Greening God? Christian Ecotheology,Environmental Justice,and Socio-Ecological Flourishing

Abstract

This article provides a broad mapping of some ways in which a group of thinkers, many of whom identify as ecotheologians, argue for the importance of seeing God (understood as the first person of the Christian Trinity), Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit in a green manner at this time in our planetary history. It simultaneously ties that mapping into issues that are relevant to green, socio-ecological action. Important to the reflections that constitute the field of ecotheology has been a framing of “responding to the ecological crisis.” The present article begins by briefly introducing that feature of the field before offering an alternative, which is informed by principles of environmental justice. That alternative, namely a socio-ecological framing, is shown to be helpful in moving beyond a crisis-response dynamic. The accompanying discussion will be of interest for those who seek explicitly Christian theological bases for incarnating an environmental justice praxis that supports socio-ecological flourishing.

Introduction: What is the Ecological Crisis?

The notion of responding to the ecological crisis has been a central feature of Western Christian ecotheological reflection. “Ecologcial crisis” invokes the dearth of sustainability that is inherent in the cumulative impact of human existence on the planet. Although there have been important ideas at play among the followers of Jesus Christ that support valuing the natural world in a manner that mitigates against such a malaise, ecotheologians have identified a certain loss of the centrality of the natural world for Christian traditions.¹ For his part, Thomas Berry locates a major source of this disconnect as it is manifest in the West as arising in (1) the wake of the trauma of the Black Death, encouraging a focus on redemption with an other-worldly orientation and the control of nature to escape its potential to cause humans pain; (2) Lockean and Cartesian dualism precipitation as a disconnect between the self and the world of matter; and (3) Baconian quantification and subjugation of the more-than-human members of the Earth community.²

Another set of relevant sources for such a flattening of the spiritual dimension of this world, as identified by Elizabeth Johnson, are the European enlightenment turning to the self and the post-Reformation style of reflection on God, which together mark so much of contemporary Western Christian thought.³ These trends are only given further momentum in the hyper-consumerism that has one of its sharpest expressions in a “prosperity gospel” equating God's favor with “spiritual, physical and financial mastery [and] that dominates not only much of the American religion scene but also some of the largest churches around the globe.”⁴ All these trends have failed to be properly overcome through a green, holistic realization of the biocentric realities of the web of life. Indeed, in so much as it has neglected the socio-ecological implications of its teachings, Christianity has a certain complicity in helping to bring about the ecological crisis despite also holding within itself the potential to provide a robust foundation for socio-ecological action.⁵ John Haught has summed up a set of charges against Christianity in this regard:

Hasn't Christianity been too anthropocentric, too androcentric, too otherworldly and too cavalier about the intrinsic value of nature? Hasn't theology so overemphasized the need to repair the “fall” of humanity that it has almost completely ignored the original goodness of creation? Hasn't it heard the words of Genesis about human “dominion” over the earth as an imperative to exploit and deface it?⁶

As a result of the manifestations of dominion ethics and its correlates from other religious and secular traditions, the planetary community is currently at a crucial junction in its history. We are experiencing a moral problem on a scale that we have never witnessed before. A single species, homo sapiens, is responsible for both the marginalization of members of its own species and putting the rest of the Earth community in peril. Such diagnoses have been at the heart of ecotheological reflections on the ecological crisis.⁷ They have contributed to an awareness of an imperative to (re)find creation within Western Christian traditions. As a result, Johnson notes a growing phenomenon wherein “today, people in both Protestant and Catholic traditions are increasingly aware that their losing creation has been a contributing factor to a social way of life that is violently ruinous to life and cannot be sustained.”⁸ The implications for socio-ecological action in support of environmental justice abound here.

Discussion

An integral worldview, a socio-ecological crisis, and environmental justice

In so much as the malaise of the ecological crisis grows from a system of domination, it can be precipitated by the lack of an integral worldview.⁹ In sharp contrast to an ethics of domination, an integral worldview emphasizes the interconnectivity of all things, according moral worth to people, animals, and the other elements of the natural world. As a result, an integral worldview mitigates against the wanton destruction and marginalization of people and other members of the Earth community. This worldview can be buttressed with a belief in the spirituality of all things, which makes careless destruction of members of social and ecological communities a sacrilege.¹⁰

Without such safeguards on human moral life as the one provided by an integral worldview, we have arrived at a point of “socio-ecological crisis.”¹¹ For those concerned with environmental justice, the appearance of this term in ecotheological writing is a significant development, which serves to emphasize the social dimensions of the ecological crisis. This socio-ecological problem is a profound and multi-layered crisis that threatens to remove the underpinnings for the creative functioning of life on this planet. Moreover, crucially from an environmental justice perspective, a socio-ecological framing simultaneously opens up another conversation that has sometimes been underplayed in the field about the particular effects of ecological harms on marginalized human communities.¹² To present an analogy, the socio-ecological crisis, thus, emerges as a chronic illness that not only affects all people, animals, and plants but also disproportionally damages those people who are marginalized due to factors such as class and poverty, race and ethnicity, gender, and indigeneity. This marginalization is only compounded when intersectional factors come into play.¹³

Thus, in line with the insight underpinning many treatments of environmental justice, social justice becomes a pressing issue for those who are concerned with ecological health and vice versa. As first the eco-liberationist theologian Leonardo Boff and then Pope Francis capture poignantly, the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor are now increasingly inseparable.¹⁴ As such, the basic premise underlying ecotheology undertaken within a socio-ecological framing is that theology should be able to speak to contemporary crises and offer more ecological and socially sustainable alternatives. Moreover, that voice ought to be prophetic or shamanic, calling people to proper human–Earth–divine relationships.¹⁵ In that light, the present article now moves on to briefly survey how the three persons of the Christian Trinity have been viewed as green by ecotheologians. There is an important body of work treating the term “green” and its derivatives among thinkers working in the areas of religion and ecology.¹⁶ For the purposes of this article, in contrast to the phenomenon of greenwashing,¹⁷ “green” is affirmed in its fuller meaning of coupling normative commitments to fostering social justice and ecological health. It is this sense, of intimately connecting concerns for social and ecological flourishing in line with Boff's and Francis' conclusion that social and ecological approaches to liberation can no longer be separated, that is intended when “green” is employed in the present article.

God (the first person of the Trinity) as green

Partly due to the influence of certain strains in Greek philosophy,¹⁸ Christians have tended to view God (especially God, most often called “the Father,” the first person of the Trinity) as existing outside creation. This view is understandable, for example, based on the basic premise that the creator should not be confused with creation from a Christian point of view. That point of view is summed up in the notion that God is apart from, not a part of, creation. Even within that understanding, God can still be viewed as green in the role of the creator. Acts of (re)finding the value of the natural world within Christian traditions can concentrate, for example, on the way that creation as a whole is named as God's “very good” work in the book of Genesis (1:31). In pastoral terms, if you love an artist, you do not wantonly destroy his or her work. In such a light, creation can be viewed as a window onto the divine.¹⁹ Thus, respect for God can be connected with respect for creation. In the United States, in particular, this framing has taken on the form of possessive language, as per the formula of caring for God's creation.²⁰ Indeed, “Creation care” has been a popular term for organizing socio-ecological action among Christians,²¹ which has a number of advantages from a green viewpoint over the more hierarchical concept of “stewardship.”²² To cite a prime example, since 1993, the Evangelical Environmental Network has dedicated itself to “the ministry of Creation care.” The Evangelical Environmental Network's programming includes publishing a magazine, educational seminars, a radio hour, and advertising campaigns that are geared toward biblically based Christians.²³ One notable campaign spearheaded by the Evangelical Environmental Network starting in 2002 asked the question, “What would Jesus drive?”²⁴ At the time of writing, their current campaign calls on Christians to protect God's gift of public lands and national parks from privatization.²⁵

In terms of the broader Western Christian tradition, a poignant assertion in regard to green, participatory action is that good stewardship of resources is not the complete answer to responding effectively to the socio-ecological crisis.²⁶ Thus, creation care and its cognate “caring for our common home” offer alternative green framings that help move the framework of a single ruler, deputies, and, indeed, the very tenability of a hierarchical organization of decision making and authority on which the concept of stewardship ultimately depends.²⁷ Participatory socio-ecological action, thus, represents a path for moving beyond a stewardship dichotomy toward a recognition of the integral value of all beings, understood as God's creatures.

Despite this green potential, in accord with a Deist view and often in response to issues surrounding the existence of evil in this world (theodicy), some Christians tend to de facto believe in a distant God who creates the world and then leaves it be. Rejecting such a distance between God and the world, from an ecotheological perspective, God is also green as a result of God's sustaining role. In this sense, God is understood as continuously creative. So although mainline Christians would hesitate to embrace the notion of pantheism, the view that God is everything, it seems to be a quite orthodox view to say that God is present in everything.²⁸ In the West, since the 19th century, this feature of God's intertwined presence in the natural world has been named “panentheism,” which, in turn, has been called on in support of environmental justice.²⁹ This notion of God as intimately involved in creation is an extremely important distinction for socio-ecological action as it serves to quell the instinct that human duties to God exist only on a vertical plain, which is not only hierarchal but ultimately also disembodied and tends toward imaging this world at best as a sort of moral testing ground or “soul-school.”³⁰ Instead, panentheism encourages a focus on horizontal duties to God as expressed in both fair relationships with human neighbors and the support of vibrant ecosystems that are understood as essential elements for faithful living in this world. Such an integrated ethic that is supportive of socio-ecological action can also be brought into focus by considering ecotheological reflections on Jesus Christ, a subject to which this article now turns.

Jesus Christ (the second person of the Trinity) as green

Reflections on Jesus Christ's connection to the created world represent what is arguably the most unique Christian contribution to ecotheology; as a result, this article devotes the most space to them. Given the importance of the biblical witness to many followers of Jesus Christ, a key place to turn to (re)find support of an ethic for socio-ecological action is to the Letters of Paul, the earliest intact Christian writings. In the letter to the Colossians, Paul identifies a cosmic role for Christ as an agent of all creation, binding all things together, allowing for the rebirth of the dead, and, through a grand act of peacemaking that could only be brought about as Christ has the fullness of God dwelling in him, reconciling all things (1:15–20).

In other Pauline sources, Christ heals all creation (Romans 8) and in a related manner takes on the work of both reconciliation and actively bringing about the new creation (2 Corinthians 5), which is understood as a transformed phase of human–Earth–divine relationships.³¹ This is an important point for socio-ecological action as for many Christians who or what they understand as redeemable and their image of the moral community are linked.³² When Paul situates Christ's action in the universe as providing a path for the redemption of all things, the fate and flourishing of the entire Earth community is brought into sharper focus as a prescient concern for Christian life.

In more general terms, “the cosmic Christ” refers to the presence of God (in Christian belief as the second person of the Trinity) in all things. Christ's presence, according to multiple biblical sources (notably, the prologue of John's Gospel and the understanding of Christ as the firstborn of all creation, as presented in the passage from Paul quoted earlier), has been active ever since there was a material world, which it should be emphasized is, for Christians, the created universe. This notion of Christ's presence in all things is a significant insight. Such a worldview is well poised to support socio-ecological action. Ecotheologically speaking, the Cosmic Christ was especially or particularly incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth. It follows that the union between the Cosmic Christ and humanity unfolded in a uniquely intense manner in the person of Jesus. The resultant doctrine of the Incarnation can be taken not only as an affirmation of the importance of humanity but also as an affirmation of the importance of creation, inclusive of “the flesh” and other elements of the natural world: “I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance [to the full, till it overflows]” (KJV John 10:10). What for many Christians is the central doctrine of their faith, can be thus an impetus to participate, in however a small and humble manner, in Christ's work of bringing all the universe toward peace and reconciliation of a type that is incompatible with environmental injustice.

This perspective on the Cosmic Christ provides a basis for socio-ecological action that is transformative in nature and can, in a cogent sense, be trans-religious. For instance, if Christ is understood as a creative and sustaining spiritual presence in the world, then other faith traditions can be recognized as also accessing cosmic truths.³³ This ecotheological understanding of the Cosmic Christ's presence in creation may also be a path toward uniting the wonder and awe felt toward the created world, scientific insight, and the divine; for example, awe at the marvels of the unfolding universe over the past 14 billion years.³⁴ Further, this state of interconnected wonder and awe may help shift people's moral imaginations in service of fostering socio-ecological action.³⁵ The concept of Christ as Logos (the Word incarnate) is important here; it is also a motif that is easily linked to the Wisdom tradition so that Sophia (Holy Wisdom) is associated with the second person of the Trinity. Key for Celia Deane-Drummond in this regard is the distinction between false wisdom (what she names as shadow Sophia) associated with human hubris and true, divine Wisdom.³⁶ An ecoethical practice of Wisdom, she suggests, should permeate all aspects of Christian being in the world, from practical choices in terms of energy use in Church buildings, to choices about the genetic modification of organisms and the patenting of life, to ecoliturgies celebrating the beauty and life-giving wonders of creation. Essential to this approach is the virtue of prudence,³⁷ correlated by Deane-Drummond with practical wisdom.³⁸ This is an intriguing point for environmental activists to ponder. Prudence, thus correlated and also sustained by ecologically oriented liturgies and a praxis-based life of service to people and the planet, has the potential, from a green theo-ecoethical perspective,³⁹ to rework the precautionary principle in a significant manner.⁴⁰ This principle, which is so important to the environmental justice movement, can then be revitalized within a framework that is at once ecoethical, theoethical, and integral in the sense of encouraging deep, Wisdom-based, contemplation of humanity's essential location within the natural world.

For their part, Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker also draw on the Wisdom tradition to craft a helpful rendering of antecedents for a Christianity that values the created world. They note that Jesus' narrative teachings used stories of paradise to present His critique and resistance to the Roman Empire.⁴¹ As a result, for instance, their exegesis argues that Jesus breaks the power that Roman Emperors garnered by distributing bread to the poor when he feeds the multitude, “suggesting that he—not Rome—was the true source of life.”⁴² This is an image of paradise flowing into the world, one that allows access to eternal life based on an understanding of this world as “the dwelling place of God.”⁴³ This perspective, which firmly connects the need to transform unjust political structures with socio-ecological action, can also be grafted onto conceptions of Jesus of Nazareth as a mimetic focus for green living.

Jesus of Nazareth as a green model

As noted earlier in more detail, for purposes of this article, “green” is taken as invoking the coupling of social justice and ecological health. In close harmony with the principles of environmental justice, a green orientation thus conceived connects the suffering of people to degraded ecosystems, seeking to alleviate both human pain and ecological degradation. This link is reflected in the life of Jesus and can also be supported with reference to His teaching. For example, when read through a green lens, Luke 9 and 16, which have an exegetical history of supporting an other-worldly orientation among Western Christians, can be taken as indicative of Jesus' concern with simple living, an ethic of sharing, and healing. Indeed, read with such a lens, it may even be concluded that the healing power granted to Jesus' apostles was contingent on simple living and dependent on an ethic of hospitality within the communities that they visited (see Luke 9: 1–6).

Green readings of Jesus' teachings can be further informed by research into his immediate context. In the face of empire, during Jesus' lifetime, provisions such as the jubilee disappeared, poor farmers were being pushed off the land, and natural resources were being redirected to the profit of those with position in the imperial apparatus.⁴⁴ Jesus is here read as offering an alternative based on simple quality relationships. He walked most of the places he journeyed, lived simply, and avoided the accumulation of wealth.

Even from an anthropocentric point of view, the type of relationality that Jesus was advocating between people would go a long way toward healing exploitative relationships, inclusive of damaged intra-human and human–Earth relationships. As such, there is much ground to support the premise that Jesus' example brought forward today is supportive of socio-ecological action. It follows that if Jesus is meant to represent a model of a full human life for Christians, then it can be concluded that emulating him today, imitatio Christi, is not just a private, spiritual matter. Rather, the act of taking on the mantle of (the poor) Christ associated with Franciscan spirituality or asking the question “What would Jesus do?” includes a dimension not only of caring with and for people but also of a complementary caring with and for the larger Earth community.⁴⁵ Providing a large measure of support for socio-ecological, Pope Francis emphasizes, “Jesus' whole life, his way of dealing with the poor, his actions, his integrity, his simple daily acts of generosity, and finally his complete self-giving, is precious and reveals the mystery of his divine life.”⁴⁶ It follows that imitatio Christi in the present socio-ecological context calls for more than merely ensuring we do “not leave in our wake a swath of destruction and death which will affect our own lives and those of future generations.”⁴⁷ Greening the Holy Spirit is another means to provide ecotheological foundations for helping to steer “spaceship Earth” clear of such socio-ecologically unjust outcomes.⁴⁸

The Holy Spirit (the third person of the Trinity) as green

Perhaps because the Holy Spirit is usually thought of as being immaterial, this is the least developed of the three areas of ecotheology surveyed in this article. Nonetheless, there have still been some development in this area of ecotheology that are noteworthy from a perspective concerned with environmental justice. For example in so much as the Holy Spirit is associated with God's breath, that life-giving breath has been connected to green issues (cf. Genesis 2:7). This connection was invoked as part of the National Council of Churches' (USA) work for environmental and climate justice, which called on Christians to consider the consequences of greenhouse gas emissions in light of viewing air as the breath of God. One of the documents supporting this work quoted Psalms, which offers many resources for a prayerful green Christianity:⁴⁹ “O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. When you send forth your breath, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground” (Psalm 104:24, 30).⁵⁰

In terms of green pneumatology (the study of the Holy Spirit), the most prominent Western Christian thinker is Mark I. Wallace.⁵¹ In Green Christianity (2010), Wallace argues for an animist response to the ecological crisis. Borrowing a phrase from the writings of Thomas Berry and in accord with this article's discussion of the transformative potential of socio-ecological action informed by a green reading of the Cosmic Christ, Wallace asserts that the great work of our time is making the Earth whole and verdant again. He continues that the only sufficient theological basis for environmental justice action in the mode of the abolitionist, women's suffrage, and civil rights movements rests on abandoning contextually maladaptive notions of a disembodied God in the sky and recovering a sense of Christianity as an Earthly and fleshy religion at its core; a faith that celebrates embodiment, pleasure, and the created world.⁵²

To achieve this recovery, Wallace explicitly goes beyond the aforementioned concept of panentheism to argue in favor of Christian animism, which upholds all things as holy, good, and filled with God's kenotic presence through “carnal spirit.”⁵³ He discerns a biblical basis for this position in the Gospels' depiction of the Holy Spirit taking on the animal form of a dove at Jesus' baptism (cf. John 1: 32–34). Although Wallace may have gone further than most Christians in embracing this carnal spirit, the notion of a spirit-filled activism for climate and environmental justice, which his ecotheological work helps to discern, remains prescient for Western Christian efforts to effectively foster transformative action in response to the socio-ecological crisis. The positive content of that response is the subject of this article's conclusion.

Conclusion

In light of the mapping presented earlier of how God can be considered green, this article ends by suggesting that the concept of socio-ecological flourishing provides a contextually appropriate direction for green Christian reflective action. Significantly, the concept indicates a positive set of goals, which purposely respond to the multi-dimensional challenges indicated by the term “socio-ecological crisis.” In green, ecotheoethical terms, it follows that seeking to heal the present crises brought about by anthropogenic environmental degradation and injustice can be understood as a moral imperative by Christians who take their faith seriously. Further, because of a core belief in the inalienable nature of human dignity, such solutions will have more resonance for many Christian traditions when they keep concerns for social justice at the forefront of their practical and intellectual responses to socio-ecological challenges, which affect the creative functioning of the entire Earth community.

Despite its tensions, the promise of such integration is that those among the world's more than 2 billion Christians seeking explicitly Christians reasons for working to heal particular manifestations of social and ecological crises will have many points of entry for dialogue and action contributing to sustainable solutions.⁵⁴ In this manner, working toward a state of socio-ecological flourishing becomes representative of a contextual recasting of the normative Christian goals of the right relationship with God and one's neighbor.

Such a formulation of the right relationship views “neighbor” as a category denoting both humanity and the rest of the ecological world, so that deep equity among people is understood to be buttressed by the health of the other-than-human members of the Earth community and vice versa in a positive feedback loop. Recast in this socio-ecological light, the end result of seeing how God can be viewed as green is the opening up of many paths, on which green Christian reflective action can contribute to denominational, ecumenical, inter-religious, and secular projects seeking to both mitigate the negative effects of present crises and transform the contemporary situation into one that is not only sustainable but also fosters socio-ecological flourishing. In this manner, socio-ecological action that is at once green, Christian, and oriented toward caring for creation can unequivocally embrace a multitude of programming to contribute to a verdant renewal of a diverse and vibrant Earth community that is characterized by environmental justice.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

The author is grateful to Christian Eberhart for the invitation to present on this topic at the University of Houston and to those who attended the resultant public lecture there in February 2017, which stimulated the writing of this article. The author would also like to express gratitude to the anonymous reviewer who helped greatly in transforming the contours of that lecture into a stronger journal article.

Author Disclosure Statement

No competing financial interests exist.