WHAT IS ECO-THEOLOGY?

Author(s): Lawrence Troster

Source: CrossCurrents , DECEMBER 2013, Vol. 63, No. 4, TOWARD AN ECO-THEOLOGY
(DECEMBER 2013), pp. 380-385
Published by: Wiley

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WHAT IS ECO-THEOLOGY?

Lawrence Troster

Ill hen I first began to be active in the religious environmental mo

III ment over twenty-five years ago, I was often invited to be part
UU interfaith panel discussions to discuss how religious traditio
viewed the environment. On these panels there was usually found a P
estant, a Catholic (Christians always seemed to get two seats), myself
resenting Judaism, a Muslim and sometimes a Buddhist and a Hindu
Each of us would, of course, say that our religions were "green" an
quote a few teachings from our sacred texts. After all, who would w
to say in a public forum that our traditions were not "green"? My o
involvement with religious environmentalism had developed out of m
theological interest in the science and religion dialogue and from my
sonal concern about climate change. After having participating in a n
ber of these dialogues, I realized that what we were all saying was
essentially nonsense.
How could ancient faith communities, based on pre-modern sacred
texts, be "green," when the modern environmental crisis was unprece
dented in kind and in scale from any previous human encounter with
the natural world? While Judaism, for example, has traditional sources
that are concerned with consumption, local pollution and water conserva
tion,1 it would be beyond my ancestors' comprehension to understand cli
mate change, species extinction and toxic pollution. Thus traditional
religions cannot be "green," for two important reasons. First of all, there
is a qualitative difference between modern and pre-modern technology
and how it affects the environment in both spatial and temporal terms.
Secondly, and more importantly, over the last several hundred years,

380 -CROSSCURRENTS © 2013 Association for Religion and Intellectual Life

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 LAWRENCE TROSTER

scientific knowledge of the natural world has deve

thus creating a worldview that is radically differe
ancestors. For example, the development of evoluti
discovery of the genetic code have collapsed the "sacr
Abrahamic faiths which saw an ontological divide
the rest of fife. This new scientific understanding
into question one of the most fundamental doctrin
that humans are created "in the image of God," an
heart of these communities' ethical systems.2 Ther
nities could truly be "green," and traditional sources
evant to developing a modern religious perspective
crisis.

I was seeing in these interfaith panels what Cath

Haught called the "apologetic" religious response to
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, when environm
becoming a widespread popular movement, there w
tional religions that claimed that they were one of
humanity's destructive exploitation of the natural
Christian and Jewish theologians countered both t
this attack, but also tried to show how their tradition
that could be in conformity with the modern env
Haught characterizes it, this approach argues, "if o
timeless religious virtues we could alleviate the cri
fives to be shaped by genuinely Christian virtues,
would have the appropriate balance, and we could a
looms before us."5
In this "apologetic" reading of Judaism and Chr
tions as they already existed could be completely ad
to the environmental crisis. In Judaism, for examp
halakhic (legal) texts were held up to show that the
already as "green" as it needed to be and that Jud
mental ethic that long ago anticipated the modern
ment. The apologetic response usually ends up esp
ethic in which humanity and its needs are still the ce
religious communities still adhere to this kind of
own reflections of how faith traditions have respond
the most important crisis facing humanity since

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WHAT IS ECO-THEOLOGY?

nuclear weapons, it is completely inadequate and

effect on how those communities have actually
dig deeper.
Haught saw in 1993 the beginning of what he
approach" to the environmental crisis. The sac
porates the modern scientific knowledge of the
mos itself as the primary text of revelation. It
communities must recast their theologies abou
Creation in response to this new worldview. Th
become known as eco-theology.
My own first encounter with eco-theology w
iy's Dream of the Earth.6 Berry's theology changed
on how religions should respond to the environ
influenced my own theological work to this day
eco-theologian and I have written numerous art
traditional Jewish theological concepts of divine
tion and Redemption, into an eco-theology perspec
Even though there are numerous exponents of
no clear definition of what it is. H. Paul Santmire, one of the first Chris
tian eco-theologians, defines eco-theology as describing the "theological
discourse that highlights the whole 'household' of God's creation, espe
cially the world of nature, as an interrelated system (eco is from the Greek
word for household, oikos)."7 Jay McDaniel, on the other hand, sees eco
theology not as a theological approach but a "web-of-life movement inso
far as it takes the well-being of life as a whole—rather than ever-increas
ing economic growth—as the central organizing principle of its social
vision."8 He sees the process thought of Alfred North Whitehead as the
philosophical foundation of the eco-theology movement which he under
stands as an orientation toward fife as opposed to consumerism and
fundamentalism.

I have come to understand eco-theology as the integration of the new

scientific perspective on the natural world with traditional theological
concepts, producing a new theological paradigm. My own theological
work was in part inspired by the realization that Moses Maimonides
(1135-1204) did this very thing in his own theology: incorporating the
best "science" of his day within traditional Jewish theological categories.
Eco-theology has, I believe, the potential to go beyond an apologetic

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 LAWRENCE TROSTER

religious environmentalism and generate a more effective ethical

response to the environmental crisis.
In attempting to better define eco-theology, here are some of its pos
sible characteristics:

1. Eco-theology proceeds first and foremost from the new scientific per
spectives of the natural world that have developed over the last several
centuries. This new knowledge, especially from the sciences of cosmology,
biology, genetics, ecology and evolution, has radically altered our under
standing of the human relationship to the natural world. This science has
also produced a technology whose reach in power and ability to trans
form the natural world is unprecedented in human histoiy. This science
has also made us realize the extent and danger of environmental crisis.
2. Eco-theology usually includes some form of personal story. It often is
expressed through a deep sense of place (eco-location) and the personal
history of one's own relationship to the natural world (eco-autobiography).9
3. Eco-theology has been profoundly influenced by eco-feminism. Eco
feminism asserts that the development of the environmental crisis was
an inevitable part of the historical exploitation of women.10 Many of the
most important eco-theologians are also eco-feminists11 who have recast
their conceptions of God and who have rejected the many dualisms
(mind/body; spirit/matter; human/animal, etc.) that lie at the heart of
much of traditional theology and philosophy. Eco-feminism also chal
lenges the idea that all scientific endeavors are value-free and forces us to
see how this false assumption has had an impact on the development of
technology and public policy decisions.12
4. Eco-theology uses several methods to transform traditional religion. As
formulated by Maiy Evelyn Tucker13 these are:

a. Retrieval: finding previously neglected or ignored material within

traditional sources that may speak to a modern eco-theological per
spective. For example, the Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible contains a
view of the human relationship to Creation that approaches a bio-cen
trist position that is very much in opposition to more anthropocentric
sources such as Genesis 1. In rabbinic literature, Job was reinterpreted
to almost completely exclude this very radical view.14
b. Reinterpretation: Eco-theology reinterprets traditional sacred texts,
liturgy and rituals within an ecological context. For example, in

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WHAT IS ECO-THEOLOGY?

Judaism, the minor observance of the New Year

vat) has become the Jewish Earth Day in many
the environmental rernterpretation and recasti
tury mystical seder.15
c. Reconstruction: Eco-theology can radically re
theology to reflect a more "planetary expressio
mentioned above, Creation is the primaiy text of
lation of the new "story" of Creation from the
have an impact on the way we spiritually respond
and change what we mean by "revelation." From
revelation (which is more universalistic than most
our idea of God must change from a supernatural
of Becoming who knows the universe temporal
seen not a supernatural event from outside of the
ral process in which God is self-revealing through
a Jewish perspective, this changes the role of God
a teacher, exercising power not by coercion, but o

In 2007, the Reverend Fletcher Harper and I cr

Fellowship Program. It is a programmatic response t
lack of formal religious environmental leadershi
ship Program is an educational and training prog
and ordained religious leaders into religious envi
program is designed to educate leaders from dive
able to respond to environmental issues within in
munities.

A central aspect of the Fellowship Program is to have the participants

create their own eco-theologies. They are asked to do this after a
three-day retreat devoted to the spiritual and theological dimension of
environmentalism. These personal eco-theologies are meant to be the
basis of a personal voice from which the graduates of the Program can
speak to their own communities. These statements usually include an
eco-autobiography and an analysis of traditional sacred sources.
What follows in this issue of Crosscurrents are five eco-theologies, the
original versions of which were written for the GreenFaith Fellowship
Program. Each is unique to the life and perspective of the writer, but all
share many of the same characteristics of what constitutes eco-theology.

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 LAWRENCE TROSTER

There are now over 100 GreenFaith Fellows from t

Muslim and Hindu communities and they have be
cant impact on the religious environmental move
into practice the transformation of their tradition
challenge of eco-theology.

Notes

1. A good summary of these ideas can be found in David Ehrenfeld and Phillip J. Bentley,
"Judaism and the Practice of Stewardship," in: Martin D. Yaffe, Judaism and Environmental Eth
ics: A Reader (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books: 2001), p. 125-135.
2. See: Lawrence Troster, "The Order of Creation and the Emerging God: Evolution and
Divine Action in the Natural World," in: Geoffrey Cantor & Marc Swetlitz editors, Jewish Tra
dition and the Challenge of Darwinism, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), p. 225-246.
3. John F. Haught, The Promise of Nature: Ecology, and Cosmic Purpose (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock
Publishers, 1993), p. 90f.
4. See Yaffe, Judaism and Environmental Ethics, p. 6-8.
5. Haught, The Promise of Nature, p. 91-2.
6. Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1988).
7. From "Ecotheology" in: Encyclopedia of Science and Religion, editors Wentzel Van Huyssteen,
Niels Henrik Gregersen, Nancy R. Howell, Wesley J. Wildman, 2003.
8. Jay McDaniel, "Ecotheology and World Religions," in: Laurel Kearns & Catherine Keller,
editors, Ecospirit: Religions and Philosophies for the Earth (New York: Fordham University Press,
2007), pp. 22, 26.
9. Eco-location and eco-autobiography are central features of all environmental education.
See: Mitchell Thomashow, Ecological Identity: Becoming a Reflective Environmentalist (Cambridge:
MIT Press, 1996).
10. See for example: Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific
Revolution (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1980).
11. See for example the work of Sallie McFague, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and Catherine
Keller.

12. See for example the work of Vandana Shiva.

13. Mary Evelyn Tucker, Worldly Wonder: Religions Enter Their Ecological Phase (Chicago: Open
Court, 2003), p. 36f.
14. For example see my blog post, "Four Biblical Voices on our Relationship to Creation"
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-lawrence-troster/biblical-voices-on-creation_b_859549.
html) and also: William P. Brown, The Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science, and the Ecology
of Wonder (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
15. The modern Tu B'Shevat seder was created by Ellen Bernstein, the founder of the first
Jewish environmental organization Shomrei Adamah. She utilized a kabbalistic seder and
rewrote it within an environmental context. Versions of this seder have become the most
utilized forms of this ritual.

16. Lawrence Troster, "The Book of Black Fire: An Eco-Theology of Revelation," Conservative
Judaism 62:1, 2010, p. 132-151.

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