What is Eco-Theology?

Abstract

W hen I first began to be active in the religious environmental movement over twenty-five years ago, I was often invited to be part of interfaith panel discussions to discuss how religious traditions viewed the environment. On these panels there was usually found a Protestant, a Catholic (Christians always seemed to get two seats), myself representing Judaism, a Muslim and sometimes a Buddhist and a Hindu. Each of us would, of course, say that our religions were “green” and quote a few teachings from our sacred texts. After all, who would want to say in a public forum that our traditions were not “green”? My own involvement with religious environmentalism had developed out of my theological interest in the science and religion dialogue and from my personal concern about climate change. After having participating in a number of these dialogues, I realized that what we were all saying was essentially nonsense. How could ancient faith communities, based on pre-modern sacred texts, be “green,” when the modern environmental crisis was unprecedented in kind and in scale from any previous human encounter with the natural world? While Judaism, for example, has traditional sources that are concerned with consumption, local pollution and water conservation, it would be beyond my ancestors’ comprehension to understand climate change, species extinction and toxic pollution. Thus traditional religions cannot be “green,” for two important reasons. First of all, there is a qualitative difference between modern and pre-modern technology and how it affects the environment in both spatial and temporal terms. Secondly, and more importantly, over the last several hundred years,