Religion V. the Environment?

Of the more recent voices added to the environmental movement, those of evangelical Christians have caused quite a stir. The media frenzy which came in response to a pledge of allegiance for combating climate change issued by a collection of evangelical churches throughout the United States illustrated the surprise many people felt to hear of a religious group acting in support of the environment.

Among many involved in the environmental movement, there is a strongly-rooted sense of conflict between religion and the environment. The same can be said for many people of faith. Fletcher Harper experienced this during his transition from parish priest to executive director of GreenFaith:

"After I announced publicly that I was leaving parish ministry to lead GreenFaith, I saw a colleague at a denominational event. Jokingly, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Well, now that you are going to work on environmental issues, you must have become a pagan". We both laughed, and I thought no more about this comment until a few days later, when another colleague cracked a similar joke, followed by a third several days later.

From the environmental movement:
Concerns over the costs of environmental mismanagement on both the natural world and human lives led to a desire for conservation beginning in the nineteenth century, but it was not until the 1950s and beyond that an environmental movement was born. Shortly thereafter, in March 1967, Lynn White Jr. delivered his well-known speech, "The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis" during a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In it he placed blame for the environmental crisis on the modern fusion of science and technology and the use of that technology to exploit nature. For both of these practices, Lynn White Jr. blamed the Judeo-Christian tradition and the idea of human dominion over the earth. Though neither the first nor the last to voice views of this nature, he is the most well-known and influential in the formation of perceptions from the environmental movement concerning religion and the environment.

From the side of faith:
While most if not all people of faith have had intense, even sacred, experiences in nature, many are not prepared to integrate these experiences into their conceptual framework of religion or daily life (2). As evidenced in the Fletcher Harper's above anecdote, the experience of nature remains, for many of faith, something wholly other than what is experienced during the worship service.

Is there an inherent conflict between religion and the environment?

As evidenced by the recent support of evangelical churches, and a long though quiet history of both Christian and Jewish congregations taking part in the environmental movement, an inherent conflict between the Judeo-Christian tradition and the natural world is a matter of fiction. As the United States is comprised of a large Christian majority, significantly more media and academic attention is applied to specifically Christian events and attributes. However, Jewish congregations and organizations within the United States and abroad have been involved in the environmental movement, in a specifically religious way, for some time. An exploration of Hebrew Scriptures, historical and contemporary Jewish thought and popular traditions reveals a pervasive environmental ethic, one which is integral to Jewish identity.

Explore the relationship between Judaism and the environment

Learn about the motivations of contemporary Jewish environmental organizations, as well as their goals and projects

Explore the program design for Temple Anshe Hesed's carbon offset program, including more information on the above recommended actions for TAH