The ecological pilgrimage of self and community

Some voyages, like Odysseus’, are long and difficult – but we are able to rejoice upon reaching the shores of home and seeing the face of Penelope. Some journeys are fundamentally ongoing; we are left waiting for an elusive presence, such as Godot. And some end in tragedy, when we are pulled downward into the depths like Captain Ahab, without final satisfaction or redemption in our destination. Of course, some end through the fulfilment of a promise, as when the wandering in the wilderness is completed with the entrance into the Promised Land. Which characterizes the journey of ecotheology? I would like to suggest that our answer depends on who journeys. Thus something that is left unstated in ‘The Journey of Doing Christian Ecotheology’ is the matter of who engages with the task of environmental theology – and the ‘who question’ informs the type of journey we ultimately undergo.

Who, then, is the environmental theologian? On its most general level, this question is one of theological anthropology. Certainly one’s position on theological anthropology is important, especially insofar as theological anthropology is situated in the doctrinal context of Christology and soteriology, on the one hand, and the philosophical debates over anthropocentrism, biocentrism and theocentrism, on the other.

On a more specific level, however, the question raises the issue of the individual theologian’s ‘environmental identity’. ¹ Environmental identity is more than mere experience. Instead, one’s environmental identity is rooted in stories or narratives of place that constitute the self. ² A narrative identity connects the ipse and idem, or changing and unchanging aspects, of identity through the narrativity of existence; environmental identity suggests that a constitutive part of that narrative is found in the self’s relationship with the built and natural worlds. Environmental identity thus inheres well to the image of ecotheology as a journey: the self is seen as changing (moving from the uncertainty of an unacceptable present to the welcoming destination of a hopeful future) while there remains an element of the self that is ongoing and identical (the someone who is in relation to God and world).

For the theologian engaged in ecological issues, the question of one’s environmental identity is influential. Our individual identities provide the boundaries of the journey we each undertake, and furthermore our identities frame the possibilities of interpretation of the journeys that emerge. For example, my own sense of meaning of place has been created in the light of my situatedness in the hyper-mobility, technological orientation and material wealth of North America. But, at the same time, my embodied narrative draws deeply from specific locales as well: from my childhood in the forests of Massachusetts, my adult life in the midst of industrialized agriculture in the Midwestern United States and so on.

The ongoing construction of such a self does not reduce the self to his or her environment, but places the self into dialogue with the otherness of nature, the otherness of individual creatures, and finally the Otherness of the Divine. A theologically oriented environmental identity is (in at least one fundamental way) dissimilar to deep ecology’s vision of an ecological self that is entirely enmeshed within the natural world. There is a triadic nature to a Christian environmental identity, insofar as the self belongs both to God and the world – and remains a site of tension between them. ³ In other words, as human beings we connect, yet we do not dissolve into, the secular and the sacred. Environmental identity is defined in an ongoing, embodied dialogue of self, other and God. Whether a journey of ecotheology is tragedy or romance, in turn, is discovered only through such narratives of place that the self uncovers.

If the journey of ecotheology suggests the need for an environmental identity, then it is equally clear that environmental identity suggests a need to recognize the community. Our environmental identity – concerned with our situatedness among the rest of creation – is widely intersubjective. That is, the self is created in conversation not only with other humans but also with the ‘communion of subjects’ that form God’s creation in all its diversity. In other words, the journey of environmental theology is purposeful only insofar as it is the vocation of a community.

This means that environmental theology cannot be exclusively concerned with the individual soul – still less with a radically autonomous, disembodied soul. ⁴ Rather, as discussed in ‘The Journey of Doing Christian Ecotheology’, environmental theology is a community matter or, more properly, a matter of communion. This journey becomes a pilgrimage, after all, and the pilgrim undertakes his or her journey with a sense of embodied communion. This communion is multileveled: it is a communion with God, certainly. But it is also a communion with other living beings: with other pilgrims, with the Church, with one’s guild, and with the inhabitants of the waymarks and places of respite that serve as temporary shelter. Finally, then, the pilgrim is in communion with creation itself. If environmental theology ‘is a collective journey with many companions’, then the success or tragedy must account for what draws these pilgrims together and who reaches what end. Thus we must ask ourselves: who is affected by ecotheology and what impacts must emerge, in order to properly make progress on our pilgrimage?

It is here that we see the difference between ‘traditional’ theology and its green variant. The voyage of ecotheology is, at first glance, strikingly similar to other forms of theological thinking. The sources and methods are for the most part in keeping with one another. Even the overarching direction – from an unacceptable present to a desired future – seems analogous. The difference between them is how we understand ‘the place of the self’ – the physical, social and spiritual interconnection of the possibility of the self with other creatures. Environmental theology embodies its journey, we might say. It speaks out from its marrow, bones and muscle, and attempts to speak to the world itself. Whether this is a story of hope or fear, joy or sorrow, fulfilment or endless deferment, will emerge only with the discovery of who – individually and socially – undertakes the journey.