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Abstract
As part of the global effort to alleviate the ecological crisis, ecological civilization has become a dominant movement in China due to the state policy. Within this movement, the Chinese culture is said to be highly ecological and is thus an important asset to environmentalism. This paper seeks to offer a critical evaluation of this view by inquiring into its cultural and religious dimension with reference to Confucian and Chinese Christian thought. It argues that the construction of ecological civilization in China cannot rely only on the official discourses but requires a deeper cultural and religious investigation that helps realize the ecological potentials of the Chinese culture. In particular, it contends that the Confucian concepts of qi 氣 and li 理 can open up a way for humanity to attain unity with the cosmos and live in a path in harmony with nature through spiritual cultivation. It also suggests that the Christology and soteriology of Chinese Christian thinkers can strengthen this path of personal and social transformation by addressing the tendency of human beings to conform to selfish desire rather than the well-being of others. Both the Confucian and Chinese Christian worldviews are indispensable to the construction of ecological civilization by offering substantial insights into the cultural and religious dimension of the movement.
Highlights
Civilization and nature are closely related to each other
Given the size of the contemporary human population, our activities are generally considered as a major factor in climate change (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2013, p. 15; U.S Global Change Research
The Paris Agreement, which was signed by 195 nations in 2015, was an attempt to reconcile civilization with nature. This attempt has been undermined by some political factors, such as Trumpism—which denies the reality of climate change and rates economic growth higher than biophysical well-being
Summary
Civilization and nature are closely related to each other. Given the size of the contemporary human population, our activities are generally considered as a major factor in climate change (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2013, p. 15; U.S Global Change Research. Religions 2020, 11, 261 the question here is not whether we can do it, but whether we will do it For this reason, as environmental scholar James Gustave Speth indicates, a spiritual and cultural transformation is needed on top of scientific and technological solutions to rectify human exploitation of nature In China, scholars have attempted to carry out this task by proposing the concept of ecological civilization since the mid-1980s This concept is employed as a substitution of the anthropocentric and triumphalist attitude towards nature in industrial civilization with one that underscores human fundamental dependence on nature. Party of China (CPC) has formally taken this concept into its official agenda and declared that it is the major principle of environmental policymaking While this top-down ecological leadership may seem promising, the evidence of environmental devastation brought by Chinese industrial and economic activities may suggest otherwise. The central argument of this paper is that while ecological civilization is closely related to Chinese religious traditions, an interreligious approach is necessary for a more meticulous understanding of the underlying worldview of ecological civilization
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