Genesis, Stewardship and Beyond
Responsibility to Care for the Earth
Genesis 1:26
“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness
and let them have dominion over fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,
and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepth upon the earth.”
For Reading and Mindful Reflection:
Ecological/Environmental
Judeo-Christian
Overview of World Religions and Ecology
by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim
Yale University / 2009
One of the greatest challenges to contemporary religions, then, is how to respond to the environmental crisis...
[Some historians such as] Lynn White have suggested that the emphasis in Judaism and Christianity on the transcendence of God above nature and the dominion of humans over nature has led to a devaluing of the natural world and a subsequent destruction of its resources for utilitarian ends. While the particulars of this argument have been vehemently debated, it is increasingly clear that the environmental crisis presents a serious challenge to the world’s religions. This is especially true because many of these religions have traditionally been concerned with the paths of personal salvation that frequently emphasize other worldly goals and reject this world as corrupting.
How to adapt religious teachings to this task of revaluing nature so as to prevent its destruction marks a significant new phase in religious thought. Indeed, as the historian of religions, Thomas Berry, has so aptly pointed out, what is necessary is a comprehensive reevaluation of human-Earth relations if the human is to continue as a viable species on an increasingly degraded planet. In addition to major economic and political changes...
- Baha'i; Buddhism; Christianity; Confucianism; Daoism; Hinduism; Indigenous; Islam; Jainism; Judaism; Shinto; Interreligious
○