Toward an Ecology of Transfiguration: Orthodox Christian Perspectives on Environment, Nature, and Creation

Ecology, Theology, and the World

75 The church today, confronted by the ecological revolution, is in danger of suffering just as it did during the technological and other revolutions . It is in danger of being entirely unprepared, since the effective preparation for radical changes in human thought and behavior is neither an easy nor simple process. It demands serious theological adaptation and large-scale upheaval within the church body, and this requires rigorous struggle and considerable sacrifice. Christians and theologians entered the new technological and ecological age as the “accused.” The ecological movement targeted the unbridled exploitation of natural resources and the unrestrained economic development of nations in the northern hemisphere, along with an absence of any ideological restraints or reins. This polemical attitude of the environmentalists was expressed, at least in the religious domain, predominantly as an assault against Christianity: not only did Christianity fail to prevent the irrational stance of the Western world in relation to nature, but in fact it promoted it. It was natural for this critique to affect Christian theological thought. Thus, for instance, in his essay “The Historical Roots of the Ecological Crisis,” Lynn White denounces Judeo-Christian anthropocentric principles as supporting Western aggression against nature. Some theologians generally accepted this censure; others rejected it. Of course, it is true that all Christians, both Eastern and Western, embrace some degree of distance or detachment of God from nature and humanity or of humanity from God and nature. This teaching is especially prevalent in Protestant thought of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; however, it was also emphasized by Protestant neoorthodoxy in our own times. Ecology, Theology, and the World Savas Agouridis 76 S AVA S A G O U R I D I S Anthropocentric Genesis Indeed, upon reading the book of Genesis about the accounts of creation, as introductions to the history of Adam’s creation and fall in the paradise of Eden, we observe the following: 1. God subdues nature, and especially the waters, subjecting them to a certain order so that everything might be configured for the survival of humanity on the earth. Thus, we have an anthropocentric perception of nature. 2. Adam is created according to the image and likeness of the Creator , thereby representing divine domination and authority over creation . “Lord over creation and rule over the fish of the sea. . . . Behold, I have given you all forms of vegetation and trees” (Gen. 1:27–30). Moreover, the power of humanity over the animal world is evident in the scene where Adam gives names to all creatures (Gen. 2:19). This account is overall characterized by an anthropocentric inclination, despite that God remains the “Lord” of the world, and, as a result, there is no room or license for any arrogance over or abuse of nature. This picture is slightly complicated afterward, when God adopts nature for punishment against human beings with the stubborn labor of the farmer and the birth pangs of the mother, as well as the great flood. Nevertheless, beyond all this, nature itself ultimately competes against God in human experience, when people worship “creation instead of the Creator” (Rom. 1:25). Consequently, nature too is now subjected to “vainglory” and “corruption”—not voluntarily , as in the case of Adam and Eve, “but through the one that subdues,” whatever this phrase may actually mean. Nature “groans and travails” with humanity in the struggle for liberation and reconciliation; at the same time, like humanity, nature lives “in the expectation of being freed from the slavery of corruption to the freedom of glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:20–22). What is apparent from the above considerations as a whole is the dynamic relationship between God, humanity, and the world. However, despite the unmistakable anthropocentric overtones of this system of thought, we cannot blame Christianity alone for the ecological crisis of our day. Still, the criticism of ecologists against religion in general and against Christianity in particular is surely crucial inasmuch as, within the human experience of God, religion has underlined the upward direction of mysticism , displacing the center of human interest away from the natural and social environment. One might even dare to propose that, to the degree that humankind’s relationship with nature and society becomes problematic or E CO LO G Y, T H E O LO G Y, A N D T H E W O R L D 77 negative...