Abstract
Larry L. Rasmussen,
Earth Honoring Faith: Religious Ethics in a New Key
, Oxford University Press: New York and Oxford, 2012; 480 pp.: 9780199917006 £29.99/$45.00 (hbk)
This is a breath-taking book in all kinds of ways. The author has achieved in these pages what is undoubtedly necessary for a global approach to environmental ethics, namely, one that deliberately uses and respects insights from other religious traditions. Few authors could achieve this in a way that is convincing, while at the same time, in the tradition of Reinhold Niebuhr and others like him, consciously engaging with social, political and economic issues. Rasmussen's critique of capitalist economies and hierarchical belief is sharp, most notably because consumerist practices or separation narratives take humanity away from the web of interconnectedness that he believes is the basis for all flourishing, including that of humans. His choice of Song of Songs as a leitmotif for this book is significant, for his lyrical prose at times reads more like a musical composition, ranging from quieter moments where he invites the reader to mystical reflection on alienating aspects of the world, through to prophetic challenges to be ascetic, seek justice and build community. His intelligent grappling with such an immense range of sources from both the sciences and the humanities in order to build up different dimensions of his argument for a profound care for the earth is deeply impressive, and every reader will leave this book feeling enlightened and in some sense changed by the encounter. I also have some sympathy for his insistence on a religiously informed and renewed sense of deep interconnectedness of all that exists on earth.
However, in flirting with more pantheistic notions of the divine his more explicit Christian melody fades somewhat into the background. He admits that this is the case, so, for example, naming the earth-honouring perspective of Mohandas Gandhi as in some sense superseding the explicitly Christian narratives of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King who are brought together in a novel comparison. His argument that such a shift is needed to counter more dualistic Christian perspectives is understandable from his refusal to make Christianity normative. But here lurks another danger. Given that he seems to follow the new creation story enlarged as a grand narrative common to different religious traditions and marries this with a web of life cosmology, there is a real risk that the individual will be lost to the collective, even while countering the consumerist individualism that he correctly names as the rampant disease of contemporary culture. In other words, in order to be a Christian there is a balance between receptivity to other faith traditions and marking the distinctive aspects of one's own. Rasmussen has chosen to tip in favour of the former in the interests of a shared ecological goal. Whether his earth-honouring faith has sufficient depth to unite different traditions in a global ethic remains to be seen. Nonetheless this book has wide appeal and deserves to be widely read and discussed in different religious communities and in those communities who share a passion for earth keeping.