Society for Conservation Biology

Spirituality and Sustainability

Author(s): Jay McDaniel
Source: Conservation Biology, Vol. 16, No. 6 (Dec., 2002), pp. 1461-1464
Published by: Wiley for Society for Conservation Biology
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Spirituality and
In his various writings, David Orr
has consistently advocated spiritual
renewal. He is an important guide,
not only to readers of Conservation
Biology, but also to many theolo-
gians, philosophers of religion, and
spiritually interested readers of his
works. In a general way, Orr's con-
tributions within the spiritual realm
fall into three areas:
(1) His recognition that sustainabil-
ity includes concerns not only
for ecological integrity but also
for social and economic justice
and for nonviolence, democracy,
and peace match the impulses
of many prophetically minded
religious people. For example,
the Sixteen Principles of the
EarthCharter (www.earthcharter.
org) offer four basic values for
the future: respect and care for
the community of life; ecologi-
cal integrity; social and eco-
nomic justice; and nonviolence,
democracy, and peace. Its 16
principles elucidate these four
values. Whereas narrower defi-
nitions limit sustainability to eco-
logical integrity, David Orr con-
sistently emphasizes all four
values. Hence he distinguishes
between environmentalism,
which so often focuses only on
ecological integrity, and the
sustainability movement, which
is more holistic and inclusive.
(2) His attention to questions of de-
sign, and of the role of beauty
in design, speak to those with
sacramental sensibilities who
have always aligned spirituality
with beauty.
(3) His recognition that there is,
and ought to be, a spiritual cen-
ter to the sustainability move-
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Sustainability
ment rings true to all who
are concerned with religion. I
write in response to this latter
theme.
In "Four Challenges to Sustainabil-
ity" (Orr 2002 [this issue], as in his
other writings, Orr tells us that the
transition to a sustainable future is
inevitable, but that it can occur cata-
strophically or peacefully, "with
more or less grace." If we want to
make the transition gracefully, he
says, then we must respond cre-
atively to four challenges. We need
(1) better ways to measure human
effects on the biosphere, (2) im-
proved capacities for governance,
(3) improved education, and (4) en-
hanced spiritual awareness.
Orr adds that the first three can be
acquired by rational means but the
fourth requires something more: a
transformation of mind and heart,
desire and intention. When we enter
the domains of desire and intention,
we need more than instrumental rea-
son and rational planning. We need
a sense of mystery and humility,
gratitude and celebration. We need
what some might call healthy reli-
gious wisdom.
Of course, like most environmen-
tal educators, Orr is not interested in
returning to fundamentalist forms of
religion. Too often they feed "bitter
ethnic and national rivalries" that are
obstacles to sustainability. Accord-
ingly, Orr distinguishes "enhanced
spiritual awareness" from a return to
"some simplistic faith of an earlier
time."
Followers of the various world re-
ligions can and should agree with
him. At their best, the world's reli-
gions are evolving traditions capable
of growth and development over
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time. The followers of these tradi-
tions rightly face the future not by
blindly repeating all the teachings
and practices of their past but by
drawing upon the most "sustain-
able" of their inherited wisdom, by
responding in new ways to fresh
challenges, and by welcoming fresh
insights.
Today the goal of sustainability is
one such challenge, and insights
from science-including those that
emerge from conservation biology-
are among the freshest. As the fol-
lowers of the world's religions cre-
atively respond to these challenges
and welcome these insights, they
change and advance their respective
traditions. Their footsteps help cre-
ate new paths.
Still the question emerges: If the
world is to undergo a spiritual re-
newal of the kind that Orr recom-
mends, can the world's religions
help? Two things are certain. The re-
ligions in their fundamentalist forms
cannot help; they are part of the prob-
lem, not part of the solution. And,
the two reigning alternatives to tra-
ditional religious fundamentalism-
scientism and consumerism-are
also part of the problem.
Of course, scientism is different
from science. Science is a mode of
consciousness and practice in its
own right, characterized by meth-
ods of observation, hypothesis, ex-
perimentation, and generalization.
Its inner impulses include what one
scientist, Ursula Goodenough (1998),
calls a will to assent, that is, a will to
accept the universe as it is and not
as people might it to be. To accept
the facts-to be honest to the uni-
verse as it presents itself-is itself
a deeply religious impulse. William
James put it well: "At bottom, the
1461
Conservation Biology, Pages 1461-1464
Volume 16, No. 6, December 2002
1462 in Context
Conservation
whole concern of religion is with
the manner of our acceptance of the
universe." Science can contribute to
this acceptance.
Scientism is the rendering of sci-
ence into a form of fundamentalist
religion. When scientism reigns, as it
does in some quarters in the modem
university, scientific modes of know-
ing are deemed the only legitimate
ways of knowing, to the exclusion
of musical ways of knowing and po-
etic ways of knowing and mystical
ways of knowing and prayerful ways
of knowing. And scientific pictures
of reality-be they mechanistic or
post-mechanistic-are thought to
"tell the whole story." This episte-
mological and metaphysical reduc-
tionism often results in an objectifi-
cation of reality, including other
living beings, into mere commodi-
ties for human management. The
will to assent becomes the will to
mastery. The humility of collaborat-
ing with nature, which is at the
heart of sustainable design, is re-
placed by an impulse to "manage the
planet."
In his call for spiritual renewal,
Orr wisely critiques scientism. He
recognizes that science itself cannot
name the values that guide public
policy. In his words, "Science on its
own can give no reason for sustain-
ing humankind." And he recognizes
that scientism has two additional
problems. It discounts mystery, in-
cluding the mystery of why there is
anything at all rather than simply noth-
ing, and it discounts "higher forces"
such as "wisdom, love, compassion,
understanding, and empathy."
Orr is wise not use the word God
to name these "higher forces" be-
cause he rightly realizes that a per-
son can affirm the higher forces of
wisdom and compassion without
being theistic. Many environmental
activists and advocates of sustainabil-
ity are in this situation. They think of
themselves as "spiritual" but not "re-
ligious," and they typically mean by
"religion" some version of theistic
religion combined with some form
of religious affiliation. They mean
Conservation Biology
Volume 16, No. 6, December 2002
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"believing in God and going to
church." In his writings, Orr wants
to appeal to these people too.
His language also appeals to many
who do use the word God. In theis-
tic traditions the word God names a
sky-like mind or womb-like receptacle
in whom higher forces are gathered
together. This mind is understood to
be equally present to all things even
as it is more than all things added to-
gether. When we are in touch with
this mind, so the traditions say, we
are inspired to become our better
selves. The biblical traditions put it
well. Even as we humans emerge
from dust, we are dust that can be
inspired by God to grow into crea-
tures of peace. In other words, we
have a calling, a vocation, to cease
exploiting and start collaborating
with a beauty that is around us and
within us.
David Orr agrees with this image
of humanity. He quotes Lynn Margu-
lis (1998), who speaks of humans as
"upright mammalian weeds" and
adds that Margulis's way of thinking
of humans is not enough: "A robust
spiritual sense may not mean that
we are created in the image of God,
but it must offer hope that we may
grow into something more than a
planetary plague." This capacity to
grow into something more is pre-
cisely what it means, in biblical tradi-
tions, to say that humans are made
in God's image. After Darwin we
rightly realize that this capacity is it-
self part of, not apart from, a deeper
creativity that is seen throughout the
evolutionary process. Other crea-
tures, too, are made in God's image.
To be made in God's image is to
share with, not diverge from, a cre-
ative universe in which each species
has its unique potential.
God or no God, though, David
Orr's explicit descriptions of the
"higher qualities" available to humans
are well chosen. He links "under-
standing" and "wisdom" and "love"
and "compassion" and "empathy." In
the spirit of his critique of scientism,
he could rightly add that love and
compassion are themselves forms of
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McDaniel
understanding and wisdom. Con-
trary to scientism, which limits un-
derstanding to scientific understand-
ing, Orr says there is more to wisdom
than is contained in the insights of
physics, chemistry, and biology.
There is also the wisdom of Jesus
and the Buddha; Julian of Norwich
and the Islamic mystic Rabia; Moses
and Black Elk. And, of course, there
is the wisdom of Wendell Berry and
Wes Jackson. Their wisdom is both
theoretical and practical. Their
teachings speak of an ultimate mys-
tery in which the universe is gath-
ered together, and their practices of
prayer and meditation, gardening
and harvesting, assist in transforma-
tions of mind and heart, desire and
intention. Professor Orr's concerns
are especially with the latter transfor-
mations. He rightly suggests that,
without these transformations, any
transition into sustainability will be
violent, paralyzing, and empty of
meaning.
Even as he is critical of scientism,
Orr is also critical of consumerism,
not only in "Four Challenges of Sus-
tainability" but in all his writings. In
critiquing consumerism he cites
Ernest Becker (1973), who explains
that under the auspices of this false
religion, we either drink and drug
ourselves out of awareness or we go
shopping. As a religion, consumer-
ism is even more powerful than sci-
entism, and its influence holds sway
in many circles that are antagonistic
or indifferent to science. We might
characterize the religion as follows.
Its god is economic growth for its
own sake; its priests are the public
policy makers who provide access
to growth; its evangelists are the ad-
vertisers who display the products
of growth and try to convince us
that we cannot be happy without
them; and its church is the shopping
mall. Its primary creeds are "bigger
is better" and "more is better" and
"faster is better" and "you can have it
all." Its doctrine of creation is that the
earth is real estate to be bought and
sold in the marketplace. Its doctrine
of human existence is that we are
McDaniel
skin-encapsulated egos, cut off from
the world by the boundaries of our
skin. And its doctrine of salvation is
that we are saved-or made whole
not by grace through faith as Chris-
tians claim or by wisdom through
letting go as Buddhists claim, but by
appearance, affluence, and market-
able achievement.
Like all religions, the religion of
consumerism has its attendant form
of spirituality. It is the same as that
of scientism: namely, the will to mas-
tery and thus to reduce all things to
a collection of objects. Orr's "Four
Challenges of Sustainability" offers
an invitation to seek an alternative to
this will to mastery. His call for "spir-
itual renewal" is a call to replace the
will to mastery with a covenant with
mystery.
What, then, does this renewal in-
volve for Orr? A careful reading of
his column and other works sug-
gests that it involves at least five
things: (1) a recovery of modes of
awareness that honor mystery, life,
and death; (2) a transformation of
desire that frees people from resent-
ment and enables them to forgive
one another and accept forgiveness;
(3) a renewed capacity for humans
to avoid the spirituality of drinking
and drugging and shopping them-
selves out of consciousness and to
enter more deeply into a celebration
of our interconnectedness in the
web of life; (4) an acceptance of lim-
its, including the limits of Earth to
absorb pollution and provide re-
sources for human use; and, related
to the latter, (5) the humility to ac-
cept our own mortality as creatures
among creatures, made from the
dust, on a finite but gorgeous planet.
If you are Christian or Muslim,
Jewish or Hindu, Sikh or Jain, Bud-
dhist or Bahai, you will feel affinity
for the first four aspects of spiritual-
ity. In different ways, almost all of
the religions encourage us to live
from gratitude not greed, forgive-
ness not hatred, mystery not mas-
tery. Orr's instincts concerning spiri-
tuality are shared by many in the
world's religions. In his columns in
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Conservation Biology and his other
works, he writes as a fellow traveler.
But, what about the fifth item for
renewal? What about the idea es-
poused by Orr that humans must ac-
cept their mortality? It is common-
place in the West to assume that
hopes for life after death are in ten-
sion with gratitude for and a celebra-
tion of this life. Certainly there are
some traditions for which belief in
life after death has anaesthetized
rather than sensitized people to the
beauties and simple joys of mortal,
bodily existence. Perhaps the world's
religions must "grow up" and accept
that there is nothing after death ex-
cept more death.
I suspect, though, that the matter
is more complicated. In various
forms of Buddhism and in almost all
forms of Judaism, belief in some
form of existence after death has
complemented rather than under-
mined a humble gratitude for finite,
bodily life. And in Islam, bodily ex-
istence has been seen as a sign of
rather than an antagonist to the real-
ity of paradise. The great Islamic
scholar and environmental philoso-
pher Seyyed Nasr argues that belief
in life after death can free people
from trying to grab so much of the
planet for human use, thus enabling
them to live more lightly on the
Earth and more gently with one an-
other. If Nasr is right, then it is a mis-
take to believe that those religions
that espouse spiritual growth after
death are necessarily anti-ecological
in their approach to life. To the con-
trary, they may widen an ecological
world view, helping us to understand
that, in the larger scheme of things,
ecology includes invisible as well as
visible dimensions, all of which can
be appreciated in context.
In any case, David Orr does a ser-
vice to the discipline of conserva-
tion biology and to the sustainability
movement by saying that sustainabil-
ity needs spiritual renewal as well as
improved education, governance, and
scientific understanding. He leaves his
readers with three kinds of ques-
tions that are central to our time.
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Conservation
in Context 1463
(1) Can the religions of the world
contribute to this spiritual re-
newal? Can they transcend
their own complicities with
consumerism, their own resis-
tances to science, and their
own forms of fundamental-
ism, thus becoming counter-
cultural contributors to a more
sustainable future? Can these
religions welcome science as
an ally in a joint pursuit of this
great work? (The best and most
comprehensive resource now
available for responding to this
first set of questions is the Fo-
rum on Religion and Ecology
[http://environment. harvard.
edu/religion/], hosted by the
Harvard Center for the Envi-
ronment. For a general survey
of the relation between reli-
gious worldviews and ecologi-
cal studies, see Worldviews and
Ecology: Religion, Philosophy
and the Environment [Tucker
& Grim 1994].)
(2) Can enthusiasts for science
transcend scientism, and thus
welcome the insights of the
world religions? Can they rec-
ognize that Jesus and the Bud-
dha, no less than Einstein and
Darwin, offer wisdom for a
more sustainable future? (For
a comprehensive summary of
the dialogue between science
and religion, see When Science
Meets Religion [Barbour 2000].)
(3) Can science and religion jointly
nourish the deeper hope for
spiritual renewal that itself un-
dergirds improved education,
better governance, and better
understanding of the relation
of humans to the earth? (Two
examples of attempts to unite
science and religion in the ser-
vice of spiritual renewal and
sustainability are The Great
Work: Our Way into the Fu-
ture [Berry 1999] and the work
of Whitehead-influenced pro-
cess philosophers and theolo-
gians. Examples of the latter in-
clude John B. Cobb. Jr. [1989]
Conservation Biology
Volume 16, No. 6, December 2002
1464 in Context
Conservation
in For the Common Good: Re-
To-
directing the Economy
ward Community, the Envi-
ronment, and a Sustainable
Future and, in a much more
theoretical vein, David Ray
Griffin [1999] in Religion and
Jay McDaniel
Scientific Naturalism: Overcom-
ing the Conflicts. My own more
process-oriented work is illus-
trated in With Roots and Wings:
Christianity in an Age of Ecol-
ogy and Dialogue [McDaniel
1995].)
Alfred North Whitehead (1967:
181) once wrote that when we con-
sider the influence of science and re-
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Biology
Volume16, No. 6, December2002
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ligion in our world, "it is no exagger-
ation to say that the future course of
history depends as to the relations
between them." David Orr adds to
Whitehead's wisdom.
HendrixCollege, Conway,AK72032, U.S.A.
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