Environmental Ethics : Some Challenges
K.C. Abraham
Theological discourse in modern times has been greatly influenced, even
altered as theologians begin to respond to the challenges of two
movements: ecological as well as feminist. Gabriele Dietrich in whose
honor we dedicate this volume, combines in her thinking and action
insights gained from both these movements. She is not an arm-chair
theologian. Her passionate involvement in the grass-root level
movements and her capacity to move from the realm of action to
theological teaching and research are remarkable.
She has worked closely with me in the doctoral programme of the
South Asia Theological Research (SATHRI) which I happened to direct for
15 years. Every time she came for the meeting she would have
either returned from a hectic week in Narmada valley or would be on her
way to participate in a people’s movement in some remote areas in
India. But she would have done her homework and always contribute
valuable insights in all the fields of study. She is a praxis
theologian par excellence! I commend her style and commitment to all
younger theologians.
The concerns represented in these interrelated
movements have not taken deep roots in our culture and in the church.
Patriarchy still rules the roost in our society where women’s
participation has not moved beyond mere tokenism. As I write this
from Taiwan there appeared in the local English daily a full- page
report on female feotus being aborted in many clinics in the states
like Punjab and Haryana where, according to the 2000 census, the female
ratio is alarmingly on the decrease. The “preference for boys” is so
pervasive an attitude, that even the government measures to root this
evil out has not met with any success. The church continues to be the
bastion of male chauvinism.
Our thinking and theology is totally anthropocentric. The world of
non-humans rarely comes to our consciousness. Salvation is understood
as a process by which humans and humans alone are rescued from the
material world. The pious Christians believe that the created world
will face dooms day and it is pointless to try to alter destiny. These
movements are challenging us to commit ourselves to a radical
restructuring of the given patterns of relationships and moral
presuppositions that govern society. For many it means changing
our tradition-bound attitudes and value system
The purpose of this article is to examine some of the ethical
challenges ecology brings to our life and relationships and also to
reflect on the Biblical resources for an ecological reading of our
faith tradition. Of course, the challenges both these movements bring
to us are similar in many respects. They both critically reject the
systems of domination that prevail in our society. They call for a
radical redirection of some of the patterns of relationship between man
and woman and human and nature.
Ecology and the debates on it are not merely about
growing more trees, caring for the gardens or even of growing organic
food, although they are all necessary. Thanks to the NGOs, UN
related agencies and other social activists there is a greater
awareness about ecological issues. Even the governments and planners
are forced to address this concern in their policy decisions. At least
they have adopted the rhetoric on ecology in their open statements, but
when they have to make a choice between the so- called “development”
and ecological damage, they opt for the former. This is
abundantly clear in the attitude of political leaders and technocrats
involved in the Narmada valley issue.
Ecological crisis raises some fundamental questions
to our value system and life style especially to the modernist
totalizing ideology of progress. An alternate life style based on
a prudent use of natural resources and a redirection of our social and
economic structures are urgently required, if we were to respond to
this crisis. The discussion, especially from the Third World focuses
its attention on justice concerns.
It is a well-known fact that the resources are
distributed unevenly. The industrialised nations consume a
disproportionately high share of resources and contribute by their life
style to the destruction of the ecological equilibrium in the South.
Many low-lying areas of Bangladesh are being subsumed under water not
by the ‘fault’ of the people in Bangladesh, but by the impact of the
economic activities of the people in the Northern hemisphere, in
particular the burning of fossil fuels for space heating,
transportation industry and electricity production, which cause global
warming and the resultant rising of sea level. The same imbalance in
the consumption pattern is found within each nation. A discussion on
ecology has to address the justice issue.
A couple of years ago I joined with a North American
professor to teach environmental ethics at San Francisco Theological
Seminary. The global warming was the focus of the course. In the
discussions, I found myself raising at every point the justice
perspective. This I feel is the role of third world scholars. But the
justice concerns should be discussed in relation to other issues that
are considered for constructing a discourse on environmental ethics.
This article will discuss the following issues that reappear in
our debates on ecology:
1. The relation between ecology and technology
2. Ethical issues especially the right of non –human
nature
3. The Bible and Ecology: especially the problem of
the anthropocentric orientation of the Bible.
These are by no means new issues; but new questions
and concerns have been raised in recent discussions. The new insights
we gain from them are helpful in giving a firm foundation to our
commitment to the life of the earth. It is our hope that the
discussions on these issues will help us to draw some implications for
our theology and spirituality.
Ecology and Technology
Larry Rasmussen, in his admirable volume ‘Earth Community, Earth
Ethics’ draws our attention to three revolutions that have drastically
changed human –nature relationship. They are Agricultural, especially
the intensive form of cultivation for large- scale production and
Industrial and Informational. The crucial factor in all these
revolutions is the technology used. The nature of technology has an
impact on the character of the work humans do. The pressure on
environment also varies according to the kind of technology that is
used. Perhaps the industrial revolution brought about a situation where
earth’s resources are exploited and manipulated to such an extent that
the life of the earth itself is in great peril. “To earth,
industrialization looks more and more like a succession of more complex
and environmentally disruptive and damaging ways to meet the needs and
wants of one particular, inordinately aggressive species.”E1 The
industrial culture is based on a particular mind-set or an assumption
that aggressive domination over nature is the absolute right of the
human species and earth has limitless resources for human use. Science
and technology are tools for further exploitation. We need not repeat
the discussions on the ecological damage, in most cases irreparable, of
the industrial revolution. But we note that industrial era paradigm for
development consists of the following elements:
‘expectation of unlimited material progress and ever growing
consumption; faith in science and technology to solve all problems;
goals of efficiency, growth, and productivity; mastery of nature; and
competition and individualism.’E2
This paradigm has led to ‘environmental degradation, resource
depletion, loss of meaningful work roles, inequitable distribution, and
ineffective control of technology’
Further it paved the way for the ‘rule of corporations’ over the world
creating not only a global economic order but also a culture. “The
emphasis is to overrule all local interests and local culture, to give
way to the larger global good that free market exchange creates.”
Korten gives a summary of “the ideal world of global dreamers”:
“The world’s money, technology, and markets are controlled and managed
by gigantic global corporations;
A common consumer culture unifies all people in a shared quest for
material gratification;
There is perfect global competition among workers and localities to
offer their services to investors at the most advantageous terms; (One
may be reminded of the competition for outsourcing among Third World
countries)
Corporations are free to act solely on the basis of profitability
without regard to national or local consequences;
Relations, both individual and corporate, are defined entirely by the
market:
And, there are no loyalties to place and community.E3
For our purpose it is to be reiterated that technology is the tool for
creating a new culture. The question is how to change this paradigm.
What kind of growth? And whose growth? What is the role of technology?
These are relevant questions. They have to be raised even now when, as
we will presently see, the nature of technology has changed.
Information Technology and Cyber Culture
Our attention is often drawn to the fact that we are now in the
informational age. The cyber culture has opened new possibilities for
humans to continue their production process without serious damage to
the earth. Again technology has won; we will go on with our life style
and expand our growth-oriented activity.
No doubt, achievements brought about by the new
technology are remarkable. The cyber culture has ushered in a new
world. Peter Drucker a sociologist suggests that this technology is
bringing about a massive social transformation. He writes,
It is the first society in which ordinary people – and that means most
people- do not earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow. It is
the first society in which ‘honest work’ does not mean a callused hand.
It is also the first society in which not everybody does the same work,
as was the case when huge majority were farmers or, as seemed likely
only forty or thirty years ago, were going to machine operators.
This is far more than a social change. It is a change in the human
condition.E4
Its culture creates borderless networks and for this reason loyalty to
localities and community is not a virtue to be jealously safeguarded. A
global culture that cuts across all barriers is in the making and we
still do not see the full impact of it. As someone has said, a
civilizational change is envisaged. Already we see signs of this new
culture and the attitudes in our urban areas where IT industry is
flourishing. Many ethical questions can be raised to the
situation created by this new culture. We cannot go into them here. Our
purpose is to ask how it impacts the life of the earth.
The claim is that the new technology is less
polluting and more desirable than the heavy machines of the industrial
era. Rasmussen analyses this question. “Information societies” writes
Rasmussen, “try to break loose from earth and its distress.
“Information” here is largely disembodied content, the “codes” of
things abstracted from all that makes the codes living flesh.…
Information as coded, recoded, transcoded reality carries a certain
contempt for being earthbound at all. It prefers avoiding the messy
world of finite, limited, placed, dependent bodies.”E5 He adds,
“the earth bound is denigrated, the abstract and precisely mathematical
is elevated.” The logic of unlimited growth and control of nature
remains the same. Enormous power is now concentrated in humans
who have the access to the new technology and there is no guarantee
that they will use it for the well-being of the earth. In fact
the corporations to increase their profit by managing money and market
are using the new technology. In split seconds investments can be
withdrawn as it happened in some of the South Eastern countries a few
years ago.
Rasmussen closes his analysis of the information
technology with raising some questions, “What kind of knowledge that we
need? Is it “information” via the information superhighway or
other routes? Are we dying for want of information? Is
earth’s distress traceable to facts we need that are not yet
known?” He says, “it is not so much information of the kind the
information revolution manipulates as it is the choices that ethics
poses; what understanding do we lack in order to live with earth and
one another, on terms enhancing for life in its many guises? What
norms and values do we measure information itself by, as a moral
guidance system for kind of society?”E6
Earlier Ian Barbour developed some typologies on our
attitude towards technology. One, the optimists’ view. It is
characterized by the argument, “better technology is the solution.”
There is always a technological solution for our ills. The IT culture
has heightened this sense of optimism. But the optimists overlook the
fact that “the solution to one problem often creates new problems.” The
other typology is expressed in the phrase “Technology itself is the
culprit.” The “pessimists say that technology is inherently destructive
of both environmental and human values.” But a third typology holds the
view that “technology is neither inherently good nor inherently bad but
an ambiguous instrument of power whose consequences depend on its
social context.”E7 He argues for a redirection of technology. The
discussion arose in the context of the Industrial culture. But
with modification it can apply to the new technology. In other
words how can the new technology, the borderless and powerful as it is,
can be accountable to ethical guidelines, especially as they relate to
the ecology? Here ethical is used in a foundational
sense.E8 It is the responsibility to the “Other.” In this
case the “Other” is the Earth. This is an area where political
action and community participation in development becomes crucial. In
fact technology is power; who controls technology becomes a crucial
question.
We seem to hear this question from many of Gabreille’s writings on
technology and culture. The new technology has not obliterated our
ethical concern rather a heightened awareness of the questions, who
controls it and for what purpose, become urgent. The other question
that looms large is: What kind of development is envisaged? The concept
of sustainability is suggested as the goal. I have dealt with this
concern in one of the pervious articles. The important point raised in
the current discussion is that sustainability should not be reduced to
merely a strategy of development but it should incorporate a vision of
alternate consciousness and life-style. It presupposes a renewed
relationship between humans and human and nature. A participatory
society that assumes responsibility for one another and for earth alone
is sustainable.E9
2. The right of non- human nature.
The perspective that the Earth and every form of
life have intrinsic worth/value is an ethic currently developing and
debated within ecological discourse.E10 The classical discussion on
rights is solely related to human. The assumption is that only
creatures with consciousness and reason can be aware of their rights.
The non - human world exist for human and they have no innate right.
Aristotle’s view is typical of Western intellectual
tradition. “If nature makes nothing without some end in view,” he
argues, “ nothing to no purpose, it must be that nature has made all of
them (animals and plants) for the sake of man” Using teleological mode
of ethical reasoning he asserts that by nature animals are human
slaves. His reasoning is that if they were not than they would
‘refuse’, but since they do not, it is natural to enslave them.
Incidentally the same argument is used to justify the existence of
human slaves! He writes,
Therefore whenever there is the same wide discrepancy between human
beings as there is between soul and body or between man and beast, then
those whose condition is such that their function is the use of the
other bodies and nothing better can be expected of them, those, I say
are slaves by nature.E11
Slaves are tools and none other than a piece of property. Only
those who posses reason, have rights. You have to have consciousness,
awareness, reasoning capacity for assuming your rights. Those who do
not posses these are there to be exploited and manipulated. By this
logic the babies, mentally –disabled and aged who lost reasoning power
have no rights. What is surprising is that Aquinas followed the same
logic. He says-
Dumb animals and plants are devoid of the life of reason whereby to
set themselves in motion; they are moved, as it were
by another, by a kind of natural impulse, a sign of which is that they
are naturally enslaved and accommodated to the uses of others.E12
Against this background, deep ecologists affirm the intrinsic right of
the non-human world to exist. A statement often quoted is from Aldo
Leopold: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the
integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is
wrong when it tends otherwise.”E13 The ‘rights’ language now used for
the non-human world represents a sharp change in our attitude towards
them. They have intrinsic right to exist, to be free. They
do not exist for human; the anthropocentric world always considers them
as objects of our pleasure and exploitation. There is of course
difference between human rights and biotic rights in the sense that
humans can exercise moral responsibility about the treatment of
non-human world but not about flora’s and fauna’s treatment of one
another.
The important point to be noted is the shift in
ground on the right’s language. As we have noted, the classical
discussion assumed that the reason and awareness alone are the grounds
on which the concept of right ought to be constructed (Aristotle and
Thomas Aquinas). These grounds will exclude not only the animal and
plant world but also the new born babies and mentally disabled and
aged. The intrinsic right of the biotic world should be based on other
grounds than rationality.
Asian Religious and cultural tradition is noted for
their attitude of reverence for life. The non-violence and
vegetarianism are expressions of this basic attitude to life. It is
Albert Schweitzer who developed this as an ethical concept. In his
Civilization and Ethics, he makes a critical survey of the Western
world- views and argues, ‘Our philosophizing has become more and more
involved in the discussion of secondary issues. It has lost touch with
the elemental questions regarding life and the world which it is
man’s task to pose and solve.’E14 Form this perspective he has a
classic definition of Ethics,
Ethics consists, therefore, in my
experiencing the compulsion to show to
all will-to-live the same
reverence as I do to my own. There we have given
us that basic principle of the
moral which is a necessity of thought. It is good
to maintain and encourage life; it
is bad to destroy life to obstruct it.
Life is sacred and our attitude towards it is that of reverence. This
absolutist ethics brings a new awareness of human responsibility to
nature and paves the way for the recognition of the inherent value of
the non-human world. Although it was a minority view when it was
propounded, it assumes greater significance today when we are seeking
for an ethic to ground our commitment to the earth.
Another ground for biotic right is also mentioned in
the current discussions. I am indebted to Andrew Linzey (Animal
Theology) for pointing out to a minority view in the early discussions
on the right of the animals and plants. It is by “a little- known
eighteenth century divine” Humphry Primatt. He differs from Aquinas who
following the Aristolian line of thinking, considers animals and plants
are irrational and they have no right. While he accepts significant
differences between humans and animals, he insists that the feeling of
pain is common to both:
Pain is pain, whether it be inflicted on man or on beast; and the
creature that suffers it, whether man or beast, being
sensible of the misery of it whilst it lasts, suffers
evil; and the sufferance of evil, unmeritedly, unprovokedly, where no
offence has been given; and no good end can possibly be answered by it,
but merely, to exhibit power or gratify malice, is Cruelty and
Injustice in him that occasions it.E15
Animals are included in the discourse on justice on the basis of
sentiency, the capacity for experiencing pain. One may extend this
argument to the whole biotic community. Primatt adds, ‘a man can
have no natural right to abuse and torment a beast, merely because a
beast has not the mental powers of a man.’E16 “Any creature” writes
Justus Lawler, “when it reaches the threshold of experiencing and
anticipating pain possesses rights.”E17 Could one extend this ground
when we speak of the intrinsic right of the entire non- human world?
They do not exist for human alone.
The rights language is a latecomer in theology.
Biotic rights have not accorded any theological status. But there are
some stray and effective voices by theologians. Bonhoeffer is the
first among protestant theologians who has reflected on human rights.
As he was fighting the gross violation of human rights by Nazi regime,
it was but natural from him to reflect on this issue. Rasmussen helps
us to see how Bonhoeffer’s discourse is set within the ambience of his
commitment to creation. He was critical of the some of the trends in
Protestant theology that devalues creation with its preoccupation with
otherworldliness. Bonhoeffer sees bodily integrity as “foundation of
all natural rights without exception,” “The living human body is always
the person himself/herself. Rape, exploitation, torture, and arbitrary
confinement of the human body are serious violations of the right which
is given with the creation of the humankind” (Cited in Rasmussen 309).
For him human right is grounded in creation itself and the rights of
natural life are “the reflected splendour of the glory of God’s
creation.”E18 Further Bonhoeffer argues that ‘the essential point
of human existence is its bond with mother earth, its being as
body.” Christian understanding of the rights of the non-human
world is, to borrow a term from Linzey, is “Theos –Rights.” Creation
exists for God. All living and non-living things do not exist for man,
as it has been affirmed in modern, especially Western thought, but they
exist for God. James Gustafson has made this point clearly, “If
God is “for man,” he may not be for man as the chief end of creation.
The chief end of God may not be the salvation of man.”E19 Human beings,
given their power and place in earth’s present reality and their nature
as self-conscious moral creatures, may inevitably be the measures of
all things. But the measure itself is that we “relate to all things in
a manner appropriate to their relations to God.”E20 The “good”
all things is more than their good for us, and our own interests are
relative to larger wholes than those of immediate human welfare. “This
requires... a moral and emotional nervous system that opens out beyond
a strict anthropocentric circumference.”E21 Gustafson in a recent
discussion further affirms,
What is finally indisputable, I think, that human other forms of life
are dependent upon forces we do not create and cannot fully control,
forces that bring us into being and sustain us and life around us, but
forces that also limit and destroy us and determine the destiny of the
cosmos. This dependence- a matter of fact, no matter how it is
interpreted- evokes a sense of the sublime, or for some of us a sense
of the divine.E22
Philosophical and theological base for a clearer understanding of the
ethical standing of the non-human world will deepen our commitment to
it. A wanton destruction of life in the world and callous disregard of
earth’s resources is a violation of the inherent and God given right to
them. This awareness is essential for an ecologically sensitive life.
Certainly the discussion on values cannot be isolated from the context
in which it is raised; they are shaped by particular contextualized
questions and struggles of all oppressed groups. The struggles of the
marginalized and the struggle of the earth are inter-related. To
deepen this struggle and to bring clarity on the rights of all,
including the subjugated earth and people is important.
The Earth and the Bible
We will now turn to another crucial issue that has been discussed: The
Bible and ecology. Earlier there was a discussion on the thesis
of Lyn White who maintained that the roots of environmental crisis
could be traced to Christianity, especially the Biblical command to
human to have dominion over earth and all creatures in it. Our
attention is now turned to the problematic use of the Bible and a
possible reading of the Bible from the perspective of Earth. I find the
book, Readings From The Perspective Of Earth, ed. Norman Habel,E23 a
significant publication. It has brought together mostly Australian
scholars to reflect on the question of Biblical hermeneutics from
earth-perspective. This landmark publication should deserve the
attention of all who are committed to develop ecological ethics from a
Christian perspective.
It begins by acknowledging the anthropocentric orientation of the Bible
and the problem it poses for an interpretation from the ecological
perspective. “ We may legitimately suspect the biblical texts, written
by human beings, reflect the primary interests of human beings- their
welfare, their human relationship to God and their personal
salvation. In short we may suspect that biblical texts are
anthropocentric. As these texts were also written by men, we can expect
them to be androcentric, and probably patriarchal.”E24 For this
reason a reading of the Bible from the perspective of earth becomes an
arduous task. It is further complicated by the fact that our
interpretation of even passages that do not have an explicit
anthropocentric orientation is influenced by the Western dualistic
perceptions of reality. Contrasting pairs characterize the dualistic
thinking:
Human/nature; male/female; heavenly/earthly; reason/matter and so on.
These pairing have been understood to have a hierarchical relationship.
Human is superior to nature and male superior to female. To see them as
complimentary we need a change in our perspectives. For this reason it
is argued that we need to retrieve the biblical texts from this
distorted reading. For example, the phrase ‘heaven and earth’ can be
read through the western dualistic terms as one opposing the other. But
if it is rendered ‘sky and land’ they are understood as complimentary.
A new way of reading the text is advocated- reading with Earth.
This methodology is influenced by the liberationist and feminist
reading of the Bible. “Liberationist stand with the oppressed poor as
they read; feminists stand with oppressed women as they read; we stand
with the oppressed Earth in our dialogue with the text. We are
concerned with ecojustice: justice for Earth. Our approach therefore
can be called ecojustice hermeneutic.”E25 It is reading Earth as
a subject rather than an object in the text.
The important contribution of the book is in its suggestion of six
ecojustice principles that guide us in our interpretation of the Bible.
They are:
1. The principle of Intrinsic Worth
The universe, earth and all its components
have intrinsic worth/value.
2. The principle of Interconnectedness
Earth is a community of interconnected living
things that are mutually dependent on
each other for life and survival.
3. The principle of Voice
Earth is a subject capable of raising its
voice in celebration and against injustice
4. The principle of Purpose
The universe, Earth and all its components, are part of a dynamic
cosmic design within which each piece has a place in the overall goal
of that design.
5. The principle of Mutual Custodianship
Earth is a balanced and diverse domain where responsible custodians can
function as partners, rather than rulers, to sustain a balanced and
diverse earth community.
6. The principle of Resistance
Earth and its components not only differ from injustices at the hands
of humans, but actively resist them in the struggle for justice.E26
These principles give us a direction in the new reading of the Bible.
The method adopted is similar to that followed in the re- reading of
the Bible from the perspectives of women, dalits and other marginal
groups. Here the Earth and its interest will provide the interpretive
focus. The reader response approach which claims “ that meaning is a
property of the act of reading and is located predominantly in the
reader” (Habel 60). ‘Readers engage in meaning production by
reflecting upon the text with her/his plural identities,
eco-social locations, commitments and subject positions, directed also
by the conventions of the time.’
The book gives examples of the study of several
passages making use of the guidelines given by the ecojustice
principles. Interpretation of one of the key text, Gen. 1.26-28
is a case in point. Normally it is interpreted as the basis for
stewardship, humans as stewards ruling on behalf of God. The image of
stewardship comes from the feudal background. God as an absentee
landlord put humans in charge of his property. In our interpretation we
tend to assume God as ruler, again a feudal legacy, humans are rulers
of the earth. But the principle of custodianship changes the mode of
relationship. “Custodianship is a mutual partnership. Earth and
Earth community have, in spite of the assumed rulership of humanity,
been the custodians of human beings. Earth has provided food, shelter,
beauty and many other riches to sustain the body and the sprit of
humanity. In return humans have assumed these riches as their right
rather than the contribution of their partners in the Earth
community.”E27 The important challenge is to read the Bible with the
eyes of the subjugated earth. The meaning of the text is enriched
by this perception of ecojustice. Certainly, this requires a new
commitment to the earth and her future. From that commitment we
should be prepared to look critically at the text and the biblical
interpretation that is accepted as ‘normative.’ What we consider
normative is often a culture-bound reading. For this reason the
earth-bible project asks us to make certain commitments before we begin
to interpret the text. These commitments are expressed thus:
* to acknowledge , before reading the biblical text, that as Western
interpreters we are heirs to a long anthropocentric, patriarchal and
androcentric approach to reading the text that has devalued Earth and
that continues to influence the way we read the text;
* to recognize Earth as a subject in the text with which we seek to
relate empathetically rather than as a topic to be analysed rationally;
* to take up the cause of justice for Earth to ascertain whether the
Earth and the Earth community are oppressed, silenced or liberated in
the biblical text;
* to develop techniques of reading the text to discern and retrieve
alternate traditions where the voice of the Earth community has been
suppressed.”
In the above commitments the use of ‘Earth community’ is
important for our perspective, for we are assuming that it is not only
the biotic community but also the poor and marginalized who live in
solidarity with the earth. The cry of the poor and the cry of the earth
are inseparable.
A Defining Moment
Ecological crisis has led us to a defining moment in our faith and
civilization. We need the spiritual resources of all peoples to meet
this challenge. Perhaps it is a moment of a new recognition that the
creation is God’s and humans along with other components of the earth
community live out their lives, as a gift or loan from God. It is also
a time to think about a new spirituality that is oriented to the Earth,
especially to the segments of living and non-living who are
oppressed. In this concluding section we want to raise this
question, especially as it relates to our experience of creator
God. If we imagine that we are in control of the earth, writes
Michael Northcott, “That our duty to respect it stands independent of
our and its relation to God who is its owner, we already concerive of
our relation to earth in terms conducive to the metaphor of scientific
control and technological management which so dominates environmental
management procedures, and with such deleterious consequences.”
And further he writes, “Idolatry of technology, of consumer goods, of
human control and corporate power is at the heart of the collective and
individual sins which constitute the environmental crisis.”E28
After analyzing several grass-root level movements and their
strategies, a secular author affirms, “the necessity for a spiritual
dimension and for the revival of the sacred in one’s everyday
relationship with the world, seems to be discovered as a basic factor
for the regeneration of people’s space. In grass roots movements,
this dimension has served a most powerful instrument in reviving the
old ideals of a livelihood based on love, conviviality and simplicity
and also in helping people to resist the disruptive effects of
economisation.”E29 It is not a spirituality that thrives on ritualism
and institutionalism, but an awareness and sensibility about the
sacredness of life and all that sustains it.
Leonardo Boff, the Latin American liberation
theologian has been profoundly and passionately writing on
ecology. A new understanding of the God experience is, for him,
crucial for an altered ecological consciousness. In a recent
article he says about two distinct but interrelated ways of
experiencing God. The first he describes as the ‘Personal Path of
Communion with God, Who is all,’ this is the way of the West. God is
perceived as the absolute “Thou,” a fundamental alterity, an
insurmountable opposite. The basic characteristic of this path is
love. But this tradition, points out Boff, entails a risk: the
feeling of exclusivity, the attitude that others do not have the truth,
an attitude that is at the root of crusades and religious
warfare. The other path, which is Eastern, is the ‘Path of
Communion with the All, which is God.’ “Everything meets in the One,
diverse and dynamic. This final unity is the result of a process of
identification with that which is different, of action that creates
identity with what is different.” ‘God’ is the word that translates the
experience of the unified all. In this way of experiencing God
also there is risk. “The mystical experience runs the risk of being
transformed in to mysticism, which at times becomes mixed with the
business interest of gurus or supposed spiritual masters who accumulate
influence and wealth.” Boff argues that these ways are not opposed to
each other; they are complimentary. He says, “there is an urgent
need to connect or reconnect all things by means of a powerful Center.
…..This Center makes us suffer when it breaks apart, which we perceive
as an unjust attack against the earth, its ecosystems, its flora and
fauna, and particularly against its poor and oppressed, both men and
women.” Again he observes, “the first path, that of the West, is more
that of the prophets, men and women of the word and of dialogue.
Second, that of the East, is that of the mystics, men and women of
reverent silence and visions of totality. We need both these paths.”
Boff closes his article with these words and they could be a fitting
conclusion to this article, “As always, though particularly at the
present time, spirituality demands a prophetic commitment, born not of
simple indignation, but of a mystic experience of unity with the Divine
and with all things. Such commitment will be indispensable in
inaugurating or at least reinforcing a new civilizing paradigm that is
more spiritual, compassionate, tender, and fraternal. This
spirituality will help to guarantee a promising future for planet Earth
and for all tribes that inhabit it.E30