God’s green earth
Karen Armstrong’s piece (“Heaven on Earth,” July) rightly calls for a richer encounter between human beings and nature as a response to the climate crisis: “We must change not only our lifestyle but our belief system.”
She is not the first to trace the roots of a radical distinction—between insiders and “the other,” humankind and nature, and the divine and “the world”—to the principles of monotheism. But in the Christian tradition, to which the west is so indebted, the picture is more nuanced than she allows for.
The Bible itself, particularly the Psalms and writings such as Job, evoke the mystery of the created order as a channel for awe before God. The instruction in Genesis 1:28 which she cites—to “be masters” or “exercise dominion”—has provoked a range of interpretations, not least in light of the behaviour expected elsewhere in scripture of those exercising dominion. It was only in the early modern period, alongside the rise of modern science, that it came to be read in terms of anthropocentric control and even then this often led to challenges to reckless exploitation rather than its justification.
Recent decades have seen active explorations—sometimes under the uninviting label “eco-theology”—of how the foundational texts of our belief systems may themselves be agents of the change for which Armstrong calls.
This is not intended as an apologetic on behalf of the Christian tradition, for our news media are replete with contemporary appeals to religious beliefs and to “the Bible” in order to justify all manner of practices that are life-denying rather than life-affirming. It is rather to extend the invitation to others, whether of settled religious beliefs or of none, to join a conversation which is surely one of the most important we can have.
Judith M Lieu, Lady Margaret’s professor of divinity emerita, Cambridge and author of “Marcion and the Making of a Heretic”