AMERICA'S LARGEST RELIGION IS more often blamed for creating our environmental problems than credited with helping to solve them. Indeed, ever since historian Lynn White, Jr., published "The Historica..
AMERICA'S LARGEST RELIGION IS more often blamed for creating our environmental problems than credited with helping to solve them. Indeed, ever since historian Lynn White, Jr., published "The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis" (Science magazine in 1967), the anti-earth nature of Christianity has become standard doctrine in environmental circles. (Mother Earth News, Nov/Dec issue, repeated this truism in their "Open Road" column.) The quote above from the first chapter of Genesis forms the backbone of White's-and others'-arguments that Christianity is an anti-ecological religion. And certainly, the notion of subduing the earth and taking dominion over its creatures does sound exploitative. But eco-Christians say that reading past that one verse will reveal a very different picture of humanity's role in the creation.
Arts and Humanities Civic and Community Engagement History Inequality and Stratification Other Religion Politics and Social Change Race and Ethnicity Religion Social and Behavioral Sciences Social His..
Arts and Humanities Civic and Community Engagement History Inequality and Stratification Other Religion Politics and Social Change Race and Ethnicity Religion Social and Behavioral Sciences Social History Social Justice Sociology United States History