Ecotheology and the Practice of Hope

Chapter 4. THEOLOGY AND THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS

4 THEOLOGY AND THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS There is a crack in everything. —Leonard Cohen Christianity played a significant role in the creation of the Western social imaginary. Whether one is referring to the impulses toward the ideals of the enlightenment or the negative impact of Western civilization on the ecology of the planet, the case has been made for strong biblical and Christian bases for Western development. But Christian believers also see history through a theological lens, and this chapter reflects on the confessional stances of Christian ecotheological texts. In the language of Christian theology, history is the realm of redemption. The dynamics of the formation of a certain social imaginary are subject to judgments about what is clearly liberative and redemptive and what is not. How ought the social imaginary develop? What is not yet liberated is more than just a stage in a continuously evolving social imaginary . Theologically it represents a state of decline, a culture in need of redemption. Canadian theologian Bernard Lonergan used the terms progress and decline to refer to the dynamics of human history. His clear articulation of a theological understanding of history is helpful in appreciating the significance of ecotheology, which attempts to engage the ecological crisis from a Christian theological perspective. Some theologians were deeply troubled by the accusation that the Bible and the Christian tradition were in large part responsible for the degradation of the earth. They delved into the tradition to reexamine, retrieve, reinterpret, and reform the texts and practices responsible for such devastation. They understood the drift into the ecological crisis, and used theological tools to articulate what went wrong and how best to right it. 53 As claimed in the previous chapter, these theologians were not really creating a new social imaginary. Many of the gains of the post-Enlightenment imaginary were called upon and reexerted in response to the ecological crisis. Primary among those was the sense of human agency in history and the requirement intentionally to push back all forms of colonization , imperialism, poverty, and oppression, all of which would come to be seen as intricately tied to the ecological crisis. Christian theologians who took the ecological crisis seriously now viewed the evolution of Western society in the light of the ecological crisis. To what extent was Christianity responsible for a greatly degraded creation? How could and ought Christian people lament the mistakes of the past and move forward, and creatively contribute to the healing and sustaining of all creation? There are a variety of responses. Those we consider below do not include responses that hold either (1) that there is no credible evidence of ecological crisis or (2) that there is such evidence , but this is not of Christian concern because the world will pass away; that we are heading for an apocalyptic transition to a new and better other world. The theological stances we consider are those that choose to enter into serious dialogue with the various dimensions of the ecological crisis and to respond from the resources of theology. The theologians concerned all recognize some degree of complicity. Certainly all are convinced that Christians must not only play an active role in addressing the crisis, but that theology must be articulated in a new way in light of this responsibility. In other words, like Charles Taylor, ecotheologians are convinced that the creation of a reformed social imaginary requires interplay of new and innovative ideas and determined action, of new meanings and practices. Their project is none other than to change the ways in which human communities inhabit the earth. Their focus, however , is on the Christian community’s role in doing so. THEOLOGY IN LIGHT OF THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS Most ecotheologians begin their work with a litany of ecological woes or at least with a reference to someone else’s litany. This is particularly true of the first theologians to respond, some of whose texts we have discussed earlier. Some also lament the growing irrelevance of theology to contemporary concerns in general. All view history from a theological perspective. What does this Christian theological perspective add to Taylor’s understanding of the social imaginary? Obviously, it adds faith 54 ECOTHEOLOGY AND THE PRACTICE OF HOPE in a divine dimension to history, a presence of an active and caring God who has already redeemed the world. Indeed, a large part of the work of the ecotheologians is a strenuous reclaiming of the...