Religion and Ecological Crisis

The "Lynn White Thesis" at Fifty

Todd LeVasseur, Anna Peterson, Todd LeVasseur, Anna Peterson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317242758
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Religión

In 1967, Lynn White, Jr.'s seminal article The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis was published, essentially establishing the academic study of religion and nature. White argues that religions—particularly Western Christianity—are a major cause of worldwide ecological crises. He then asserts that if we are to halt, let alone revert, anthropogenic damages to the environment, we need to radically transform religious cosmologies. White's hugely influential thesis has been cited thousands of times in a variety of disciplines, including but not limited to religious studies, environmental ethics, history, ecological science, philosophy, psychology, and anthropology.

In practical terms, the ecological crisis to which White was responding has only worsened in the decades since the article was published. This collection of original essays by leading scholars in a variety of interdisciplinary settings, including religion and nature, environmental ethics, animal studies, ecofeminism, restoration ecology, and ecotheology, considers the impact of White's arguments, offering constructive criticism as well as reflections on the ongoing, ever-changing scholarly debate about the way religion and culture contribute to both environmental crises and to their possible solutions. Religion and Ecological Crisis addresses a wide range of topics related to White's thesis, including its significance for environmental ethics and philosophy, the response from conservative Christians and evangelicals, its importance for Asian religious traditions, ecofeminist interpretations of the article, and which perspectives might have, ultimately, been left out of his analysis. This book is a timely reflection on the legacy and continuing challenge of White's influential article.

1 Introduction

Todd LeVasseur and Anna Peterson

Early in the 1999 movie Shakespeare in Love, a romantic comedy about the playwright William Shakespeare (played by Joseph Fiennes) and his muse (Gwyneth Paltrow), there’s a scene that sets the stage for the drama, humor, and romance that follows. Will Shakespeare convinces a local theater manager (Geoffory Rush) that he, Shakespeare, has a comedy about a pirate in the works. Persuaded by Shakespeare, the manager holds an open audition in order to fill the cast. Part of this is by necessity, because the best local actors were, at the time, touring England, so the reliable troupe that normally acted in the theater was gone.

Thus, the scene is set: for a period of several hours, local after local (all men, because women were not allowed to act at that time) all come to the stage to audition, and every single one of them begins their audition by reciting a line from Shakespeare’s contemporary and competitor, Christopher Marlow. After hours of this perceived abuse, since it is, after all, a play by Shakespeare for which they audition, not one by Marlow, Shakespeare can handle it no more and has his confidence crushed, until Paltrow’s character, dressed as a man, auditions by reciting some of Shakespeare’s own work. The import of her audition (the viewing audience knows it is Paltrow) creates the context for the remainder of the movie, while Marlow, in the movie as in history, becomes a footnote compared to Shakespeare’s genius.

Every hopeful thespian, from one-time actors to theater stagehands to local villagers to a street orphan, attempted to win the ear and eye of the theater director by reciting the exact same passage from Marlow, who had, according to those involved in Elizabethan-era theater in the fictional movie, set the standard by which all theater was to be judged. The same is true of the essay that has inspired this volume. Published in 1967 as a five-page article in Science, Lynn White Jr.’s essay “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis” has become the foundation, jumping-off point, and lodestar for countless academic endeavors and even a new subdiscipline or two. The article contains numerous lines and passages that are cited by almost every academic working on religion and nature (or ecology), environmental ethics, environmental history, and ecotheology, as well as by historians, social scientists, and ecologists, broadly. It is consistently assigned in both undergraduate and graduate courses, where it introduces students to the scholarly study of human-nature-culture interactions. White’s (1967) article is the equivalent of Marlow’s work for hopeful actors in Elizabethan England: within their respective dramas, both laid the foundation for an industry.

Our goal in this introduction is to introduce the reader to these lines of Lynn White, briefly, while also exploring how they were received and subsequently became pivotal for a variety of disciplines. At the same time, we offer caution in reading White as fully responsible for subsequent work in the environmental humanities, as Bauman’s chapter in this volume deftly argues. We also encourage readers to consider how, fifty years after its initial publication, White’s words and article are still deserving of sustained reflection and analysis. With the stage set, we then invite the reader to engage the diverse essays collected here.

The Lynn White Thesis

The “Lynn White thesis” is really a complex argument packed into a very short essay. White makes three particular claims that have prompted most of the ongoing debate and discussion since the article’s publication. First, he argues that ideological and cultural factors, especially religion, are the root causes of the “ecologic crisis” facing contemporary humans. Second, he identifies Western Christianity as particularly influential in creating environmentally destructive attitudes. Third, he suggests that, just as the fundamental causes of ecological destruction are religious, so too must their solution be religious. Different interpreters highlight one or another of these themes, depending on their own background, academic field, and goals.

The first point may be the most important aspect of the “Lynn White thesis.” By privileging religion and culture as root causes of environmental crisis, White challenges the then-dominant approaches that identified technology, overpopulation, and other material conditions as the source of the problem. While material changes are important, White acknowledges, he believes that they are driven by ideological and cultural factors, and especially by changing attitudes about the proper human relationship to nature. In one of the most frequently quoted passages in his article, White asserted that “What people do about their ecology depends on what they think about themselves in relation to things around them. Human ecology is deeply conditioned by beliefs about our nature and destiny—that is, by religion” (White 1967, 1205). White makes this argument based on his own analysis that changes in religious attitudes during the European medieval and early modern periods made possible the development of destructive technologies and practices in agriculture, forestry, and other uses of nature.

This leads to the second important point: White’s identification of Christianity as particularly influential in creating environmentally destructive attitudes. In particular, he argues that Western Christianity, and not Eastern or Orthodox streams, are most at fault for the modern environmental crisis. Thus, our introduction and the chapters that follow all reflect this focus on Western Christianity. White’s critique of Christianity has probably received the most attention and is the most frequently mentioned of his multiple arguments. One particular line is widely quoted, sometimes approvingly, sometimes critically: “Especially in its Western form, Christianity is the most anthropocentric religion the world has seen” (1967, 1205).

As a historian, White identified several specific aspects of Christian thought that shaped attitudes toward nature. First, he pointed out that, according to Christian theology, “Man shares, in great measure, God’s transcendence of nature” (1967, 1205). Christianity thus encouraged humans to consider themselves separate from and superior to other aspects of creation. In addition, Western Christianity denied that natural objects and processes, such as trees, streams, or animals, had sacred value. Against pre-Christian attitudes, which valued nature, White argued, “To a Christian, a tree can be no more than a physical fact. The whole concept of a sacred grove is alien to Christianity and to the ethos of the West. For nearly two millennia, Christian missionaries have been chopping down sacred groves, which are idolatrous because they assume spirit in nature” (1967, 1206). Thus, with the rise of Christianity, “The spirits in natural objects, which formerly had protected nature from man, evaporated. Man’s effective monopoly on spirit in this world was confirmed, and the old inhibitions to the exploitation of nature crumbled” (1967, 1205). Because Christianity denied that nature—in general or in specific places and objects—had intrinsic or sacred value, the new religion “made it possible to exploit nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural objects” (1967, 1205). White contrasts the anthropocentrism and dualism of Western Christianity not only to pre-Christian paganism in Europe but also to non-Western traditions, which do not devalue the nonhuman world as thoroughly.

This brings us to the third aspect of White’s thesis: the potential solution to environmental destruction. On the one hand, White predicted that “ecological crisis will worsen until we reject Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence “save to serve man” (1967, 1207). On the other hand, he does not believe that the solution lies in atheism or conversion to non-Western religions. Rather, the solution must mirror the problem: just as White blames Christianity and religion generally for many of our “ecologic” problems, he believes that we cannot solve these problems without religion. “Since the roots of our trouble are so largely religious, the remedy must also be religious, whether we call it that or not” (1967, 1207).

The last clause hints at an expansive understanding of religion, perhaps encompassing spiritual traditions and ideas that do not fit neatly into established doctrines or institutions. What is important, to White, is the way people understand their place in nature and the ethical implications of that role. As he puts it, “What we do about ecology depends on our ideas of the man-nature relationship. More science and more technology are not going to get us out of the present ecologic crisis until we find a new religion, or rethink our old one” (1967, 1206). He points, in fact, to the possibility of a transformation within Christianity, to recover and put into practice less destructive attitudes. According to White, more ecologically sensitive attitudes are present in Christian history, even though they have never been dominant. The chief representative of an ecological Christianity is Saint Francis of Assisi, whom White proposes as “patron saint for ecologists” (1967, 1207). This proposal became reality on November 29, 1979, when Pope John Paul II declared St. Francis the Patron Saint of Ecology, in his bull InterSanctos (John Paul 1979). One of the questions to be addressed in this book is whether this and other “green” trends within Christianity in particular, and world religions generally, represent a response to White’s call for humans to “rethink and refeel our nature and destiny” (White 1967, 1207).

White’s arguments in his 1967 article prompted a vast, diverse, and ongoing scholarly response. To no small extent, most work—including scholarly writing and also teaching—in the fields of environmental philosophy, ecotheology, and the environmental humanities generally constitute a reply to or commentary upon White’s article. As environmental historian Elspeth Whitney notes, “Few pieces of writing by an academic historian, and a medievalist to boot, have had such a major impact on contemporary thinking on a contemporary issue” (Whitney 2013, 314). Just as Marlow provided the base for would-be actors in Elizabethan England, Lynn White is the keystone for scholars in various domains writing about human-nature interactions, especially where religion or ethics play a pivotal role. Our goal in this book is not to unpack every reference to White, every rebuttal or affirmation of his 1967 article, but rather to highlight precisely how important White’s thesis was and is to contemporary work on human-nature interactions, including subsequent writings from White himself.

White Follows Up

White followed up his 1967 article with a pair of later essays that both reiterated and expanded his main arguments. In 1973, he described the birth of his own “personal theology of ecology” (1973, 55) when in 1926, in Ceylon, India, he saw how Buddhist workers left intact the homes of snakes when building roads. White believed that these actions were caused by Buddhist views of reincarnation. Had British colonials been building the roads, he thought, they would have systematically destroyed the snakes’ habitat. This experience prompted White to claim that, “Different cultures expend their capital, energy and imagination in very different proportions upon different sorts of creativity” (1973, 55–56). White then reiterated his arguments from the 1967 essay regarding the priority of cultural values in shaping human-nature relations: “The artifacts of a society, including its political, social and economic patterns, are shaped primarily by what the mass of individuals in that society believe, at the sub-verbal level, about who they are, about their relation to other people and to the natural environment, and about their destiny. Every culture, whether it is overtly religious or not, is shaped primarily by its religion” (1973, 57). Again, we see that White’s expansive definition of “religion” encompasses cultural attitudes in a very general sense.

The 1973 article also reiterates White’s critique of Western Christianity as the primary cause of damaging human excesses in the environment. He claims that “Today’s ecologic situation is the by-product of a forward surging technology that first emerged during the Middle Ages in the area of the Latin church and has continued to present … Christianity in its Latin form provided a set of presuppositions remarkably favorable to technological thrust” (1973, 58). Here White reveals his familiarity with the early responses to and criticisms of his 1967 article. For one, White points out that there were technological advances made by Hellenistic-Romans and Chinese peoples, respectively, and that these did alter the environment (1973, 58). However, compared to specific technologies developed in the Latin church-dominated Middle Ages, beginning in the 1400s, “The result was an unprecedented technological dynamism of which our present technological movement (with its attendant consequences) is the unbroken extension…. Not only modern technology but also the unhesitatingly exploitative approach to nature that has characterized our culture are largely reflections of value structures emerging from the matrix of Latin Christianity” (1973, 59–60). In this return to his thesis, White actively reaffirms and recommits to his original analysis of the uniquely destructive consequences of Western Christian beliefs.

In this later essay, White also reaffirms the third aspect of his 1967 article, identifying religion as not only a chief cause of ecological crisis but also a necessary part of the solution. In his 1973 essay, White claims that “a man-nature dualism is deep-rooted in us…. Until it is eradicated not only from our minds but also from our emotions, we shall doubtless be unable to make fundamental changes in our attitudes and actions affecting ecology. The religious problem is to find a viable equivalent to animism” (1973, 62). He then ends on a dire note, and in so doing, justifies his original project: “We are in worse danger than we seem” because we still cling, collectively, to “old presuppositions” (ibid: 64) built upon Western Christianity.

In 1978, White again revisited these issues, this time geared specifically towards a Western Christian audience, in an essay titled “The Future of Compassion” that appeared in the Ecumenical Review. This essay highlights the potential contribution of religion to resolving the environmental crisis. White repeats his conviction that humans need a new religion, or perhaps they need to reinvigorate older religions. He hinted at this in his 1973 essay, suggesting that an ecologically friendly religion would be a form of animism. In 1978, he ties this argument to theories of biological evolution, writing that “we can sense our comradeship with a glacier, a subatomic particle or spiritual nebula. Man must join the club of creatures. They may help to save us from ourselves” (1978, 106–107). Writing as a Christian, to fellow Christians, about the interface of environmental, virtue, and Christian ethics, White claims that “man too is a creature with rights that must be balanced—but not merely on an anthropocentric pivot—with those of his companion creatures. Ecology, as it is now developing, provides us with new religious understandings of our own being, of other beings, and of being” (1978, 107).

In this passage, and the conclusion of the essay, White reads a bit like an early Christian deep ecologist, exhorting readers that a proper Christian ethics includes contemplation and celebration of the arts and education, as compared to consumption; that we must limit human population numbers; and must recognize the intrinsic value of our evolutionary neighbors and thus only satisfy our needs while “not impinging on the ability of our companions to satisfy their needs” (1978, 107). We must do this, further, “because of our belief that they are all creatures of God, and not from expediency” (1978, 108–109). The power of religion to motivate ecological concern and activism thus comes to the fore in this later work, giving fuel to interpreters who believe his original essay was not as much a condemnation of Christianity as it was a call to uncover and strengthen the tradition’s environmental promise.

White’s (1973, 1978) essays are rarely cited, perhaps because they mostly repeat points made in “The Historical Roots.” Their importance comes primarily as a confirmation of White’s continuing adherence to his key claims, even while he responds to ongoing critiques.

The “Lynn White Thesis”

The three-part thesis set out in “The Historical Roots” and reaffirmed in White’s later work has been important for a remarkably diverse set of scholars who have addressed a wide range of topics. Writers from religious studies, theology, history, and natural and social sciences have drawn on White’s essay, and they have written about issues ranging from the specifics of his critique of Christian anthropocentrism to the broader argument about the significance of ideas in shaping environmental behavior; the correctness of his interpretation of Medieval Europe; and the validity of his comparison between Asian and Western environmental attitudes, among many other themes.

Some scholars highlight White’s attention to cultural and ideological factors as the primary theme of his essay. For example, Dale Jamieson’s (2008) introduction to environmental ethics highlights the first point. According to Jamieson, White claimed that “the environmental crisis is fundamentally a spiritual and religious crisis, and that its ultimate solution would have to be spiritual and religious” (2008, 20). In this view, technology and science are proximate rather than ultimate causes of environmental problems. The key, for Jamieson, is that White insists that ideas have consequences and thus rejects economic and technological explanations of environmental problems. The focus on ideas and attitudes is evident in current environmental movements, which often assume that people’s beliefs, values, and commitments really matter (2008, 22). In just one of many other similar uses of White, theologian Michael Northcott cites White as one of the scholars who identified religious and cultural attitudes as the single most important cause of environmental crisis (1996, 40).

Other writers, including both secular philosophers and religious studies scholars, have emphasized the second theme: White’s criticism of Christianity, or perhaps of all Western monotheism. Some interpreters see it as justified, while others do not. In one of the earliest of the now many edited volumes on religion and nature, Rockefeller and Elder characterize White’s essay as a critique of the Jewish and Christian traditions for generating destructive attitudes towards nature (Rockefeller and Elder 1992, 4). Other writers, particularly those within the Christian tradition, have criticized or sometimes dismissed White as anti-Christian or even anti-re...