COLUMN: As a Matter of Faith
Until March I hadn’t been in southern Utah for about 20 years, when my father and I visited during a summer vacation. He and I spent most of our time in Arches National Park, and it was quite an experience to drive there again on my own. Arches is like Mars close up, with red rock rising like another life form from the ground, appearing too organic to be stone.
One of those arches is a sort of state logo, Delicate Arch. The hike up to see this beauty is tough for some but worth the effort. I reached the top of the cliffside and sat on a boulder to absorb the view. It was late in the afternoon, with sunlight at full intensity radiating beautifully off the orange and red rock surface.
It was like stepping inside the pristine world of a painting. The kids running wild near the cliff’s edge, wanting photos in the middle of the arch, were annoying but I wasn’t too upset. They were there to see this lovely place too.
My experience there was very emotional and spiritual. It’s one I hope to share with my great grandchildren when they visit Arches. I also realize many would prefer to see that place destroyed for various reasons. Some are rather nobly trying to get at the resources found in the area to fill the needs of our country.
Environmentalism is a huge political issue in our time, but politics are formed by philosophy, and for many people in the U.S. and Utah, that philosophy is born from theology.
Environmental views in religion have been around as long as the belief that nature is ordered. Most people used a pantheism where all active physical things had spirits and gods driving them. In more complex societies like ancient Egypt, the gods were hierarchal, but environmental concerns always focused around punishment and reward. Doing the wrong thing invoked the wrath of deities, resulting in droughts, famine, disease and societal decay, while doing right provided bounty.
This view might seem primitive to modern scientific eyes, but after nine months in Iraq, under punishing sun, I certainly give it validity. Monotheisms under Abraham and others kept the total control of nature. 1 Genesis 26 of the King James Bible states, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the 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 creepeth upon the earth.”
Man has dominion in the Judeochristian view, but not just rule. According to scholars like Rashi and John Paul II, the language of the rest of Genesis suggests this dominion is a matter of stewardship. God of the books of Moses isn’t afraid to punish violently, so the punishment of older traditions remained and stayed in Judaism and Christianity until the Protestant movement into North America, where it shifted into more of a dominance form.
Nature in its pristine state was viewed as idle and therefore an evil that had to be corrected.
The evil emphasis has faded recently, but the mind-set hasn’t. Many in developed nations seem to have ditched the stewardship for pure utility. A canyon only matters for the gas we can get out of it, a river is just a place to get fish and dump waste. Many environmentalist claims which use religion aren’t much better. Al Gore, the sort of media prophet for modern environmentalism, claims we should reduce damaging affects of industry by creating more industry and more dangerous products.
New Age religions, like some neo paganism, have popped up claiming to be based off ancient and “better” peoples such as Native Americans. They’re usually just rebellious ego trips for insecure people. So it looks like modern man is stuck between pure industrialism and blind merchandizing from egocentrics.
Sitting on the sandstone boulders near Delicate Arch, I wondered about this problem. The world is becoming overpopulated, rivers are poisoned by runoff, SOMETHING came out of the sky and made my car white. I’m glad some people are making an effort, but fancy light bulbs and cheap kitchen utensils with recycling logos in neon green aren’t going to fix anything.
I also don’t think we should just throw away our progress to live like cavemen. It’s natural for humans to create and invent, but we’re dependent on our environment to live. The punishments of old ways and the scripture of current faiths had reasons, mainly to ensure moderation in culture. Breeding like rabbits then burning up all the resources is no way to survive as a society, and I don’t really think that “God will provide” is a suitable long-term outlook.
What I think is that environmental concerns are important parts of any successful faith because it concerns relationships with what is beyond us in the universe. As believers, it’s part of our duty to promote health in our faith, in our culture and in our natural surroundings. This is the point of stewardship, not to merely control but to care for and preserve. Nature can take care of itself a lot of the time, and we are merely mortals, but that doesn’t mean our role and impact should just be ignored.
Will Holloway is a senior in philosophy and his column appears every other Wednesday. Comments can be left at www.aggietownsquare.com.