How has Orthodoxy impacted our environment? In other words, can Orthodoxy be credited with any positive or negative developments in our historic relationship with Earth and its natural resources?
In this sense, when I use the term, “Orthodoxy,” I mean the theory and practice of well-researched and well-thought-out accepted norms, particularly in religion. This definition excludes those “professions of faith” deemed as cults or fringe societies by conventional belief systems.
Recently, I asked these questions of my environmental studies students during a review of the world’s major religions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and even indigenous faith-practices. My students quickly summarized that each approach has had its positive and negative aspects. For example, Christianity heralds its Francis of Assisi as the patron saint of ecology while, simultaneously, includes strictly anthropocentric and fundamentalist elements that seem to ignore long-term stewardship because of a perceived imminence of the Parousia. Even spiritual practices such as Buddhism and Native American customs that appear more benign and Earth-connected than most in their approaches to the natural world also have had devastating impacts.
Trich Tri Quang, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk once wrote, “The Buddha manifested a complete compassion and is respectfully seen as the compassionate protector of all beings.” Yet, in the same article, he continued, “[Humans] have seen themselves as the smartest species of all beings. [Yet] they have misused and abused their power and selfishly destroyed animals, forests and mountains, natural resources … reaping the results as their own destroyed environment. The external environment is seriously polluted because the internal environment in the mind is seriously damaged.” Trich Tri Quang, as well as numerous other practitioners of Orthodoxy, whatever its ecumenical flavor, provides a consistent message about humankind: the adherents to any particular belief-system do not always honor the teachings of its founder, the mitzvot of orthodox practice, and ignore the limitations of Earth’s bounty to meet our insatiable appetites. Humans represent only 0.05% of the world’s consumer biomass yet use 32% annually of the land-based net primary productivity with hotspots throughout Asia, India, the Atlantic coast of the United States, and other locations overrun by humans. How is this sustainable? Historically, Orthodoxy has had little positive influence on our collective craving for the planet’s finite resources.
How do we turn this around? For starters, we must accept a few pointers from the sciences. First, humans are a product of evolution like all other biodiversity on the planet. Thus, we are a part of, not apart from, Earth’s ancient systems. Second, our basic nature is a consuming animal, no matter the layers of governing Orthodoxy. And, third, practitioners of science and Orthodoxy need to provide common ground for their followers, deal with their issues honestly, and stop their silly squabbling. No one embraces geocentrism or a flat Earth these days; it’s time to put the nonsense about “creationism” (a la Duane Gish and his ilk) in the same pile of discarded myth. Next we must accept a few pointers from Orthodoxy such as its emphasis on high-order stewardship – this, despite the day-to-day contrary habits of its errant followers. This means that we can never excuse the deliberate extinction of any species or ecosystem on Earth, no matter how diminutive or seemingly useless to human values. As the great land ethicist Aldo Leopold wrote in the early 20th century, “To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.”
Orthodox faith-practices such as Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism are only two or three millennia old as compared to the uninterrupted lineage of every species of orchid or fish on the planet. Every extant species on Earth, estimated at 30 million different kinds of living things, has a pedigree at least 3.5 billion years old. Imagine: 3 thousand years compared to 3.5 billion years! As venerable as these orthodox practices may be, they represent only one one-millionth of the age of the planet. That awesome fact should humble every prophet of modernity.
At a point of crisis in humanity’s relationship with Earth – global climate change and mass extinction among our most pernicious issues – Orthodoxy seems to have lost its voice of leadership. Where are our priests, rabbis, pastors, and imams when old-growth forests disappear from the Pacific Northwest or Amazonia? Where are they when whales and dolphins are haplessly slaughtered in Asia or when environmental toxins bioaccumulate in loons and songbirds in New England or in Central America? Where are they when giant icebergs break off from Antarctic glaciers because of the planet’s rising temperature? Where are they when inconsiderate citizens throw their trash and cigarette butts out of car windows along our highways?
As Buddhist monk Trich Tri Quang warned, “The external environment is seriously polluted because the internal environment in the mind is seriously damaged.” If our minds and hearts are not trained properly, we will continue to act uncaringly toward Earth and its natural resources. Though not too late, Orthodoxy seems to have failed us in our relationship with an ailing planet. It’s time to demand the attention of Orthodoxy, not only for the human soul, but especially for the soul of the planet.
H. Bruce Rinker, Ph.D., Ecologist, Educator, and Explorer [email protected]
This is not a failure of Orthodox Christianity. Or, for that matter, Roman, Lutheran, or Anglican Christianity.
This is a failure of that offshoot American religiosity heavily influenced by the teachings of John Calvin and his followers. That system that places saying a prayer for salvation to God above being changed, transformed by the Summary of the Law promoted by Jesus in Luke 10.25ff:
Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’ He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’ And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’
It isn’t that we can do this by ourselves. But if we don’t listen and understand this, confess we don’t do it, and ask for transformation, we will continue to treat everything in this world–people, flower, fauna, mineral–like it is our personal play toy, and destroy what we were given as stewards.
Thanks for the great article. It has much wisdom and level headed common sense in it. It should be more widely available …
It would be a great help, perhaps, if orthodox religions took up leadership in this key issue. When we destroy the earth we will destroy ourselves, much like a cancer in an organism.
But in out hearts we know that even if Religions told us “now stop doing that”, it would not truly help, perhaps a little, yes. Did it help when we were told to stop killing and hating?
A little, yes, but not really.
The reason is that you can’t be told to stop doing things like that. You can’t even tell yourself to! How often do we find we cannot follow our own instructions?
So what to do? What is the problem? I think Trich Tri Quang’s comment “The external environment is seriously polluted because the internal environment in the mind is seriously damaged.”
points to the truth.
The truth is simple, but hard to truly realize: There is a problem in the way the human mind is operating. We see that we are behaving wrongly, but we seem to be helpless to change. Why? One way to put it is that we are addicted to thinking. Can you stop thinking? Ever? Even for a few minutes? Don’t you think that’s strange? Is that natural and healthy? The vast majority of us don’t know because we can’t compare with what it’s is like to be not thinking and just look, just be.
Total attachment to our thoughts leads to dogma, leads to rigid beliefs that are worth killing for, or so it seems. This constant thinking often arises in the form of mental pollution, i.e. negativity which makes pain. This pain is reflected in how we treat the earth, treat animals, treat other human beings, how we treat ourselves. This is what Trich Tri Quang is talking about (in part).
So what happens if we can stop thinking? According to all spiritual masters (Jesus, Buddha, …) something miraculous happens. You become aware of something vast and indescribable within yourself, and in this there is peace. Once you find this peace, you no longer inflict pain on yourself, and then you no longer inflict pain on others, and on all of nature.
The original purpose of all religions is to lead us back to this lost reality.
This is how the human world will be saved from self destruction, if at all
Most of what I’ve just shared I first heard articulated clearly in “The Power of Now”
by E Tolle. If you are interested in how to still your thoughts and start to glimpse that peace he describes, you will find great guidance there.
So, how can we help with all these problems? Our first responsibility is to take responsibility for our internal state. If we are internally in pain then anything we do will ultimately not work, it will only lead to more conflict. If we are still inside, at peace, not in pain, then our action will be right, if there is action to take. And by taking responsibility for ourselves, we become a source of peace for others as well. When someone you see or hear is still inside, you feel it in yourself and stillness can begin to arise in you as well. “It is inner stillness that will save and transform the world.”
Great article to reflect on! The venerable “orthodoxy” of living forms of life is that they have, for at least 3.5 billion years, kept evolving their orthodoxies into nuanced forms appropriate for the times.
Human cultural orthodoxies maintained that vital characteristic until the time that oral stories and moral guidance and ritual practices were set in stone, so to speak: until the advent of writing froze them into “scripture” and their adherents became idolators of the written word.
All our world’s religious orthodoxies deserve a chance to regain their relevance and their power to effectively guide us in the times we now face. We do them a disservice when we refuse to help them evolve via the “evolutionary impulse” that is urging us to action in this regard, as it has always done for billions of years.
For an inspiring look at what evolutionary forms of Christian orthodoxy might look like, check out the amazing conversation posted last night as part of the landmark free audio series, “The Advent of Evolutionary Christianity: Conversations on the Leading Edge of Faith.” Last night was episode 2 of this 28-interview Advent/Christmas series, and the guest speaker was Rev. Bruce Sanguin, author of “If Darwin Prayed.” Go to:
http://evolutionarychristianity.com/
Yes, orthodoxy can play a positive role in our historic relationship with Earth and its natural resources. Here’s a great example:
http://www.350.org/en/node/17195
It makes me think of the one thing most people would say as I was growing up, that well:”That’s what God puts us on the earth for, meat is for eating, the forests for cutting down, and the resources for getting whatever the heck we can out of them.” Well, when Gandhi heard that, he applied the idea of ahimsa, stating that it was exactly the opposite, that just because “cognitively-speaking” and in physical strength we might be superior it does not mean that the earth is ours for the pillaging but no, that we have been made this way for us to love, protect care for it and live harmoniously inside of it.
No matter how well our minds and hearts are trained and prepared, there are those who will continue to act uncaringly toward Earth and its natural resources….
Another great article~! I enjoyed reading it!
This article has made me stop and think…we go along in our own little world seldom thinking about how what we do affects the planet and other humans…As my Mom used to say”whats the big deal??There is only one God and all paths lead to him!!”This coming from an Assembly of God member and whose father was a old time religion preacher might seem odd to some but Mom sure practised what she preached!!