Ecotheology and the Practice of Hope

Chapter 2. THE EMERGENCE OF ECOTHEOLOGY

2 THE EMERGENCE OF ECOTHEOLOGY This chapter examines two contexts in which Christian ecotheological texts emerged—the sociopolitical conversation that heightened ecological awareness in the mid-twentieth century, and the theological conversation that eventually legitimized ecotheology in the academy. These contexts are substantially different. This is not to say that all awareness of ecology and even of a threatening crisis began in the 1960s. There are traditions such as the conservation movement, environmentalism , natural history, and transcendentalism that were operative and sometimes made important incursions into the dominant culture.1 In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, George Perkins Marsh, Gifford Pinchot, and John Muir (more correctly a preservationist) were instrumental in giving teeth to the conservation movement in the United States resulting in the establishment of forest reserves and national parks.2 Canadian conservationists were also part of this movement and first met to discuss the same issues in Montreal in 1880.3 Similar movements were occurring in Europe. Eighteenth-century tourism in Canada emphasized the pristine natural environment.4 Some of those who came to prominence within the ecological movement of the late twentieth century drew on these previous resources. Thomas Berry, who was an important bridge figure between the Christian ecotheologians presented below and the broader cultural history, is preeminent among those who incorporated these historical movements into the construction and presentation of his own vision.5 There is no doubt that many of these existing movements contributed to the invigoration of ecological awareness and activity in the period we discuss below. However, we choose to focus more closely on this much shorter and more recent history of the incursion of new ideas and activity that give space and energy to the emergence of ecotheology in the mid- to late twentieth century.6 This closer look demonstrates more 19 clearly how ecotheology, by participating in such a movement for change, shares also in the dynamics of changing a social imaginary in a desired direction. While ecotheology brought a different perspective and challenged a whole new identifiable public—that of Christian theologians and adherents —the imagination of a new ecologically responsible world was becoming front and center in the 1960s and 1970s. The Christian texts that are the subject of this book entered a public conversation. There were already vibrant social movements, many of which included or had predominant ecological agendas. Rachel Carson had published Silent Spring in 1962 decrying the use of toxic chemicals as pesticides (especially DDT); Fritz Schumacher, Barry Commoner, and others were already bringing ecological consciousness into leftist political movements . Campaigns against testing of the atomic bomb had ecological as well as peace agendas. Previously existing ecological and nature foundations were taking a more radical turn. Greenpeace was established.7 The social and ecological movements were incursions into the existing social imaginary. As such, they provided an opening within which Christian theologians could begin reflection and conversation on the relevance of Christian belief and practice to ecology. Furthermore, these movements actually fueled the conversation in academic Christian settings. Christian theologians found within the society at large (1) a language from science, social and civil rights, and political activism, and (2) a challenge to the churches to recast their theology and practices, both action and meaning, in response to the modern world. For some, this included the ecological crisis. While the stage was set for Christian theologians to take their places within this new space, however, the emergence of ecotheology within the academy had all the characteristics and challenges of a scientific intellectual movement. We examine this in detail in the second part of this chapter. SOCIOPOLITICAL CONTEXT OF THE 1960S AND 1970S No matter how one might judge the rhetoric and practices of the youth who came of age in the 1960s, their political activism for a more peaceful and just world set the stage in the public sphere where imagining a new kind of life together and a new sense of responsibility to the wider and future world could be explored. On the ecological side, their activism included experiments with “back to the land” movements, simple communal living, and resistance and repudiation of the perceived 20 ECOTHEOLOGY AND THE PRACTICE OF HOPE artificiality and hypocrisy of the inherited society. Those in North America and Europe who marched against the U.S. War in Vietnam and the existence of nuclear armaments couched their actions in rhetoric about the planet, even if...