) religious-societal tensions. By drawing attention to the tensions of religious environmentalism, this contribution sheds light on the struggles and limitations that religious environmentalists face in their ambitions to address climate change and other environmental challenges.
Highlights
Against the backdrop of climate change and other environmental degradation processes, scholarship supposes that the world’s major faith traditions are becoming increasingly concerned about the natural environment
Contrasting the optimistic pictures painted by sections of the religion and ecology debate, social science research has pointed to different challenges of religious environmentalism
Tensions in religious environmentalism shed a critical light on the optimistic perspectives in the religion and ecology debate that stress global “greening” processes
Summary
Against the backdrop of climate change and other environmental degradation processes, scholarship supposes that the world’s major faith traditions are becoming increasingly concerned about the natural environment It has framed this religious innovation process as a “greening” of religions. Many segments of the Church (e.g., Bishops, local churches, members) disagreed with the contents of Pope Francis’ environmental program, questioned the relevance of Laudato Si’, and only supported it to varying degrees (Li et al 2016; Landrum et al 2017; Vincentnathan et al 2016) This example illustrates the tensions of religious environmentalism. The following section contrasts this optimistic picture by accentuating empirical insights that point to the challenges of religious environmentalism These show that empirical evidence does not support the assumed “greening” of religions. The conclusion relates our focus on tensions to broader debates on religious innovations and the role of religions in societal challenges, and suggests avenues for future research
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