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RELIGION AND ECOLOGY 59
well-known dispute was set off by the theories of the Presbyterian researcher of
mediaeval history, Lynn White.
The dispute concerned the critique of the Abrahamic religions (Hebrew,
Christian, Islamic). It claimed that these religions separated God from nature and
hence created a dual cosmology, which was anthropocentric, on the one hand. On
the other, it degraded nature to a “thing” whose veneration or worship is interpreted
as blasphemy. As a historian, White knew perfectly well that humans had been
exploiting nature for a very long time (hunting, together with fire, had an impact
on the emergence of the great grassy wastelands of the earth and the extinction of
the mammals of the Pleistocene; the Nile is as it is because of human intervention
some 6000 years ago, etc., see White 1967). That said, he also pointed out that
the technological and scientific upswing rooted in the Middle Ages and coupled
with the Christian worldview, which turned Europe into a world power, has led
to the unlimited utilization of our natural environment. To sum it up: Judeo¬
Christian thinking about time is linear, resulting in a belief in constant progress
along with the concept of creation. The concept of creation means that God created
man in his own image. Thus man is not simply a part of nature. Rather, the world
was created by God for man’s good and dominion, so that the world should serve
man. In short, man’s rule over nature is by the will of God. White was aware that
this was a rather simplified evaluation of the Christian worldview, and of course,
he incurred much criticism. Some of these critiques point out that environmental
destruction is not restricted to areas dominated by Christianity, but can be found
in every corner of the world (Livingstone 1994; Thomas 1983). Others argue that
in religion and spirituality, nothing is fundamentally opposed to nature or, for
that matter, nature-friendly; what counts is how religions are interpreted and
applied (see Pellow — Guo 2017). Others again held that White ascribed excessive
significance to religion (see e.g. Livingstone 1994).
Degrading nature to a “thing” — the “disenchantment” (Entzauberung) of the
world, to use Max Weber’s famous designation — emerged in the world view of
Roman Catholicism within Christianity, but it was consummated by the
Reformation in league with the rise of the modern sciences (Rigby 2017: 278). It
should not be forgotten that Cartesian philosophy’s concept of nature as mechanical
also had a contributory role to the devaluation of nature. Together with Adam
Smith’s labor value theory and Locke’s economic philosophy, it boosted nature’s
reduction to the level of an instrument.
At any rate, the dispute of man as ruler versus shepherd — that is, how to interpret
the Book of Genesis (Gen 1: 26-28) — had a stimulating effect on thinking about
connections between religion and the environmental crisis. The Abrahamic religions
consider it evident that Mans position is differentiated from Nature. However, the
process of interpreting this position has already led to the deliberation of questions
of dominion and responsibility. This has led to the developments discussed earlier:
the activity of diverse faiths and churches in tackling the environmental crisis.
Today many religious organizations deal with environmental issues, and many accept
the idea formulated in the Earth Charter about “care for the Creation”: “Everyone
shares a responsibility for the present and future well-being of the human family and
the larger living world.” (Earth Charter Commission 2000, 1).
https://earthcharter.org/