Religious Expressions of Environmental Resistance in an Increasingly Globalized and Complex World: To What End are we Defining a New Religion? – Simon Appolloni

A recent court ruling in the UK underlines an unusual phenomenon that involves both religious expression and environmental resistance, a coupling which, according to some, is on the rise. The judge, who ruled Tim Nicholson, a sustainability manager for a large company, was wrongly dismissed because of his ‘green’ views, granted him the same legal protection against discrimination for his environmental beliefs as that for a religious belief. In pronouncing his decision, the judge wrote, “A belief in man-made climate change, and the alleged resulting moral imperatives, is capable if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations.” These regulations are, of course, binding legislation in the UK. When describing both his sentiments and his ‘belief’ to reporters, Nicholson stated:

I’m delighted by the judgment, not only for myself but also for other people who may feel they are discriminated against for their belief in man-made climate change…It’s a philosophical belief based on my moral and ethical values underpinned by scientific evidence and that’s the distinction [with it being a religious belief] I think. The moral and ethical values are similar to those that are promoted and adopted by many of the world’s religions.

Consider another scenario. Paul Watson was identified in Taylor’s book as following dark green religion. After having cofounded of Greenpeace in 1972, Watson left in 1977 to found the more aggressive Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which works to defend marine life and ecosystems from destructive human practices such as whaling and seal pup hunting.

Taylor recounts an episode in rough seas where Watson failed to prevent the harpooning of one sperm whale. According to Watson:

The whale wavered and towered motionless above us. I looked up…into a massive eye the size of my fist – an eye that reflected back intelligence, an eye that spoke wordlessly of compassion, an eye that communicated that this whale could discriminate and understand what we had tried to do…

Watson is antagonistic to the world’s dominant religions, which he claims promote and justify the violence, bigotry and anthropocentrism that lead to such destructive practices.  He has urged people to abandon these religions in favour of “a religion that incorporates all species and establishes nature as sacred and deserving of respect.”

What are we to make of these cases? While a case might be made that there are resemblances between environmentalism and religion, is it a religion? Religion and environment scholar Bron Taylor believes that the environmentalism presented by Nicholson and Watson are indeed a form of religion, a dark green religion, as he labels it in his recent book, Dark Green Religion: Nature, Spirituality and the Planetary Future. Taylor argues that a growing array of individuals like Nicholson, Watson and groups like Earth First! and even surfers (the oceanic kind, not Internet fans) imbued with a sense of nature as being sacred and worthy of reverent care, are following a religion.

My objective here is not to determine whether Taylor, or the UK judge for that matter, is correct in his assumption. Delving into the thorny issue of defining religion is beyond the parameters of this presentation. Suffice it to say that Taylor employs a Wittgensteinian notion of family resemblances to make his claim. Instead, recognizing that religion as a western analytical category is not now and never has been neutral, and that defining environmentalism as religion is, according to anthropologist Jonathan Benthall, to exercise a form of power, I am far more interested in examining the reasons why Taylor et al positively promote this phenomenon as a religion. Broadly put, the question at hand is this: apart from the legal protection such a label may provide environmentalists, what does this positive expression of a new religion of environmentalism suggest for a continued study of religion, resistance and environmental degradation in an increasingly globalized and complex world? Put more directly, we might ask, to what end are we defining environmentalism as religion?

To be sure, such an appellation is not new. The environmental agenda has already been labeled a religion by analysts and climate change deniers, but for the negative intention of discrediting their claims. For Nicholson, Watson and Taylor, however, such an appellation is welcomed.  I wish to argue that there is something more at play here than the quest for legal protection. Viewed from the context of a broader environmental global movement that functions under the belief that our planet is verging upon environmental crisis, the classification of environmentalism as religion can be viewed as a strategy to usurp the power out of the hands of dominant established religions to define what it means to be human today.  In this way, religion becomes not so much a metaphor of the movement, or a clever tactic, but a persuasive means for achieving authority in a culture seemingly bent on destroying the environment.

I focus on the work of Bron Taylor not only because of his extensive and thorough research into this very phenomena but because of his prominence in this field, evidenced by the hearing he is receiving from popular media, especially in light of the recent box-office hit Avatar. Moreover Taylor, I believe, sums up the sentiments of many adherents of the dark green religion he writes about when he voices his own disapproval of established religions, mainly Christianity, which he believes are not “sensible” religions: this disapproval underlines the reason why I chose the verb ‘usurp’ when discussing the power established religions have to define what it means to be human today. Taylor et al, I suggest, would be happy to take that power away from them.

That religions traditionally have guarded the role of defining what it means to be human today is not in question here.  Even scientists have recognized this evidenced by the 1991 “Open Letter to the American Religious Community” written by prominent scientists and Nobel laureates. The letter encouraged religious leaders to address the spiritual and moral dimensions of the ecological crisis and to incorporate environmental awareness into the various dimensions of religious life. The scientists underlined that “religious teaching, example and leadership are able to influence personal conduct and commitment powerfully.” Environment and religion scholar Stephen Scharper points out that the ecological challenge is forcing the human race to fundamentally question social, economic, political, cultural and ethical traditions. He echoes the sentiments found in the open letter from the scientists when he states, “Many argue that the reading assistance of the world’s religious traditions in answering such queries might be helpful, and perhaps necessary, for an informed and effective response to the world’s current ecological plight.”

Yet, despite the calls for religions to fulfill their traditional role in a time of environmental degradation, we learn from Buddhist scholar David R. Loy that religions have not been vigorous fulfilling their responsibility in this regard, setting their sites instead on past problems and outmoded perspectives that are irrelevant. Taylor takes this point even further and points out that most adherents of dark green religion believe religion – in most cases, Christianity – has acted as an obstacle to the envisioned harmony humans are seeking with nature. Taylor posits that the main obstacle from mainstream religions is their inability to firmly ground themselves in an evolutionary ecological worldview. Taylor stresses giving ‘religious institutions a run for their money,’ or better yet, turning to a new sensible religion that is, “rationally defensible as well as socially powerful enough to save us from our least-sensible selves.” Watson wishes us to abandon dominant religions and Nicholson echoes this frustration with established religions when he underlines that his religion, “is grounded in overwhelming scientific evidence and it’s the combination of that scientific evidence with the moral and ethical imperative to do something about it that is distinct from a[n established] religion.”  Notice what we are hearing: neither Taylor , Watson nor Nicholson is against religion per se, just against those religions not grounded in the ‘overwhelming scientific evidence’, or as Taylor would say an ‘evolutionary ecological worldview’.

Thus, it is not surprising that they welcome their form of environmentalism as religion. With such a classification, I argue, they acquire the social and normative power (that Taylor refers to above) not afforded to mere activism. As sociologist Christian Smith reminds us in Disruptive Religion: The Force of Faith in Social Movement Activism, religion not only attempts to tell us what ultimately is (something arguably science can do) but it also “aspires to tell us what, therefore, should be, how people must live, how the world ought to operate.” This is powerful. With this authority, as Smith suggests, our present assigned role as humans today, which many pundits believe is to ‘buy and consume’ as dictated by powerful market economic forces, is challenged by alternative and authoritative worldviews.

In the end, Taylor et al are defining environmentalism as religion to exercise a form of power. Defining environmentalism as religion assigns the possibility of a potent authority to green activists otherwise unavailable to them.  In doing so, they have made a judgment not only against the prevailing economic and political powers that have advanced environmental degradation, but against the established religions – again, mainly Christianity – for their failure to define, at least satisfactorily,  what it means to be human today.

I have a few points to raise and caveats to underline by way of conclusion. First of all, I do not suggest my conclusions apply to all environmentalists; I have used Nicholson and Watson as exemplars of a cadre of environmentalists who, along with Bron Taylor as the most vocal and articulate proponent, are seeking power, when – if the recent UN Conference on Climate Change, is any indication – such power appears increasingly elusive. But these are not the only stories.  Many other examples, many mentioned in Taylor’s book, could be cited.  Consider Julia “Butterfly” Hill for example. On 10 December 1997, Hill climbed a roughly 1500-year-old giant redwood tree, affectionately known as ‘Luna’, to prevent it from being cut down by loggers. After almost 2 years of living up in the tree, through much hardship, but not without the support of Earth First! environmental activists, Hill won her battle and the tree was saved. Throughout her 738-day sojourn in the tree, Hill often saw loggers cut down the nearby trees; she said that she would often cry during those moments and hug the tree telling Luna, “that she was sorry.” As a testament to Hill’s resoundingly animistic beliefs, she said to one reporter that as she cried, she would find herself becoming covered by sap that poured out from all parts of the tree’s body. She concluded, “And I realized, ‘Oh my God, you’re crying too.’” In her blogs, Hill expresses  she has no affinity to mainstream religions. Although she finds them wanting in their approach to defining the human’s role, she is far less aggressive toward them. In this case, I would apply the same conclusion but without the verb ‘usurp’. In Hill’s case, it is not so much that she wishes to appropriate the power out of the hands of dominant established religions to define what it means to be human today, but offer a forceful alternative.

Second, although I have not approached the issue of defining religion in regards to environmentalism here, I believe the task before us is to do just that.  I refer to Benson Saler whose approach to defining religion Taylor incorporates in his own book. Saler cautions us that our need to define something as religion is like classifying a stripe-less tiger. We do so because we fear the potential danger ahead: simply put, if it indeed turns out to be a tiger we want to know, so as to avoid being eaten by it. In a similar fashion, I think we should know whether environment as a religion is a tiger. Taylor, for instance, believes it is not out of the question that dark green religion could lead to violence, which is the reason for his labeling it ‘dark’.

In the case here, the potential danger I’d like to highlight is the throwing out the baby with the bath water. Without denying or condoning the sloth-like movement in which religions, on the whole, have addressed environmental concerns, to give up on them (as Taylor et al have done) overlooks the fact that some 85% of the world population, as Scharper once put it, “reads reality through a religious lens.” Circumventing them means we potentially lose out on their positive fruits such as the Hindu notion of limits known as rita, in the cosmological order or as dharma in the moral order, or the Judeo-Christian notion of justice. Shunning established religions and forming a new ‘sensible’ one might solve some problems but it could also create more.

Bibliography

“An Open Letter to the Religious Community,” in Ecology and Religion: Scientists Speak, (John E. Carroll and Keith Warner, OFM, eds.), Quincy Il: Franciscan Press, 1998.

Benthall, Jonathan. Returning to Religion: Why a Secular Age is Haunted by Faith. London: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 2008.

Hickman, Leo. “Global warming tribunal may stoke debate that climate change is based on belief, not science” in Guardian, UK, Nov 3, 2009 at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/nov/03/tim-nicholson-climate-change-beliefs. Accessed November 2009.

Loy, David R. “The Religion of the Market,” in Worldviews, religion, and the environment: a global anthology, (Richard C. Foltz ed.), Belmont, Calif.: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2003.

Saler, Benson. Conceptualizing Religion: Immanent Anthropologists, Transcendendent Natives, and Unbounded Categories, vol. LVI in Numen bookseries: Studies in the history of religions, (H.G. Kippenburg and E.T. Lawson eds.), E.J. Brill, New York: 1993.

Scharper, Stephen B. “Liberation Theology’s Critique of the Developmentalist Worldview: Implications for Religious Environmental Engagement,” in Environmental Philosophy, (Spring 2006), Vol 3, Number 1. 48.

Smith, Christian. “Correcting a Curious Neglect, or Bringing Religion Back” in Disruptive Religion: The Force of Faith in Social Movement Activism, (Christian Smith ed.), New York: Rutledge Press, 1996. pp. 1-25.

Stalsett, Sturla J. “Globalisation and the Hidden Transcript: Religion as Everyday Resistance,” in The Power of Faiths in Global Politics (Sturla J. Stalsett and Oddbjorn Leirvik eds.), Oslo: Noyus Press, 2004. 171-174.

Taylor, Bron. Dark Green Religion: Nature, Spirituality and the Planetary Future. Berkley, USA: University of California Press, 2010.

______. interview: Here On Earth: Radio Without Borders (Wisconsin Public Radio) January 20, 2010. Available at http://www.wpr.org/webcasting/audioarchives_display.cfm?code=hoe . Accessed February 2, 2010.