Thoughts on Eco-Spirituality

But environmentalism is not a Hollywood intellectual property. While the environment may have become topic du jour for some and a near religious calling for others, it is a religious issue for this Grist list of 15 “green” religious leaders that includes: the Patriarch of Eastern Orthodoxy, the Dalai Lama, an Episcopal Reverend, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Vice President of the National Association of Evangelicals, the Pope, the leader of the Islamic Foundation for Ecology, an Australian theologian, the head of the American Rabbis’ Committee on the Environment, a Dominican Nun, a member of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, a Unitarian reverend, a Methodist theologian and Father Thomas Berry, a Catholic priest who refers to himself as a ‘Geologian.’

The comments on the Grist article are worthy of note, as well. They include suggestions for the list from other countries/world religions that are making a significant contribution.

And there’s the robust environmental movement of South Asia (India, Nepal . . .), Harvard’s FORE (Forum on Religion and Ecology) research into the environmental traditions of Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, Shinto, Indigenous American Indians, Judaism, Christianity and Islam and the eco-spiritualism of so many other indigenous cultures on every continent.

Which doesn’t negate the considerations from the other side of the argument. This includes those who interpret the science differently, who focus on which greenhouse gas has more impact (I’ll trade you twenty carbon credits for a methane credit on Tuesday if you’ll buy me a methane-emitting hamburger today . . .), the support services who genuinely worry about the impact of environmental regulation on the third-world and, frankly, more than a few who are more worried about their corporate bottom line than their impact on planet earth.

But anyone who labels environmentalism as a religion in the hope that it will invalidate the movement is as out of touch with reality as those who cite religion as an obstacle to environmentalism.

While there are religious groups who eschew environmentalism in much the same way as they reject evolution, the overall environmental movement, which is as diverse as humanity itself, includes the deeply religious, those for whom the environment has become a religion, professionals who keep their religion to themselves as they seek to validate the science and a growing number of ordinary citizens who are beginning to sense that something has gone terribly wrong.

It is a global epiphany.

Janet Ritz also writes for THE ENVIRONMENTALIST, where this post can be seen, and about the environment for Huffington Post. To learn more about Janet, you can visit her website.