Although people who have grown up in countries that have been subject to secularisation may be inclined to think that religion has lost its status as a dominant belief system, demographic data reveal that, on a global scale, religions are still very much alive. A comprehensive demographic study by the Pew Research Center found that, in 2015, 84% of the world’s population adhere to a religion, of whom 31% self-identify as Christians, 24% as Muslims, 15% as Hindus, and 7% as Buddhists. At the same time, 16% reported having no religious affiliation, most of whom (61%) live in China.[1]
Nearly three-quarters of people live in countries in which their religious group makes up a majority of the population, which indicates that in many countries one particular religion can justifiably be labelled the dominant religion or belief system among the population. Even in European countries where secularisation has led to significant proportions of unaffiliated people (such as 42% of the population of the Netherlands, 28% in France, 27% in Sweden, and close to 25% in Germany), majorities still identify themselves as Christian. In the United States, more than 78% of people self-identify as Christian, while only 16% are unaffiliated. Overall, it appears, the world is still very much a religious place, except for China, Japan, and a few other countries.[2]
I will not dwell upon the continuing relevance of religion, of whatever kind, to providing meaning to the lives of people. Obviously, the statistics provided above indicate that many people still think that religion is important, notwithstanding the views of some scientists who dismiss such beliefs as misguided. Arguably, such views are themselves misguided as they fail to distinguish between explanations of the (biophysical) world and the role of belief systems in providing meaning to the lives of people. Science itself is based on certain premisses, values and beliefs that are not inherent to science but that are shaped or influenced by external (societal) factors. How important or meaningful scientific findings are, is a matter of judgement that depends on values and beliefs, including regarding their impacts on people, societies, and the environment.
Here, I am interested foremost in exploring the implications of the continuing importance of religious worldviews for the environment, in particular, whether or to what extent these views have been conducive to collective efforts aimed at environmental protection.
As modern environmentalism and the demand for greater environmental protection first emerged in Western countries, and perhaps most prominently so in the United States during the 1960s, it is worth exploring to what extent Christianity, the dominant religion in these countries, has been conducive to the rise of environmental awareness. At the very least, one might reasonably argue, the Christian religion has not prevented this rise from occurring, and possibly it has been a positive force in its development.
However, the extent to which the Christian religion has been compatible with, let alone conducive to, the rise of environmental awareness and environmental integration has been severely questioned. Rather, it has been argued, that Christian teachings have predominantly encouraged a human-centred, instrumentalist and even exploitative view of the environment. For instance, Lyn Whyte, in a seminal article on Christianity’s responsibility for the environmental crisis,[3] argued that the Christian religion, predicated on the primacy of humans in the natural order of God’s creation, has been responsible for the emergence of the view that nature exists solely for the benefit of humankind. Christianity teaches that God created the world “explicitly for man’s benefit and rule: no item in the physical creation had any purpose save to serve man’s purposes”, making it “the most anthropocentric religion the world has seen”.[4] White also argued that Christianity’s acceptance of the flawed idea of perpetual progress based on science and technology became so entrenched in Western culture that even non-Christians internalised it. Although White noted that a different interpretation of the Christian faith was possible, illustrated notably by Saint Francis (“the greatest radical in Christian history since Christ”) who showed humility and respect towards other natural creatures, this alternative perspective did not get much traction and orthodox arrogance towards nature continued.[5]
White’s view has been fiercely contested, among other on the ground that his supporting arguments, reflecting negative views on technology, agriculture, democracy and anthropocentrism, appear unjustified in the light of evidence that more positive practices are possible.[6] However, whether or not one agrees with White’s thesis that Christianity has been responsible for much of the environmental destruction that has occurred during the past five hundred years or so, there is little if any evidence that it has done much, if anything, to put the brakes on environmentally damaging practices, except for some small religious communities like the Quakers. It is even less evident that Christianity played a positive role in the rise of environmental awareness during the 1960s. If mainstream Christian religions or groups have started to express concern about the environment from the 1960s, this has been more in response to the general rise of environmental awareness than as an expression of an environmental ethic that has been an original part of prevailing Christian beliefs.
As noted above, Whyte argued that it was possible to extract a more positive environmental message from Christian teachings, notably those of Saint Francis. It is perhaps no coincidence that it was Saint Francis who inspired Pope Francis to not only take his name but to adopt and voice a strong stance on the environment, as illustrated in the publication of his encyclical letter Laudato Si’.[7] Arguably, this document is one of the most profound and critical statements on the world produced by a religious leader, including concerning existing inequalities and injustices, the role of human arrogance, the commitment to ongoing economic growth, materialism and consumerism, and the way the environment is treated.[8] Similarly, it has been argued that, in the United States, a process of greening Christianity gathered momentum from the mid-1990s, especially among church leaders and organisations.[9] But these developments illustrate that the extraction and propagation of an environmental ethic from Christian teachings by religious leaders have been a fairly recent phenomenon.
It is also not clear whether these reinterpretations imply that environmental values have become (or been confirmed as) core values and have been integrated into Christian religious behaviour and practices, or whether they have been tagged onto dominant Christian teachings. As Clements notes,[10] in the United States, there is scant evidence that the calls by religious leaders to take the environment seriously have been heeded by followers; they seem to have attracted more opposition than support in some circles, notably from more politically conservative leaders. His research findings indicate that self-identified Christians report lower levels of environmental concern than non-Christian and non-religious people.[11] In a comparative study involving 22 mainly European countries, Hagevi[12] found that environmental concern tended to be somewhat higher in predominantly Catholic countries than in Protestant countries and that this also applied at the individual level. However, he also found a lower level of concern in more secular countries, a finding that does not support the view that Christian beliefs have a more negative effect on environmental attitudes than secular beliefs. There is also evidence that Pope Francis’s edict Laudato Si’ has fallen on deaf ears in the United States,[13] and that, more generally, his progressive stance on many issues has provoked hostile reactions from within the Catholic church.[14]
Even from this brief overview, it becomes apparent that it does not seem justified to make general statements about the extent to which the Christian religion is compatible with, supportive of, or obstructive to environmental integration. Rather, Christianity can and has been interpreted in many different ways to provide variable degrees of support for pro-environmental views and attitudes. What (positive or negative) role Christian religions play in environmental integration depends in large part on the interpretations and actions of religious leaders as well as their followers. In other words, this question needs to be answered by looking at religious actors (the agency factor) in the specific context of a community or country.
Although I will not enter into a discussion on the relationship between other religions and environmental views, and/or whether they assign more or less importance to the environment than Christianity, it seems plausible that the general conclusion drawn about Christian religions also applies to other religions. For instance, although the core of an environmental ethic can be found in the Koran, it has been argued that in many Islamic countries, this ethic had been lost and that it is only relatively recently that Islamic scholars have rekindled Islam’s environmental ethic.[15] Islamist groups have taken onboard environmental issues, but for different reasons and with different agendas.[16] At the same time, environmental concerns have taken a back seat among those in power, as they give priority to economic development often at great costs to the environment, even if they legitimate their policies and power with Islamic teachings.[17] Between predominantly Islamic countries, where no boundaries exist between religion and the secular domain of the state, there appears to be no consistency in government attitudes towards the environment, suggesting scope for divergent interpretations and approaches.
As the overwhelming majority (94%) of Hindus live in just one country, India,[18] the question of whether and to what extent Hinduism has been a conducive or obstructive factor to environmental integration is strongly tied up with the role and environmental efforts of India’s governments. Although it has been argued that an environmental ethic can be plausibly extracted from Hinduism,[19] it appears that environmental concerns and activism in India have been driven mainly by other factors than Hinduism, notably social class.[20] The principles underlying the government’s National Environmental Policy, issued in 2006, do not make any reference to Hinduism.[21] With development being a priority for governments in India, it is not difficult to find (academic) information sources to support the view that neither religious beliefs, Gandhi’s ideas, nor environmental principles have carried much weight in the policies of governments.[22]
Of the four world religions, Buddhism is perhaps most often regarded as a belief system that incorporates and propagates an environmental ethic, as reflected by its appeal within environmentalist (notably deep ecology) circles in Western countries. However, Buddhism is far from homogeneous in its teachings, with several streams offering a range of different perspectives.[23] Within Buddhism, there is a diversity of views on what Buddhism offers in terms of environmental guidance. As with the other religions, efforts to read an environmental ethic from this faith began only after the emergence of modern environmentalism, and the idea that such an ethic was already specifically formulated in classical scriptures and teachings is an anachronism. With Buddhism being the dominant religion in just a handful of countries (Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Laos, and Bhutan), its scope for influencing many governments has been rather limited. Around half of the world’s 487 million Buddhists live in China,[24] but that country’s governments can hardly be considered tolerant towards religious minorities, let alone willing to be influenced by their teachings. But even in countries where Buddhists are in the majority, like Burma, it is far from clear that Buddhism has exerted a significant positive influence on the environmental efforts of governments, perhaps with the exception of Bhutan.[25]
This brief overview indicates that, even in countries where a particular religion is dominant, it is difficult to establish a direct and clear connection between these dominant beliefs and the environmental (integration) efforts of governments. Few if any governments appear to be guided in their environmental policies by faith-based worldviews, in part because efforts to extract an environmental ethic from these religions began only fairly recently and have led to different, ambiguous, or even conflicting interpretations. Moreover, in countries where an official line has been drawn between state and religion (notably in Europe), it would be problematic for a government to be seen to be led in their policies by the views of a particular religious group or church.
This does not mean that religion does not influence environmental policies and integration. When followers of a religion are influenced by the environmental teachings and communications of religious leaders and churches, this may well impact their thinking, behaviour, and practices, thereby bringing about environmental integration within society, and bypassing governments. Arguably, it is in this societal realm that most of the environmental efforts of religious leaders and churches are concentrated, more so than in the political realm of lobbying governments, although this side of their agency should also not be ignored. Moreover, by directly influencing adherents, churches and religious leaders may also influence governments indirectly, as followers may change or increase their demands upon the state. So, despite the tenuous relationship between religious doctrines and the environmental integration efforts of governments, we should not dismiss the role and influence of religion. Given the considerable cognitive, social, economic, and institutional power resources that some churches and religious leaders own or control, the (potential) significance of agency and power exerted by these actors (one way or the other) should not be neglected in analyses of the environmental efforts of governments.
References
[1] Pew Research Center (2017), The Changing Global Religious Landscape. Washington D.C.: Pew Center Research, http://www.pewforum.org/2017/04/05/the-changing-global-religious-landscape/ (Accessed: 19 October 2017), 8, 10, 18, 22.
[2] Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (2012), The Global Religious Landscape. A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Major Religious Groups as of 2010, Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center, http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2014/01/global-religion-full.pdf (Accessed: 19 October 2017), 45-50.
[3] White, Lynn (1967), “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis”, Science, Vol.155, No.3767, pp.1203-1207.
[4] Ibid, 1205.
[5] Ibid, 1205-1206.
[6] Minteer, Ben A. and Robert E. Manning (2005), “An Appraisal of the Critique of Anthropocentrism and Three Lesser Known Themes in Lynn White’s ‘the Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis'”, Organization & Environment, Vol.18, No.2, 163-176.
[7] The Holy See (2015), Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ of the Holy Father Francis on Care for Our Common Home. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.pdf (Accessed: 13 November 2017).
[8] See also Ghosh for a comparison between the Paris Agreement and Laudato Si’ in terms of the interpretation of the climate crisis. Ghosh, Amitav (2016), The Great Derangement. Climate Change and the Unthinkable. Penguin Books.
[9] Clements, John M., et al. (2013), “Green Christians? An Empirical Examination of Environmental Concern within the U.S. General Public”, Organization & Environment, Vol.27, No.1, 85-102, 4.
[10] Ibid, 2.
[11] Ibid, 13.
[12] Hagevi, Magnus (2014), “Religion and the Environmental Opinion in 22 Countries: A Comparative Study”, International Review of Sociology, Vol.24, No.1, 91-109.
[13] Davis, Nicola (2016), “Pope Francis’s Edict on Climate Change Has Fallen on Closed Ears, Study Finds”, The Guardian, 24 October.
[14] Brown, Andrew (2017), “The War against Pope Francis”, The Guardian, 27 October.
[15] Khalid, Fazlun M. (2002), “Islam and the Environment”, in P. Timmerman (ed.) Encyclopedia of Global Environmental Change, 332–339.
[16] Karagiannis, Emmanuel (2015), “When the Green Gets Greener: Political Islam’s Newly-Found Environmentalism”, Small Wars & Insurgencies, Vol.26, No.1, 181-201.
[17] Yildirim, A. Kadir (2016), “Between Anti-Westernism and Development: Political Islam and Environmentalism”, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.52, No.2, 215-232.
[18] Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, The Global Religious Landscape. A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Major Religious Groups as of 2010, 29.
[19] Framarin, Christopher G. (2012), “Hinduism and Environmental Ethics: An Analysis and Defense of a Basic Assumption”, Asian Philosophy, Vol.22, No.1, 75-91.
[20] Chatterjee, Deba Prashad (2008), “Oriental Disadvantage Versus Occidental Exuberance: Appraising Environmental Concern in India — a Case Study in a Local Context”, International Sociology, Vol.23, No.1, 5-33.
[21] Government of India M. o. E. a. Forests (2006), National Environment Policy. https://ibkp.dbtindia.gov.in/DBT_Content_Test/CMS/Guidelines/20190411103521431_National%20Environment%20Policy,%202006.pdf, (Accessed: 14 July 2016).
[22] Shiva, Vandana (1991), Ecology and the Politics of Survival: Conflicts over Natural Resources in India. New Delhi: Sage Publications; Guha, Ramachandra (1998), “Mahatma Gandhi and the Environmental Movement in India”, in A. Kalland and G. Persoon (eds.), Environmental Movements in Asia. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 65-82; Münster, Daniel and Ursula Münster (2012), “Consuming the Forest in an Environment of Crisis: Nature Tourism, Forest Conservation and Neoliberal Agriculture in South India”, Development and Change, Vol.43, No.1, 205-227; Kamdar, Mira (2009), “Time to Honour Gandhi’s Vision. India’s New Government Faces a Difficult Dilemma”, The Press, 12 June.
[23] Harris, Ian (1995), “Getting to Grips with Buddhist Environmentalism: A Provisional Typology”, Journal of Buddhist Ethics, Vol.2, 173-190.
[24] Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, The Global Religious Landscape. A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Major Religious Groups as of 2010, 32.
[25] Brooks, Jeremy S. (2011), “Buddhism, Economics, and Environmental Values: A Multilevel Analysis of Sustainable Development Efforts in Bhutan”, Society & Natural Resources, Vol.24, No.7, 637-655; Drexler, Madeline, A Splendid Isolation. Lessons on Happiness from the Kingdom of Bhutan. madelinedrexler.com.
Humanity on Trial 