Ecoflourishing and Virtue (Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies) [1 ed.] 9781032387499, 9781032387505, 9781003346579, 1032387491

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Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies

ECOFLOURISHING AND VIRTUE CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVES ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES Edited by Steven Bouma-Prediger and Nathan P. Carson Foreword by Bill McKibben

“This book is essential reading for every student and scholar alike. By focusing on one of the most important themes of our generation – articulating the place of virtue in ecological flourishing – it challenges the reader to weave together the insights of diverse disciplines both practically and creatively. The overall intent is to build a more constructive approach to thinking and acting differently in a rapidly changing and globalized world. The editors can be congratulated for bringing together a superlative lineup of essayists whose approaches to earthkeeping from a variety of disciplines serve to complement each other. A predominance of essays by Christian scholars alongside a handful of poems in this collection reinforces the argument in a way that will touch both hearts and minds.” Celia Deane-Drummond, Director, Laudato Si’ Research Institute, and Senior Research Fellow, Campion Hall, University of Oxford “This rich anthology shows the down-to-earth power of Christian virtue ethics in this time of global ecojustice crisis. Carry this book with you. Dip into it often. Be inspired.” Paul Santmire, author of seven books on ecological theology, including The Travail of Nature and EcoActivist Testament “Few books in the study of Christian environmental virtue ethics engage such a far-ranging set of issues from multiple disciplinary perspectives – and by each field’s leading scholars and writers on top of it. This volume will be a guide for years to come for those intentional about reflecting on what it means to be better caretakers of planet Earth.” Gretel Van Wieren, Professor of Religious Studies and Philosophy, Michigan State University. Author of Restored to Earth, Food, Farming and Religion, and Listening at Lookout Creek

Ecoflourishing and Virtue

This book brings together the interdisciplinary reflections of Christian scholars and poets, to explore how ecological virtues can foster the flourishing of our home planet in the face of unprecedented environmental change and devastation. Its central questions are: What virtues are needed for us to be better caretakers of our home planet? What vices must we extinguish if we are to flourish on the earth? What is the connection between such virtues and vices and the flourishing of all creatures? Each contribution offers insight on ecological virtue ethical questions through disciplinary lenses ranging from biology, geology, and economics, to literature, theology, and philosophy. The chapters feature the legacy and lessons of senior scholars reflecting on a lifetime of earthkeeping work, highlight global concerns and perspectives, and include compelling poetic reflections. Focusing on the way in which human vices and virtues drive so many of our ecological problems and solutions, the volume engages timely issues of environmental importance – such as environmental racism, interfaith dialogue, ecological philosophies of work and economics, marine pollution, ecological despair, hope and humility – encouraging fresh reflection and action. It will be of interest to those working in theology and religious studies, philosophy, ethics, and environmental studies. Steven Bouma-Prediger is Professor of Religion at Hope College in Michigan, USA. He is best known for his book – For the Beauty of the Earth: A Christian Vision for Creation Care and his most recent book Earthkeeping and Character: Exploring A Christian Ecological Virtue Ethic. At Hope he oversees the Environmental Studies program and co-chairs the Campus Sustainability Advisory Committee. Nathan P. Carson is Associate Professor and Program Director of Philosophy at Fresno Pacific University in Fresno, California, USA, directing also its Sierra Program which integrates wilderness, conservation, and community with environmentally thematized courses. His philosophical publications have appeared in Dao, Philosophy and Literature, International Philosophical Quarterly, History of Philosophy Quarterly, and Journal of Chinese Philosophy.

Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies

The Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies series brings high quality research monograph publishing back into focus for authors, international libraries, and student, academic and research readers. This open-ended monograph series presents cutting-edge research from both established and new authors in the field. With specialist focus yet clear contextual presentation of contemporary research, books in the series take research into important new directions and open the field to new critical debate within the discipline, in areas of related study, and in key areas for contemporary society. Misusing Scripture What are Evangelicals Doing with the Bible? Mark Elliott, Kenneth Atkinson, and Robert Rezetko Seventh-Day Adventism in Africa A Historical Survey of The Interaction Between Religion, Traditions, and Culture Gabriel Masfa The Fall of Humankind and Social Progress Engagements with Emil Brunner Arttu Mäkipää Desire and Mental Health in Christianity and the Arts David Torevell Theological Fringes of Phenomenology Edited by Joseph Rivera and Joseph S. O’Leary Ecoflourishing and Virtue Christian Perspectives Across the Disciplines Edited by Steven Bouma-Prediger and Nathan P. Carson For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/religion/series/RCRITREL

Ecoflourishing and Virtue

Christian Perspectives Across the Disciplines

Edited by Steven Bouma-Prediger and Nathan P. Carson Foreword by Bill McKibben

First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Steven Bouma-Prediger and Nathan P. Carson; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Steven Bouma-Prediger and Nathan P. Carson to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-38749-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-38750-5 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-34657-9 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579 Typeset in Times New Roman by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

To the Hope College Campus Sustainability Advisory Committee (aka the Green Team), that ever-changing group of faculty, staff, and students who since 2007 have worked to make their college campus a place where all, human and non-human, are able to flourish.

To the old juniper tree, faithfully rooted on the verge of the southwestern cliff, a friend over the reach of Tehipite Valley. And, to my extraordinary family, with love, and deep gratitude.

Contents

List of Contributors Foreword BILL MCKIBBEN

Acknowledgments Credits Poetic Reflection: Materfamilias

xiii xvii xix xxi 1

LUCI SHAW

Introduction

2

STEVEN BOUMA-PREDIGER NATHAN P. CARSON

I

Gifts in Retrospection: Mentors in Ecoflourishing

15

Poetic Reflection: Of This World

16

TODD DAVIS

1 From Shenandoah to the Mountain West

17

HOLMES ROLSTON III

2 Crossing Lehigh Gap: Discerning Christian Contributions and Misdirection in Wilderness Preservation

25

SUSAN POWER BRATTON

3 Beholding Earth through the Eye of Its Maker

32

CALVIN B. DEWITT

4 Prophets and Poets: The Capture of the Creative Vision LUCI SHAW

41

x Contents 5 A Table and a Planet: From Hearthkeeping to Earthkeeping

49

MARY RUTH WILKINSON AND LOREN WILKINSON

Poetic Reflection: In the Garden

59

TODD DAVIS

II

Grounding Narratives of Ecoflourishing and Virtue: Stories Worth Telling Poetic Reflection: Disarm

61 62

LAURA KATHRYN DVOŘÁK

6 When Good Christians Destroy the Earth: The Virtue of Limits and the Limits of Virtue

63

JONATHAN A. MOO

7 “Ecoflourishing” and Story: Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Hope

75

LOREN WILKINSON

8 ‘I all-creation sing’: Christina Rossetti’s Cosmic Liturgy and Challenge to Anthropocentrism

86

JOSHUA KING

9 John Muir, Deep Time, and the Hope of Ecoflourishing 

100

MICHAEL KUNZ

Poetic Reflection: Homes for Prayer

112

LAURA KATHRYN DVOŘÁK

III

Biblical and Theological Soundings: Ecological Ruin, Restoration, and Community Virtues Poetic Reflection: Humphrey’s Basin

115 116

PAUL WILLIS

10 Subverting Metaphor, Transforming Identity: An Eco-Anthropological Analysis of Job’s Shift from Ruler to Member of the Creation Community ALEXANDER W. BREITKOPF

117

Contents xi 11 Paul, Generosity, and Ecological Flourishing

128

JULIEN C. H. SMITH

12 Ecoflourishing: Life, Death and Natural Disasters

139

ROBERT S. WHITE

Poetic Reflection: San Rafael Mountain

151

PAUL WILLIS

IV

Global Ecoflourishing: Biospheric, Intercultural, and Interreligious Poetic Reflection: A Common Sight

153 154

PATTIANN ROGERS

13 Interdisciplinary Voices of the Ecoflourishing ‘Glocal’ Dialogue from Non-Western Cultural and Literary Perspectives 

155

GRACIELA SUSANA BORUSZKO

14 Becoming Citizens of the Biosphere: Character, Ecoflourishing, and Control in Our Newfound Common Home

167

CALVIN B. DEWITT

15 Becoming Human, Intercultural, and Inter-creational: Movements toward Achieving Ecoflourishing

179

ANTHONY LE DUC

Poetic Reflection: The Family Is All There Is

191

PATTIANN ROGERS

V

Philosophical Remedies: Relationship, Work, Economy Poetic Reflection: Still Life

193 194

GEORGE DAVID CLARK

16 Primary Encounters: Relational Ontology and Ecoflourishing AMY E. SMALLWOOD

195

xii Contents 17 Toward a Christian Ecological Philosophy of Work

208

KARL CLIFTON-SODERSTROM

18 Fairy Tales and True Stories: Economic Talk for Ecological Flourishing

221

KATHRYN D. BLANCHARD

Poetic Reflection: Shiversong

235

GEORGE DAVID CLARK

VI

Virtue and Vice in Ecological Practice: Confronting Current Challenges Poetic Reflection: Garden

237 238

MICHEAL O’SIADHAIL

19 The Christian Ethics of Waste, Contaminants, and Emerging Pollutants in Marine Ecosystems

239

SUSAN POWER BRATTON

20 Reconciling the Food Chain with the Great Chain of Being: A Philosopher’s Reflection on Raising Sheep for Meat

252

GREGORY S. POORE

21 Justice, Biocentrism, and White Supremacy: John Muir’s Romantic Christian Ethics

263

RUSSELL C. POWELL

22 The Virtue of Intersectionality in Environmental Ethics

274

KEVIN J. O’BRIEN

Poetic Reflection: Forebears

286

MICHEAL O’SIADHAIL

Conclusion Index

287 289

Contributors

Kathryn D. Blanchard is Charles A. Dana Professor of Religious Studies (Emerita) at Alma College. She is co-author, with Kevin O’Brien, of An Introduction to Christian Environmentalism, and author of The Protestant Ethic or the Spirit of Capitalism: Christians, Freedom, and Free Markets. Graciela Susana Boruszko is Professor of Comparative Literature and Comparative Cultures at Fresno Pacific University. She has taught, researched, and actively engaged in conference presentations internationally in South America, the USA, and Europe. Her most recent publication is “Intercultural Spaces, Transcultural Spaces, and Transliteratures,” appearing in Mobile Culture Studies. Susan Power Bratton is Professor of Environmental Science at Baylor University, Waco, Texas, USA. She conducts research in applied ecology and environmental humanities. Her publications include Religion and the Environment (2021) and The Spirit of the Appalachian Trail: Community, Environment, and Belief on a Long Distance Hiking Path (2012). Alexander W. Breitkopf is a graduate of McMaster Divinity College (Hamilton, ON, Canada) and has lectured at Tyndale University (Toronto, ON, Canada). He is the author of Job: From Lament to Penitence (2020). Karl Clifton-Soderstrom is Professor of Philosophy at North Park University in Chicago. His research and creative projects are in virtue ethics and the philosophy of art, with an interest in the relationship between photography and justice movements. Todd Davis is the author of seven books of poetry, most recently Coffin Honey (2022) and Native Species (2019). He has won the Midwest Book Award, the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year, and the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize. He teaches environmental studies at Pennsylvania State University’s Altoona College.

xiv Contributors George David Clark is Associate Professor of English at Washington & Jefferson College. The author of Reveille (winner of the Miller Williams Prize) and the forthcoming collection, Newly Not Eternal, he edits the journal, 32 Poems, and lives in McMurray, PA. Calvin B. DeWitt is Professor Emeritus at University of Wisconsin-Madison, President Emeritus of Au Sable Institute, and Fellow of the International Society of Science and Religion. Books include Earthwise and Song of a Scientist. Search “Earth Stewardship and Laudato Si’” and “Prophetic Teachings of the Biosphere” for recent papers. Laura Kathryn Dvořák is a social worker and grief counselor, of Celtic~Bohemian descent. She hails from a suburb of New York City and resides in Hilo, Hawai’i on occupied Kanaka Maoli lands. She has been writing poetry since age 5, and this book marks the first publication appearance of her poetic work. Joshua King is Professor of English at Baylor University (USA) and author of Imagined Spiritual Communities in Britain’s Age of Print, and co-editor with Winter Jade Werner of Constructing Nineteenth-Century Religion: Literary, Historical, and Religious Studies in Dialogue. Michael Kunz is Professor of Biology at Fresno Pacific University, Fresno, California, USA, where he directs the Environmental Science Program and instructs courses in ecology and philosophy of science. He is the author of Muir’s Temples: A Natural History of Sequoia Grove Plants. Anthony Le Duc, SVD, PhD, is the Executive Director of the Asian Research Center for Religion and Social Communication (Saint John’s University, Bangkok, Thailand). His published work centers primarily on the intersection between religion and contemporary issues such as ecology, technological development, and migration. Bill McKibben, is author of The End of Nature (1989) – the first general audience book about climate change – and 20 other books and numerous periodicals. McKibben is the founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 for action on climate and justice, and helped to found 350.org, the first global grassroots climate campaign. McKibben is Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College. Jonathan A. Moo is Professor of New Testament and Environmental Studies at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington, USA. His publications include the co-authored books, Let Creation Rejoice and Creation Care: A Biblical Theology of the Natural World, and the co-edited volume, As Long as the Earth Endures. Kevin J. O’Brien teaches courses in Christian and environmental ethics at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA. His publications include An Introduction to Christian Environmentalism (with Kathryn D. Blanchard, 2014); The Violence of Climate Change (2017); and Environmental Ethics and Uncertainty (with Whitney Bauman, 2020).

Contributors xv Micheal O’Siadhail is a poet. Books include Collected Poems (2013), One Crimson Thread (2015), The Five Quintets (2018), Testament (2022), and Desire (2023). He has received many awards including honorary doctorates from the Universities of Manitoba (2017), Aberdeen (2018), and Trinity College Dublin (2022). He lives in New York. Gregory S. Poore is Associate Professor of Philosophy, Ethics, and Apologetics at Union University in Jackson, TN, USA. His publications include journal articles in virtue ethics and a forthcoming third edition of Ethics: Approaching Moral Decisions as a co-author with the late Arthur F. Holmes. Russell C. Powell is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School. He is editor of a two-volume special issue of the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture and the author of numerous articles on John Muir and environmental ethics. Pattiann Rogers has published 17 books of poetry. She has received a John Burroughs Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Nature Writing, two NEA Grants, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Fellowship and a Literary Award in Poetry from the Lannan Foundation. She and her husband of 62 years have two sons and three grandsons, and live together in Colorado, USA. Holmes Rolston III is University Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Colorado State University. He gave the Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh (1997–1998) and was a 2003 Templeton Prize laureate. Rolston has been a distinguished lecturer on seven continents. Luci Shaw is Writer in Residence at Regent College, Vancouver, Canada. Author of over 40 books of poetry and creative non-fiction, her writing has appeared in numerous literary and religious journals. Her most recent book of poetry is Reversing Entropy (Paraclete Press, 2023). Amy E. Smallwood teaches courses in environmental education and does research on human-nature relations in outdoor adventure education at the University of Minnesota Duluth. She has been teaching outdoor leadership and environmental ethics for over 15 years, formerly as the Program Director of Outdoor Studies at Colorado Mountain College. Julien C. H. Smith is Associate Professor of Humanities and Theology at Christ College, the Honors College of Valparaiso University (Indiana, USA). He is the author of Christ the Ideal King (2011) and Paul and the Good Life (2020). Robert S. White, FRS, is Emeritus Professor of Geophysics at Cambridge University, England, UK. Known for his work on volcanism and flood basalts generated by rifting above mantle plumes, White is also Emeritus Director of The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, which he co-founded in 2006.

xvi Contributors Loren Wilkinson was born in Oregon in 1943. He is Professor Emeritus, Interdisciplinary Studies and Philosophy at Regent College (Vancouver, Canada), where has taught since 1981. He edited Earthkeeping: Stewardship of Creation, and with his wife Mary Ruth wrote Caring for Creation in Your Own Backyard. They live on Galiano Island, BC, Canada. Mary Ruth Wilkinson was born in 1942, grew up in the Midwest, and came to Canada and to Regent College in 1981. With her daughter Heidi she wrote a book on children’s literature, A Time To Read, and with her husband Loren, Caring for Creation in Your Own Backyard. Paul Willis is Professor of English at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, USA. He has published seven collections of poetry, the most recent of which is Somewhere to Follow (2021). He is also the author of an eco-fantasy novel, The Alpine Tales (2010).

Foreword Bill McKibben

It might seem to some that we’re not in deep need of advice from Christians on how to deal with our environmental problems. For decades some environmentalists cited the scriptural call to dominion over the earth as the root source of many of our woes, and the most well-known Christian leaders in the country still spread disinformation: Franklin Graham, for instance, the son of Billy Graham is convinced that climate change is “nothing new” because there are droughts in the Bible. So this volume comes as welcome relief. It reminds us once again that there is a sturdy and growing scaffolding of scriptural source and theological reflection with which to build the kind of movements we need for change among Christians. Some of the voices are truly venerable: Cal DeWitt was one of the very first people to understand the need for this kind of work, and people like Holmes Rolston have been writing powerful contributions to the literature for decades. Others are newer to me, and filled with fresh insights, especially on the challenges posed by the spreading understanding that past discrimination accounts for much of the trouble in which we find ourselves, and that fresh liberations will help us think more clearly and coherently. The tasks Christians are called to pay attention to—defending God’s Creation, loving one’s neighbor—are at the very center of the environmental challenge. We stand on the edge of the sixth great extinction on our earth, but the first one caused by us; we are running Genesis in reverse, accomplishing an extraordinary de-­Creation in a span barely longer than the six days it took God to make it all. And we are drowning our neighbors, sickening them, making it impossible for them to grow food. The clear injustice of this crisis—that Pakistan, which has put less than one percent of the carbon in the atmosphere, must cope with floods as large as any since Noah—should spur us to do much better. But there are deep theological problems we’re causing for ourselves as well. Humans have always been small compared to the divine, whose nature was often captured in those overwhelming forces of nature. (If you go through the hymnal taking out the songs where God speaks through thunder, storm, the rays of the sun you’ll have a thinner book and a lot of the good ones will be gone.) Now, though, we are quite large: suddenly we can answer Job back, and tell God that it’s us setting the boundaries for the “proud waves,” us summoning up cyclone and deluge.

xviii Foreword Our job is to figure out how to shrink ourselves some. And we have the tools to do so: engineers, for instance, have now produced renewable energy so cheaply that there’s no technical or financial obstacle to its widespread adoption. We live on a planet where the cheapest way to make power is to point a sheet of glass at the sun, a true water-into-wine miracle. That is to say, humans could quickly learn to rely on the great ball of gas that the good Lord hung 93 million miles up in the sky, replacing the combustion that has been a mark of our societies as far back as the anthropologists can peer. We could rely on energy from heaven instead of hell, and in so doing cut short the climate crisis as well as end the production of those tiny particulates that lodge in human lungs and cause one death in five. Getting there, though, requires overcoming both inertia and vested interest— that toxic stew has us moving too slowly. Faith communities could be crucial in helping break the logjam, if they join with secular environmentalists to demand faster action. But that depends on bringing home the idea that this is a crucial task for those of us in pews and pulpits, which in turn is the great gift of this book. It has great worth as a scholarly document, in other words. But its deeper worth will be determined by how much action it induces. May it be a spur to our better angels!

Acknowledgments

I (Steve) would like to acknowledge with gratitude a number of people who helped make this book possible. First, many thanks to my colleagues in the Religion Department at Hope College: Wayne Brouwer, Angela Carpenter, David De Jong, Lynn Japinga, Matt Kuiper, Phil Munoa, Jared Ortiz, and Rakesh Peter-Dass. Special thanks to Religion Department Chairperson Jeff Tyler, who has been unflinching in his support of my scholarship. It is a privilege to work with such fine scholars, creative teachers, and encouraging colleagues. A hearty thank you to all at Hope College whose vision and passion for excellence have made it such a wonderful place to work: Provost Gerald Griffin, Humanities Dean Stephen Maiullo, third shift Lubbers Hall janitor Scott Plaster, office manager Vanessa Reyes, and President Matthew Scogin, to name just a few. As with my previous books I owe a debt of gratitude to my wife, Celaine, without whose support I would not have been able to co-edit this book. Many thanks also to Kent Busman and Paul Busman, whose lifelong friendships have been a gift from God. I (Nathan) wish to acknowledge, gratefully, the generous sabbatical granted by the Provost’s Office at Fresno Pacific University, during the Spring of 2021, which afforded the time and space to lay the groundwork for this project. To my Dean, Ron Herms, and Humanities Chair Eleanor Nickel, I extend my heartfelt thanks for unceasing support of my work in Philosophy at Fresno Pacific University, and for encouraging my scholarship in this project. I wish also to thank my wonderful partners in Ecoshalom, for the generous donation of the lodging space in Wawona, Yosemite, where we hosted the Author Symposium that launched the opening stages of this book project. And I extend my most heartfelt appreciation to Laurie Dye and Stefanie Acker, for their truly extraordinary hospitality and care in offering time, sustenance, feedback, and a dedicated space, amidst the challenging final stages of this project. Above all, my deepest gratitude belongs to my wife Margaret, and my daughter Emma, for believing in me, encouraging me, and extending astonishing, indelible measures of grace. Thank you. At Routledge Publishers, together we wish to thank Katherine Ong for the willingness to present such an unorthodox and interdisciplinary book proposal to the

xx Acknowledgments editorial board for consideration. To Katherine, and also our editorial assistant Yuga Harini, we are grateful for your generously offered time, ready assistance, and also patience, as this complex project encountered numerous challenges and milestones in coming to fruition. And last but not least, with fond memories of the author gathering in Yosemite in October 2021, which served to spark our collective imagination on what this book could be, we extend our profoundest gratitude to our contributors, each of whom has given time and talent to make this book a deep well of insight on the kind of people we can and must be if our home planet is to flourish.

Credits

“Garden” and “Forebears” by Micheal O’Siadhail, are previously published in Desire (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2023). © 2023 by Micheal O’Siadhail. Used with permission. “Of This World” and “In the Garden,” by Todd Davis, are previously published in Coffin Honey (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2022). © 2022 by Todd Davis. Used with permission. “A Common Sight,” by Pattiann Rogers. Previously published in Firekeeper, Selected Poems, Revised and Expanded Edition. Copyright © 1993 by Pattiann Rogers. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Milkweed Editions (www.milkweed.org). “The Family Is All There Is,” by Pattiann Rogers. Previously published in Splitting and Binding, Wesleyan University Press. © 1989 by Pattiann Rogers. Used with permission. “Materfamilias” by Luci Shaw. Copyright © 1976, 1990, and 2016 by Luci Shaw. Published first in The Secret Trees (Harold Shaw Publishers, 1976), collected in Polishing the Petoskey Stone (Harold Shaw Publishers, 1990), then collected in Sea Glass (WordFarm, 2016). Used with permission from WordFarm (www.wordfarm.net). “Reluctant Prophet” by Luci Shaw. Copyright © 1973 and 2016 by Luci Shaw. Published first in Listen to the Green (Harold Shaw Publishers, 1973), then collected in Sea Glass (WordFarm, 2016). Used with permission from WordFarm (www.wordfarm.net). “Contemplative Prayer, with Peony” by Luci Shaw. Copyright © 2016 by Luci Shaw. Published first in The Christian Century, then collected in Sea Glass (WordFarm, 2016). Used with permission from WordFarm (www.wordfarm.net). “Comeback for Snowy Plover” by Luci Shaw. Copyright © 2016 by Luci Shaw. Published first in The Christian Century, then collected in Sea Glass (WordFarm, 2016). Used with permission from WordFarm (www.wordfarm.net). “The Golden Ratio & the Coriolis Force” by Luci Shaw. Copyright © 2003 and 2016 by Luci Shaw. Published in Water Lines (Eerdmans, 2003), then collected in Sea Glass (WordFarm, 2016). Used with permission from WordFarm (www.wordfarm.net).

Materfamilias Luci Shaw Mother tree bald, old with shoulders white as bones bleached but still green as a girl where mosses crust your south and life tufts some of your knotted fingers You cup small jays in your elbows wrinkle your brown skin to shelter larvae and your roots beam and buttress marmot halls Today the morning mountain is a breathless gold, yet you bend to an eternal gale You are a signal to weather a signpost in time pointing the way the wind went

DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-1

Introduction Steven Bouma-Prediger Nathan P. Carson

Ecoflourishing and Virtue is a fresh, interdisciplinary collection of essays—written by an accomplished group of Christian scholars and poets—that engage the topic of mutual ecological and human flourishing by focusing on virtues and vices. The book is motivated, in part, by the fact that we live in a time of unprecedented environmental degradation, where there is an urgent need for individual, communal, and global efforts to practice responsible care, just reparation, and creative restoration so that we might flourish in an equally flourishing world. The co-editors and contributors to this book share the conviction that a reflective community of diverse voices informed by Christian theological commitments should be leading the way on matters of creation care, and that genuine change begins with a substantive focus on character—on virtues and vices. From a community of leading Christian scholars inhabiting different disciplines and methods—biology, geology, literature, philosophy, poetry, economics, ethics, theology, and others—readers of this collection will gain vital insights into the role of virtues in human and ecological flourishing. This focal insight is offered through a variety of topical lenses such as marine pollution, environmental justice and racism, literary interpretation, environmental autobiography, poetic image, interreligious dialogue, philosophies of work and economics, and theologically-informed critiques of the personal and social realities undermining mutual human and ecological flourishing. Along the way, critical questions are raised about virtue, vice, and flourishing: How does the biblical narrative of ecological flourishing foster the virtues of humility, self-restraint, and love? In the face of widespread environmental degradation, how do the writings of John Muir inspire hope? How does the erasure of indigenous cultures provoke virtuous anger and just lament? What does St. Paul’s vision of the “new creation” say about the renewal of God’s good earth? How can fantasy and science fiction nourish ecological hope and stave off the vices of despair? What exactly does it mean to be appreciative and wise citizens of the biosphere? How does environmental ethics intersect with social ethics and issues such as racism and sexism? Through interdisciplinary engagement, theologically-informed ecumenism, and a broad thematic focus on virtue, vice, and ecoflourishing, all of these questions (and many more) are addressed in this book, in ways that counter the disciplinary DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-2

Introduction  3 fragmentation of the modern university and the too often politicized ecological voices in our culture, at a time when an integrated embrace of Christ’s shalom—of the peaceable kingdom ingressing creation now, beckoning us into co-creative action, and framing our eschatological hope—is so desperately needed for our individual and collective lives. The Need to Understand Ecological Challenges in Terms of Virtue The essays and poetry in Ecoflourishing and Virtue have been selected and thematically arranged with three broad needs in mind. The first of these, is the need to recognize that the cultural, existential and theoretical inheritance fueling our predicament is powerfully shaped by issues of virtue and vice. Catholic philosopher and eco-phenomenologist Erazim Kohak’s words, penned in 1984, are no less relevant today as we take stock of our situation and consider who we have been, who we are, and who we must become: For a century or more, Europeans and their cultural heirs in Russia and America had thought of themselves as privileged beings, persons in an impersonal, material world—and had acted accordingly. Western science described the world in ever more mechanistic, ‘value-free’ terms, wholly alien to a moral subject, while industry ruthlessly exploited the world so described as no more than a reserve of raw materials for human gratification.1 Connecting this story to virtue and vice, philosopher and virtue ethicist Alasdair MacIntyre examines the institutionalized injustices perpetuated by the capitalist and consumerist portions of our predicament, noting that capitalism “provides systematic incentives to develop a type of character that has a propensity to injustice.”2 From a Christian perspective, notes MacIntyre, love of neighbor requires being just toward them, and thus giving them what is due to them. Yet within our overconsuming Zeitgeist, he notes, we are habituated in such a way that the vice of pleonexia—the drive to have more and more beyond the bounds of justice—takes over our lives.3 Our unprecedented human and ecological crises—the mutual undermining of flourishing between ourselves and our home planet—are directly bound up with the virtues and vices we inhabit. This is an insight central to the recent burgeoning literature in environmental virtue ethics (EVE) which this book seeks to diversify and extend, in ways discussed in the following.4 The Need for a Single Comprehensive Concept of Flourishing The second need is captured by the selection and arrangement of work in Ecoflourishing and Virtue. We need a comprehensive understanding of “flourishing” that includes both humanity and our earthly home within a single, shared concept. Increasingly in the age of the Anthropocene, the undermining of ecological

4 Introduction flourishing simultaneously undercuts human flourishing as well. As an even cursory examination of this intersectional reality will show—global food challenges, the dominance of economic concerns and global overconsumption, pollutants and toxins besetting our air, oceans, and food, extreme weather events provoked by climate change, the subjection of indigenous communities and vulnerable, marginalized peoples and non-human animals to invisibility and disproportionate ecological injustices—the interdependent relationship between human flourishing and ecological flourishing is becoming ever more starkly apparent. Hence, we need a unitary notion of collective ecoflourishing. In his recent book, Earthkeeping and Character, co-editor Steven Bouma-­ Prediger follows Wendell Berry’s lead in abandoning the terms “environment” and “environmental,” given that they describe our earthly home and our interdependent relation to it in terms of surroundings, reinforcing the notion, writes Bouma-­ Prediger, that “we humans are separate from the rest of the natural world,” rather than humans from the hummus, as affirmed by Genesis 2:7.5 By contrast, as Berry and Bouma-Prediger have shown, the words “ecological” and “ecology” derive from the ancient Greek words logos and oikos—meaning study of the household or home—and thus evoke the common sharing of our earthly home. The word “economy” (oikonomia in Greek) refers to the principles according to which we organize our common home and the various responsibilities we have living in community of others.6 In sum, human and ecological flourishing are bound inextricably together within a single economy. With this in mind, a new term was developed for this book—“ecoflourishing”— which is meant to conceptually signify a view of human and ecological flourishing as fundamentally a unified (albeit complex) interdependent reality.7 The term draws upon the critique of “environment” offered by the household meanings of ecology and economy, but also draws from a critique of the exclusive focus on human flourishing so prevalent in traditional virtue ethics, seeking to correct both its anthropocentric limits and its negatively dualistic implications. We acknowledge that flourishing is a term meaning many different things for human beings—physical and social welfare, success in life, a meaningful or maximally actualized life, an admirable life, communion with God—and holds different implications depending on which nonhuman aspects or members of our common “household” we have in view.8 But the thematic presupposition of this book is that the interdependent and reciprocal reality named by “ecoflourishing” is a more accurate description and much-needed normative perspective for understanding human flourishing as intimately bound together with the flourishing of our home. The Need for a Diverse, Theologically Informed Earthkeeping Community In addressing the third need, Ecoflourishing and Virtue presupposes an urgent demand for a broad and theologically enriched community of earthkeepers. The difficulties we face are immense in complexity, risk, and scale. Even invoking a single problem, such as overpopulation and sustainable food production and distribution,

Introduction 5 highlights the seemingly intractable humanitarian and ecological challenges we face. As Joel Bourne notes: The world’s farmers face a Sisyphean, if not Herculean, task: to double grain, meat, and biofuel production on fewer acres with fewer farmers, less water, higher temperatures, and more frequent droughts, floods, and heat waves. And they must do it without destroying the forests, oceans, soils, pollinators, or climate on which all life depends. It is the biggest collective hurdle humanity has ever faced.9 In order to meet these complex challenges, we need a broad and diverse community of voices, disciplines, and methods, which share distinctively theological concerns and solutions. One reason for this need is that at a broad cultural and popular level, contemporary ecological discourse has become problematically politicized and dominated by a limited range of voices— most notably in economics, the natural sciences, public policy and now increasingly, ethics as it intersects cultural issues illuminating ecological injustice. This valuable discourse is too often disconnected from the values and moral imaginations of large swaths of the human community. At the popular level, then, there is a genuine need for a more diverse community of earthkeepers, and a need to expand the academic disciplines that focus on intersections of human and planetary degradation and flourishing, placing them in sustained conversation with each other. A promising development on this issue is the recent emergence and sustained growth in the last 15 years of the Environmental Humanities. Ecological concerns certainly intersected humanistic disciplines in the 1970s (environmental philosophy and ethics, spearheaded and sustained by Holmes Rolston III, a contributor to this volume), the 1980s (environmental history), and the 1990s (ecocriticism in literary and cultural studies). Yet, only very recently—with the launching of Environmental Humanities programs, institutes, journals, and the wider influence of public intellectuals and activists—has such research turned toward a global effort of sustained cross-disciplinary humanistic integration and cultural application.10 As the Sawyer Initiative at UCLA notes, the environmental humanities tend to occupy “a fertile edge zone between academic and popular discourses,” and is therefore ideally positioned for both scholarly and culture-shaping influence across a wide range of human concerns. The mission of Oregon State University’s recently established Environmental Arts and Humanities Initiative—with an M.A. degree that includes humanities and the sciences—is a helpful illustration, as it seeks to “bring together the full powers of empirical knowledge and cultural, moral, and spiritual understanding.”11 These are promising developments, indeed, and it is likewise a central aim of this interdisciplinary volume of essays and poetry to occupy that “fertile edge zone” between scholarly pursuits and culture-shaping influence, as well as to offer a cross-pollinating, unitive practice that brings empirical knowledge, culture, ethics, and spirituality together. This book’s interdisciplinary approach aims to broaden and diversify the insights and culturally transformative access points of

6 Introduction specialized scholarly work in the secular environmental virtue ethics (EVE) literature. In this sense the project stands in continuity with broader global developments in the academy and in culture. Yet, as intimated earlier, theologically informed and distinctly Christian perspectives are vitally important for addressing our common human and ecological challenges, in ways that secular perspectives struggle to offer. Prophetic voices emerging from Christian commitments frame the questions of virtue and shared ecological flourishing within a larger story of euangelium—the good news of the inbreaking peaceable kingdom of God in Christ. This is a story that grounds the purpose of human lives and virtues, advocates kenotic care for our fellow nonhuman creatures, promotes both ecosystemic love and ecological justice, and gives voice to meaningful lament tethered to hope amidst our troubled times. Methodologically, moreover, this book facilitates the offering of theologicallyshaped insights across a truly ecumenical range of ecotheological traditions, such as Christian stewardship, ecojustice, and creation spirituality.12 In this way, the book also serves to deepen and broaden recent and important interdisciplinary collections devoted to creation care, such as Warners and Heun’s Beyond Stewardship.13 It seeks also to enhance and extend the range of recent work in Christian ecological virtue ethics offered by Steven Bouma-Prediger’s Earthkeeping and Character and Kathryn Blanchard and Kevin O’Brien’s An Introduction to Christian Environmentalism (including each of these authors’ contributions to this new book).14 In all of these ways, this collection of essays strives to give voice to a broad, multivalent, and theologically enriched community of earthkeepers. The Value of Virtue Ethics and the Ecological Turn Why approach ecoflourishing through the lens of virtue ethics? A virtue-centered approach to ethics is by far the most ancient of ethical traditions, with iterations spanning millennia in different cultures, schools of thought, and communities of practice. In general, these traditions treat virtues as habitual dispositions to think, feel, desire and act excellently, while vices are habitual dispositions to think, feel, desire and act viciously, unjustly, or with excess. The most prevalent of these approaches is eudaimonism, which affirms an intrinsic link between cultivating virtues—excellent qualities of character such as wisdom, justice, courage, temperance, compassion, generosity, hope, and the like—and happiness. “Happiness” here indicates a flourishing, satisfying, and successful life, in which the virtues either partly or fully constitute happiness qua flourishing for the person possessing and cultivating them. This makes virtues central, as Russell puts it, to “living a fulfilling human life, a life in which one both cares about the right things and has the wisdom and skill to act intelligently about those things.”15 In short, eudaimonism holds that one’s life goes better when one is generous, just, truthful, wise, and compassionate. Moreover the turn toward ecological (or environmental) virtue ethics, as it has blossomed in recent decades, is to extend the scope of virtuous concern and action, partly through the notion of flourishing, to include the biosphere as well. The fundamental question of ecological virtue ethics, shared by this volume

Introduction  7 of essays, is this: which virtues do we need to nurture and which vices do we need to extinguish in order to flourish and be better caretakers of our home planet? Why is a virtue-centered approach distinctively valuable, particularly for our ecologically troubled times? The first reason is the eudaimonism noted earlier. According to this tradition when ecologically applied, cultivating the virtues conducive to ecological flourishing will also, more often than not, create meaningful and fulfilling lives for those who cultivate them. That is, one’s own flourishing and that of our planetary home are broadly united in a way that serves to minimize the motivational alienation many people feel when confronted with the task of creation care. Broadly speaking, it is good for people themselves to practice ecological justice, feel ecological lament, cultivate ecological wonder and courage. When it comes to pursuing the ultimate human goal of living a happy life—a goal that all of us naturally feel and inhabit on a basic motivational level—there is no fundamental conflict between one’s own flourishing (rightly considered) and the flourishing of others, including our non-human neighbors and biotic or abiotic ecological communities.16 For example, consumptive dispositions rooted in materialistic values are strongly correlated with low life satisfaction and poor relationships, no less than they are devastating to ecological flourishing.17 This general feature of approaches in virtue ethics naturally fits with the reciprocal relations, dependencies, and enriching obligations of mutual human and ecological flourishing, as mentioned earlier. A second valuable quality is that virtue ethics tends to be personal and holistic. That is, it tends to focus on becoming good persons in a way that views the whole of one’s life as the domain of ethical concern. As Zwolinski and Schmidtz note: …virtue ethics tells us that what is right is to be a certain kind of person, a person of virtue: courageous, modest, honest, evenhanded, industrious, wise. A virtuous person will, of course, express his or her virtue through action. But, for virtue ethics, the specification of rules of right action is largely a secondary matter—one that in many ways presupposes the kind of practical wisdom possessed by the person of virtue.18 Virtue ethics not only emphasizes becoming the persons we ought to become but views the whole of life as the domain of ethics, not just moments of moral dilemma or decision-making.19 In this sense, any aspect of our lives is in the field of virtue cultivation, and this naturally attunes virtue ethics for productive engagement with ecological concerns. A third ecologically valuable feature of virtue ethics is that it tends to view all aspects of human psychology as morally significant sources of flourishing (or failing to flourish). Our actions and choices, as products of our will, can certainly constitute or fail to constitute flourishing for ourselves and our biosphere and are typically the central focus of other approaches in ethics. But actions and choices, while vitally important, are not the whole picture. The holism of virtue ethics goes further. Our thinking can exhibit (or fail to exhibit) intellectual virtues such as

8 Introduction intellectual courage, love of wisdom, and fairmindedness, in ways that enhance (or undermine) our lives and the health of our planetary home. Excellence in thinking, creative problem-solving, imaginative construction of theoretical paradigms and wisdom about when, how, and why to apply them—all of these are absolutely central to a virtue approach, and such things are obviously relevant to solving our ecological challenges and handling them wisely.20 Moreover, beyond virtue-informed actions and virtuous thinking—in stark contrast to many other approaches to ethics and of immense significance—our emotional lives are vital to a virtue ethical approach, profoundly extending the range of morally significant qualities that connect us to our earthly home while also constituting sources of personal flourishing. As Robert C. Roberts suggests in Emotions in the Moral Life, poor or immature emotions are damaging, even devastating in countless ways.21 Yet, matured, virtue-conditioned emotions can be vital sources of moral knowledge. For example, in feeling angry over the destruction of an endangered species’ habitat one appreciates or knows more vividly the badness and injustice. Emotions can also motivate and define the intrinsic moral quality of our actions, for example, in feeling appropriate compassion for an injured and suffering bird. Further, emotions can constitute good relationships with persons and places, as when one feels joy, hope, love, grief, or lament over important persons or places. Emotions can additionally produce good consequences, such as the joy and delight felt by readers of John Muir, which leads to political protections for wild places. Finally, emotions often constitute our well-being and contribute to our flourishing.22 In the work of prominent environmental virtue ethicist, Ronald Sandler, one can see this emphasis at work when he articulates virtues of environmental activism, stewardship, communion and sustainability, whose expressions are partly constituted by emotions. Ecological humility, wonder, love, loyalty, benevolence, and gratitude are virtues that seem essentially to require virtue-­conditioned emotions for their proper expression.23 In short, a virtue-attentive approach, such as the one broadly emphasized in this book, takes the moral and spiritual significance of our emotions seriously in all their various dimensions. As Sigurd Olson—one of the preeminent environmentalists of the twentieth century—preached and displayed throughout his life: “Without love of the land, conservation lacks meaning or purpose…. love is the lodestone.”24 Ecological concern is powered by our emotions, our capacity to imagine and to love, our sense of intimacy with places, and our need for meaningful stories. In offering poetic reflections to frame every section of this book—wordcraft and image offered by truly remarkable poets attuned to matters of faith—this book foregrounds our need to connect and imagine, to lament and grieve, to feel anger and joy over things meriting those emotions. Moreover the diverse genres and topical insights of Ecoflourishing and Virtue accomplish this as well. The book offers autobiographical stories of mentors reflecting personally on lifelong ecological commitment. It includes meditations on the hope or despair inspired by fantasy and science fiction. It furnishes theological liturgies that beautifully decenter human presumptions. It provides cultural stories evoking deep love of particular places, paired with felt grief over their ecological devastation and loss. It exposes

Introduction  9 the racialized transmutation of ecological ailments into systemic human violence and exclusion. In all of these ways this volume is meant to address its readers as whole persons, intersecting in diverse ways with their values, emotions, concerns, projects, and basic human desire to truly flourish in life. Ecoflourishing and Virtue: A Synopsis of the Chapters The opening section of the book—framed and attuned by the poetic work of Todd Davis—is entitled “Gifts in Retrospection: Mentors in Ecoflourishing.” It contains chapters from six lifelong advocates and practitioners of Christian creation care: ecologist and historian Susan Bratton, biologist Calvin DeWitt, philosopher and ethicist Holmes Rolston III, poet Luci Shaw (offering an essay integrated with her prescient poetry), and the theologian and literary scholar team of Mary Ruth and Loren Wilkinson. Each author reflects autobiographically and retrospectively on the most memorable moments and pressing challenges they have faced in caring for creation, and the virtues that empowered such care. From these wise and dedicated lives we learn how best to address the new environmental challenges of the twenty-first century, and we offer and preserve their stories for new generations of earthkeepers as well. The second section—framed and attuned by the poetic work of Laura Kathryn Dvořák—is named “Grounding Narratives of Ecoflourishing and Virtue: Stories Worth Telling.” We humans are story-formed creatures and the master narratives we inhabit fundamentally shape our self-understanding and care for creation. Through a fruitful cross-pollination of disciplinary lenses, this section offers the virtue-infused grounding narratives we need for ecoflourishing. Biologist and biblical scholar Jonathan Moo argues that we humans need to recognize and acknowledge the limits within which we live and include this in the narratives that frame ecological virtue ethics. Loren Wilkinson offers an analysis of ecoflourishing and story through an engagement with fantasy and science fiction, centered on the virtue of hope and the vice of despair. English literature professor Joshua King offers a careful reading of Christina Rosetti’s poetry as a “cosmic liturgy” that challenges our anthropocentrism, and this section concludes with a chapter by ecologist Michael Kunz on the vision of John Muir and what the virtues of humility and hope look like if we embrace an historical narrative of deep evolutionary time. The book’s third section—framed and attuned by the poetic work of Paul Willis—is labeled “Biblical and Theological Soundings: Ecological Ruin, Restoration, and Community Virtues.” This section provides more explicit biblical and theological engagements that further enrich our grounding narratives on what it means to be human in an age of ecological concern and crisis. Creatively combining biblical scholarship, theological reflection, and natural science, this section opens with a chapter by biblical scholar Alex Breitkopf on eco-anthropology in the book of Job, examining how Job’s anthropocentrism is challenged by the creation language of the divine voice. Next, Pauline scholar Julien Smith corrects the misperception that Pauline spirituality has no place for ecological virtues, demonstrating that Paul’s “new creation” hope grounds the ecological virtue of generosity as

10 Introduction central to our human vocation. The section concludes with a scientifically-informed set of theological reflections by geologist Robert White on death and natural disasters. Attributing “natural” disasters increasingly to human sinful activity, White proposes virtues such as humility, responsibility, lament, and hope as correctives to our unjust and damaging anthropogenic capacities. The fourth section—framed and attuned by the poetic work of Pattiann Rogers—is entitled “Global Ecoflourishing: Biospheric, Intercultural, and Interreligious.” This section highlights both global dimensions and non-Western cultural perspectives on the issues of virtue, vice, and ecological flourishing, ranging from a global view of biospheric climate health to the rootedness of cultural engagements and formative religious practices. These interdisciplinary chapters open with comparative literary scholar Graciela Boruszko’s analysis of different cultural and literary approaches to ecoflourishing as both a global and local phenomenon, through the lens of indigenous Kuna traditions and Ukrainian stories of coping with the ecological disaster of Chernobyl. Biologist and interdisciplinary scientist Calvin DeWitt then offers a climatology-grounded global perspective on the biosphere and the indispensability of self-control in an age of climate change. This section concludes with the proposal by religious studies scholar Anthony Le Duc that religiously inspired self-transformation includes becoming human, becoming intercultural, and becoming inter-creational, all of which require virtues such as gentleness and reciprocity. The collection’s fifth section—framed and attuned by the poetic work of George David Clark—is labeled “Philosophical Remedies: Relationship, Work, Economy” since it offers crucial philosophical correctives to these three central domains of human life—remedies we require to successfully practice virtuous earthkeeping. In an insightful critique of Western substance ontologies while drawing upon placebased indigenous perspectives, philosopher Amy Smallwood gives an account of primary encounters with the natural world that ground the kind of relational ontology we need for ecoflourishing. Philosopher Karl Clifton-Soderstrom examines the meaning of human labor as both a site and a school for the exercise of ecological virtues, and articulates an original ecological ethic of work. Finally, religious studies professor and economist Kathryn Blanchard criticizes traditional neoliberal economic stories as “fairy tales” that foster ecological vices, and argues that we need more truthful and inclusive stories that welcome the widest possible range of animal and plant life, if we all are to flourish. The sixth and final section—framed and attuned by the poetic work of Micheal O’Siadhail—is entitled “Virtue and Vice in Ecological Practice: Confronting Current Challenges.” This section features cutting-edge interdisciplinary work in ecological virtue ethics applied to contemporary environmental challenges and issues. Susan Bratton, ecological scientist and scholar of religion and environment, leads out by exploring the ethical problems of human-caused pollution to marine ecosystems, highlighting how virtues such as prudence, vigilance, and accountability are much needed. Next, philosopher (and shepherd) Gregory Poore reflects on the ethics of raising, slaughtering, and eating animals, and what virtues and vices color these practices. Ethicist Russell Powell then illuminates both the best

Introduction 11 and the worst of John Muir’s moral vision by showing how Muir’s virtuous biocentrism is tainted by the vices of white supremacy and conceptual bias. Finally, environmental ethicist Kevin O’Brien fittingly concludes the book’s chapters with an original and constructive philosophical argument that intersectionality—the habit of seeing how environmental issues and social justice issues intersect—should be viewed as a virtue. Ecoflourishing and Virtue is a timely and valuable collection. It brings together seasoned Christian voices from a broad a range of disciplines and theological perspectives, features the legacy and lessons of scholars reflecting on a lifetime of earthkeeping work, highlights global concerns as they intersect local and interreligious perspectives, includes incisive contributions on pressing matters of environmental justice, and offers compelling poetic gifts to stimulate our imagination, cultivate our desire, and increase our sensitivity to the gift and task we collectively share. We hope the work in this book draws its readers to appreciate with intimate particularity the goodness of being, to acknowledge the just and restorative agencies we share with our non-human neighbors, and to honestly face the horrors of what our disembedded and often exploitative habits as a human community are visiting upon the wondrous gift of one another and of our home planet. May your reading of this book harness a love for creation that is a lasting ground of beneficial transformation, action and genuine change—a taste here on earth of God’s great good future of shalom. Notes 1 Erazim Kohak, The Embers and The Stars: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Moral Sense of Nature (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1984), 3–4. 2 Alasdair MacIntyre, “Three Perspectives on Marxism,” in Ethics and Politics, Volume 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 149. 3 Ibid. 4 Cf. Ronald L. Sandler, Character and Environment: A Virtue-Oriented Approach to Environmental Ethics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). Cf. also the fine collection of essays by leading EVE scholars in Philip Cafaro and Ronald Sandler, eds., Environmental Virtue Ethics (New York: Roman and Littlefield, 2005). 5 Steven Bouma-Prediger, Earthkeeping and Character: Exploring a Christian Ecological Virtue Ethic (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020), 23. 6 Ibid., 24. See also Wendell Berry, “Christianity and the Survival of Creation,” Cross Currents 43, no. 2 (Summer 1993), 153. 7 “Ecoflourishing” as a term was conceived by co-editor Nathan P. Carson during the developmental stages of this book project. The term is intended merely as a unified conceptual baseline, and does not (without further argument) entail the denial of all forms of dualism. Nor does it entail erasure of functional, natural or teleological distinctions between creatures about what it is to flourish; nor does it erase (without further argument) distinctions such as mind vs. matter, and nature vs. culture. 8 For an excellent philosophical treatment of all these terms in relation to the notion of flourishing, framed as counterexamples to virtue ethical eudaimonism, see Christine Swanton, Virtue Ethics: A Pluralistic View (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 80–83. 9 Joel K. Bourne, Jr., The End of Plenty: The Race to Feed a Crowded World (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2015), 158.

12 Introduction 10 For more detail on this history, and a list of research centers, programs and journals, see the Sawyer seminar, The Environmental Humanities at UCLA, accessible here: http://environmental.humanities.ucla.edu/?page_id=52. For one recent example of this growing discipline, see the Environmental Humanities Program at Baylor University, launched in the fall of 2023. Joshua King, a contributor to this volume, serves as Director of this new program. Cf. https://interdisciplinaryprograms.artsandsciences.baylor. edu/humanities-programs/environmental-humanities. 11 Cf. https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/centers-and-initiatives/environmental-arts-andhumanities-initiative/about-us. 12 For a summary of the range and focus of these different traditions, see Laurel Kearns, “The Context of Eco-Theology,” in The Blackwell Companion to Modern Theology, ed. Gareth Jones (New York: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 477–479. For a similar typology further developed, see Willis Jenkins, Ecologies of Grace: Environmental Ethics and Christian Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 19. 13 David Paul Warners and Matthew Kuperus Heun, Beyond Stewardship: New Approaches to Creation Care (Grand Rapids: Calvin University Press, 2019). 14 Kathryn D. Blanchard and Kevin O’Brien, An Introduction to Christian Environmentalism (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2014). 15 Daniel C. Russell, “Introduction: Virtue Ethics in Modern Moral Philosophy,” in The Cambridge Companion to Virtue Ethics, ed. Daniel C. Russell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 3. 16 Julia Annas, Intelligent Virtue (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 125–126. 17 Sandler, Character and Environment, 57–58. 18 Matt Zwolinski and David Schmidtz, “Environmental Virtue Ethics: What It Is and What It Needs to Be,” in The Cambridge Companion to Virtue Ethics, ed. Daniel C. Russell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 221. 19 Russell, “Introduction,” 2. 20 For an excellent book on intellectual virtues, see Robert C. Roberts and W. Jay Wood, Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 21 As Roberts aptly puts it, “Emotions do not as such make us miserable or dysfunctional, as Seneca and the Stoics would have it. Rather, it is the poor having of emotions or the having of poor emotions that makes for misery, while the virtuous having of emotions or the having of virtuous emotions is a necessary condition for human happiness….” Robert C. Roberts, Emotions in the Moral Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 34. 22 Ibid., chapter two. 23 Cf. Sandler, Character and Environment, Ch. 2, and also p. 82 for a 1-page summarized typology of all his environmental virtues. Simon James’ treatment of Buddhism and compassion, as well as the environmental virtue of humility, is another excellent example of the emotional dimensions of a virtue-oriented approach. Simon P. James, Environmental Philosophy: An Introduction (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2015), 82–89. 24 Sigurd Olson, “Love of the Land,” in Reflections from the North Country (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1976), 125.

References Annas, Julia. Intelligent Virtue. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Berry, Wendell. “Christianity and the Survival of Creation.” Cross Currents 43, no. 2 (1993): 149–164. Blanchard Kathryn, D., and Kevin O’Brien. An Introduction to Christian Environmentalism. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2014.

Introduction  13 Bouma-Prediger, Steven. Earthkeeping and Character: Exploring a Christian Ecological Virtue Ethic. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020. Bourne, Joel K. Jr. The End of Plenty: The Race to Feed a Crowded World. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2015. Cafaro, Philip and Ronald Sandler, eds. Environmental Virtue Ethics. New York: Roman and Littlefield, 2005. James, Simon P. Environmental Philosophy: An Introduction. Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2015. Jenkins, Willis. Ecologies of Grace: Environmental Ethics and Christian Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Kearns, Laurel. “The Context of Eco-Theology.” In The Blackwell Companion to Modern Theology, edited by Gareth Jones, 466–484. New York: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. Kohak, Erazim. The Embers and The Stars: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Moral Sense of Nature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. MacIntyre, Alasdair. “Three Perspectives on Marxism.” In Ethics and Politics, Volume 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Olson, Sigurd. Reflections from the North Country. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1976. Roberts, Robert C. Emotions in the Moral Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Roberts, Robert C., and W. Jay Wood. Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Russell, Daniel C. “Introduction: Virtue Ethics in Modern Moral Philosophy.” In The Cambridge Companion to Virtue Ethics, edited by Daniel C. Russell, 1–6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Sandler, Ronald L. Character and Environment: A Virtue-Oriented Approach to Environmental Ethics. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Swanton, Christine. Virtue Ethics: A Pluralistic View. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. The Sawyer seminar, The Environmental Humanities at UCLA. Accessed online: http:// environmental.humanities.ucla.edu/?page_id=52 Warners, David Paul, and Matthew Kuperus Heun, eds. Beyond Stewardship: New Approaches to Creation Care. Grand Rapids: Calvin University Press, 2019. Zwolinski, Matt and David Schmidtz. “Environmental Virtue Ethics: What It Is and What It Needs to Be.” In The Cambridge Companion to Virtue Ethics, edited by C. Russell Daniel, 221–239. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

I

Gifts in Retrospection: Mentors in Ecoflourishing

Of This World Todd Davis A warbler beats its wings at the blueness, and a brown boy raises an arm in praise. Somewhere the tongue of God laps water where the wind crosses the surface. On the logging road a ruffed grouse drums, and the bodies of the dead ripen with stories. The true passage of time is marked by what birds and trees perceive. Too often I sought to kiss grief’s lips when I was young. Now I’m old, it’s no pleasure to watch the chickadee peck a winterkilled deer. A dove flies down from the moon, and a woman lifts a baby to a breast. On the mountain a bear eats two berries, imprisoning the honeyed darkness on the tongue’s underside. How did I ever forget all the world’s an upper room?

DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-4

1

From Shenandoah to the Mountain West Holmes Rolston III

If you want to establish a new discipline, you should first get yourself born in the right place – and the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia is better than most. Shenandoah Roots My father was a rural pastor: I was cradled in a country place. The farmers loved both gospel and landscape; many were not sure which took priority. Didn’t the Bible say we live on promised land? They saw mountains and kept a sense of wild nature on the skyline; they farmed productive limestone valleys worked with horses and plows. They cut timber when they needed lumber. It all fit together well: the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Alleghenies, good Earth, good land – a good Earth, the gift of God. So from birth, I was destined to argue with Socrates. Socrates so entwined his destiny with Athens-city that his biography ignored biology. “You see, I am fond of learning. Now the country places and trees won’t teach me anything, and the people in the city do.”1 Quarreling with Socrates, I found that the forest and landscape taught what city philosophers could not. These are the roots that nurtured me. Jump Mountain and Hogback were on the skyline; the Maury River ran in front of the house. There was no electricity; we trimmed kerosene lamps. Our water was a cistern pump just out the kitchen door and another cistern up on Bunkum Hill that flowed by gravity to the kitchen inside. Our indoor plumbing was rudimentary, with an outhouse outside. Dad kept a large garden; there was a chicken yard, a wood pile with axes, wedges, chopping blocks. My mother was from an Alabama farm, and I spent a month each summer there, prowling the woods and swamps, wary of the cottonmouths. My grandaddy there used to say: “Take care of the land, and it will take care of you.” After his death, I kept his blacksmith anvil in my shop for most of my life, and when I used it recalled the muscle and blood economy of my ancestors. Eventually, I returned it back where it belonged. I have treasured an old butcher’s knife from the Alabama farm, worn thin by repeated sharpening over half a century. A country preacher’s kid can wander pretty much where he pleases on his local tapestry of barnyards, fields, and woodlands. The farmers simply warn him to stay out of the pastures with the bulls. Mother let me go fish in Hayes Creek; I brought my first fish catch home dangling from the hook. I was scared to take it off. DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-5

18  Holmes Rolston III I rejoiced when in Goshen Pass I found the first Trailing Arbutus in bloom. Looking carefully in the laurel and rhododendron, I could glimpse catbirds, warblers, and indigo buntings. When I was still a babe in arms, I was rescued from Hayes Creek. There came a huge rain, and dad drove out to see any damage and who might need help. Mother went along, bringing me. We drove across the creek fine, but returning an hour later found the bridge washed with floodwaters. Dad tried to drive across, but the motor drowned and the car spluttered to a halt midstream. With wife and child marooned, dad waded off for help. A horse fetched from a nearby farm pulled the Model-T, an alarmed momma, and a screaming infant from the deluge. Those country folk had a saying: I’ll be there “if the good Lord is willing, and the creeks don’t rise!” Once, following daddy, walking ten minutes to Sunday School reluctantly, he tried to cheer me up. “See, there’s a bird singing on the telephone pole.” My sulking reply: “He’s singing because he doesn’t have to go to Sunday School.” When I got there I had to memorize this verse for the day: “Hear, therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do [these commandments] that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey” (Deuteronomy 6:3). When I had memorized it well, I was given a taste of honey! Lands don’t flow with milk and honey unless, in the words of the prophet, “justice rolls down like waters” (Amos 5:24). I took from my elders, the church elders, the sense that there was something of moral and religious significance lurking within the landscape. The trees point to the sky. “The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly; the cedars of Lebanon which he planted” (Psalm 104:16). Country Boy in the City Something else was lurking: a surprise move to the big city, in the middle of my fourth grade. Moving to Charlotte, I was mixed with regret at leaving Rockbridge Baths, and anticipating the city. The last thing dad did before leaving the manse was to shoot the family cat. There would be no space for a country cat in the city. The fourth-grade kids in Charlotte called me “PK,” the preacher’s kid. At recess or lunch schoolyard bullies stood me up to talk and laughed at me for my country accent. But my teachers thought better. I was making good grades. I could easily do the math other students couldn’t (it helped that my father had once taught math). I enjoyed geometry and algebra. I liked science. Dad bought me a better slide-rule than anybody else, and taught me how to use it. In high school, I was one of only four students in a class of over 1,400 that had straight A’s. I got my picture in the big city newspaper. College: Physics and Biology Formal education had its way, and I entered Davidson College in the mid-1950s eager to learn the mysteries of physics. That seemed the science of fundamental nature, and I was and still am attracted by the physicist-philosophers probing nature

From Shenandoah to the Mountain West  19 in the very small and very large, microphysics and astrophysics, and the cosmology that results from philosophizing over discoveries at these ranges. My college mentors had studied under the seminal physicists of the 1910s and 1920s. Physis is the Greek word for nature, and I needed a physics and, with it, a metaphysics. Perhaps there was nothing to learn from trees and rustic places, but there was everything to learn about matter-energy from cyclotrons and Geiger counters in town. This wasn’t wild nature; it was mathematical nature. At the bottom of it all, there was ordered harmony, symmetry, universal law, beauty, and elegance. So I set out to be a physicist. I applied and was admitted to some prominent graduate schools. Still, I seemed to get lost out there in the stars, lost in the mechanics of quantum theory. In the 1950s, cosmology dwarfed and mechanized humans; Earth was nothing but a speck of dust in galaxy after galaxy, a universe 20 billion years old, 20 billion light years across. The metaphysics that seemed demanded by the mathematical microphysics of matter reduced humans to less and less until they were nothing but matter in motion. I wondered. In those days, physics had no “anthropic principle,” little or none of the insight that it has subsequently developed about how even the microphysics and the astrophysics are remarkably fine-tuned for life at our native ranges. In college, though a physics major, I had gotten entranced in a biology class taught by a first-rate entomologist, Tom Daggy. The other students called him, behind his back, “Buggy Daggy.” But he saw things nobody else was seeing. Twice, over spring break, several of us went on extended field trips with him to the Florida Everglades. He kept vials in his shirt pockets and popped bugs into formaldehyde. Once, sitting around the campfire, I was about to swat one. Daggy said: “Stop!” and used his tweezers to put it in formaldehyde. “We will look at that more closely when we get home.” He could name the birds, the plants; I couldn’t. Maybe I wasn’t getting it all in physics; maybe, foundational, though it was, physics wasn’t really getting at the nature of nature. That fall, I was in the biology lab and Daggy called me over. I learned that you could see things in a binocular microscope that you did not catch in cloud chambers. He had the bug I almost swatted mounted on a pin. “That is an insect species not yet known to science.” Wading around the Everglades with Tom Daggy triggered the thought that the mathematical universe, fascinating though it was, was less remarkable than the startling emergence of life on Earth. Physis, with the root “to generate,” is not the only Greek word for nature. The Latin natura is from a Greek root “to give birth,” to be native. Life. That was the problem with physics; it had none. Fights in Theology and Philosophy Still, I did not yet move into biology. Or philosophy. I had those religious roots in the Shenandoah Valley. I took a turn into theology. Lost in the stars, lost in mechanics, I was indubitably a Cartesian mind-inhabiting-matter, a spirit. So I went to Union Theological Seminary in Virginia. I finished seminary, went to the University of Edinburgh, and wrote a Ph.D. thesis in historical theology. The Reformers were

20  Holmes Rolston III terribly archaic, but the first generation of Reformers did have one thing right. Life was a kind of gift. So I had grace and still a hankering after biology, when I set out to be a pastor in southwest Virginia, even though nobody who was anybody thought that these two would make a respectable combination. Biology, even more than physics, was an impossible science to reconcile with religion. Nature was red in tooth and claw, fallen. Paley’s argument from design (a watch and its watchmaker) had fallen before evolutionary random mutations and survival of the fittest. There was neither creation nor Creator, only cold, fortuitous nature. I performed my roles as pastor, but inwardly I was searching. I remember stumbling on a whorled pogonia in a secluded glade to exclaim, “Amazing grace!” I sat down, ate lunch there, grateful for a great day. Partly to relieve the pressures, I took two days off each week, one to prowl the Southern Appalachian Mountains, and one to sit in on biology classes at nearby East Tennessee State University. Graciously, the science faculty there welcomed me. I spent nearly a decade being a pastor, but becoming a naturalist; I was bringing in the Kingdom five days a week, while going wild the other two. I learned the mountain woods in splendid detail. I brought home a strange looking plant with a tough white reticulate leaf. I planted it in a pot with care, and watched it six months. Eventually it flowered, and turned out to be an orchid, Goodyear pubescens. The local folks called it the Rattlesnake Plantain on account of its unusual leaf pattern. I dug up enough of a queer-looking plant to take to those botanists. It turned out to be Fraser’s sedge (Cymophyllus fraserianus), an ancient relic still hanging on in the woods, rare in the Appalachians. I got my picture with the sedge in the college newspaper. After botany and zoology, came geology, mineralogy, paleontology. Now in my late twenties and early thirties, I was for the first time free of mentors telling me what I should study; I could figure it out for myself. I loved it! The trees and country places did have something to teach. I brought in Lycopodium, and looked it up. It turned out that many botanists think this to be the most anciently primitive of the vascular plants. The flowers of the field have more glory than the courts of Solomon. Maybe answers to some of the big questions have signposts right here. Come September, for over a decade, I would spend several days on the Mendota Fire Tower watching the fall hawk migrations along Clinch Mountain. Reflecting on the mystery, the majesty of these thousands of wild hawks I counted in the windswept skies, I published an account in Virginia Wildlife. “I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the sky” (Proverbs 30:19).2 This has been going on for centuries, for millennia. Abundant life persists in the midst of its perpetual perishing. Maybe I am roaming my way into an environmental ethic. This adventure is an ethic of place, and an ethic I discover by continuing in such place. Character always takes a narrative form in persons organic in history. Natural history is full of a blessed storied eventfulness that physics completely by-passes. Life is always taking a journey through time and place. Life is storied residence. I became alarmed. The natural world I had so long taken for granted, that once seemed so vast, was now vanishing with the surge of development. The sense of wonder turned to horror when I found favorite forests reduced to clearcut wastes,

From Shenandoah to the Mountain West 21 mountains stripped for the coal beneath, soils lost to erosion, wildlife decimated. I would often walk down a trail a mile and discover that the backsides of mountains had been clear-cut, out of sight of the main roads. I worked to preserve Mount Rogers and Whitetop Mountain, to maintain and relocate the Appalachian Trail. I backpacked most of the Appalachian Trail in Virginia and North Carolina. The natural world didn’t seem so graceless, and no sooner had I learned that than here we were, treating it disgracefully. As yet I had read no philosophy, save for a few physicists turned philosophers. For the most part, I had been warned against it. But I began to wonder. Just as I earlier had needed a metaphysics to go with my physics, I needed a philosophy of nature to go with my biology. Denied a theology of nature, I took a philosophical turn. Though I had never formally taken even one course in philosophy I applied to graduate schools. Ten turned me down. Surprisingly, the University of Pittsburgh accepted me; and I was attracted there because of their strong emphasis in philosophy of science. I wept as I left the Shenandoah Valley. Departing, I was sad enough to write a goodbye in Virginia Wildlife: “Farewell, Washington County.” “Lord, bid time and nature gently spare these hills that once were home.”3 Arriving in Pittsburgh, I found I had to fight philosophy as before I had to fight theology. Philosophy of science was one thing, really the only kind of philosophy that was reputable; philosophy of nature was disreputable. Philosophers, like scientists, studied causes, the laws of nature. The model ideally was mathematical. Chance was noise in the system. That seemed the consensus of the logical positivists, then in vogue. The best philosophers of science insisted that natural history was the worst kind of science. For my interest in it, I had to apologize. These hard naturalists were worse humanists than the theologians. Nonhuman nature was value-free, nothing but a resource for the satisfaction of human desires, abetted by the skills of science. Value was entirely in the eye of the beholder, assigned by the preference of the valuer. I myself illustrated the role of contingency then and there. On a cold day in December, I hurried from the library at the University of Pittsburgh to catch the bus home. I arrived at the stop just in time to see the 5:45 pm bus disappearing down Forbes Avenue. I buttoned my overcoat to wait for the next one. Richard Gale, a professor teaching me Kant, walked by. “Rolston, are you going to Boston?” “What’s in Boston?” “The American Philosophical Association annual meeting is in Boston this year. You ought to go. They will be interviewing for jobs.” And Gale walked off. I had no intention of going to Boston. Then again, maybe he was right. On the last day in Boston, I saw a handwritten note pinned on the bulletin board about a philosophy position at Colorado State University. I had never heard of Colorado State University. Probably some cow college in the west. But I did interview with the chair, Willard O. Eddy. Weeks later, Eddy reported that CSU no longer had a job available. Four months later, Eddy phoned me. “Rolston, one of our faculty has fallen out with his wife and suddenly left for California. Do you want a job?” I took the job, thinking I might enjoy a couple years at the cow college, and then get a job back East. The result has been 50 years of my leadership in making Colorado

22  Holmes Rolston III State University green and gold, an international center for environmental ethics and biodiversity. Driving west, I was excited. Within a couple weeks of my “Farewell, Washington County,” I published an account of a 400-mile trip down the Grand Canyon in the Bristol Herald Courier: “Bristolian Shoots Rapids on America’s Wildest River.”4 I had just taken a busload of Boy Scouts backpacking at the Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. In the moments when I could escape the philosophers and the theologians, there were the mosses. I had developed a particular interest in them because they are so luxuriantly developed in the Southern Appalachians, and also because nobody else seemed much to care about them. There they were, doing nobody any good, yet flourishing on their own, not listening at all to the philosophers and the theologians. Indeed, there the whole natural world was – forests and soil, sunshine and rain, rivers and hills, the cycling seasons, wildflowers, and wildlife – all these timeless natural givens that support everything else, all prior to these arrogant humans who thought that “man is the measure” of things. That valuable world, that world that humans are able to value, is not value-free; to the contrary it is the genesis of value, about as near to ultimacy as we can come. My teachers had all said I was all wrong. Almost the first lesson in logic is the naturalistic fallacy; there is no implication from descriptive premises to axiological or ethical conclusions. But in the wilderness – hearing a thrush singing to defend its territory, maybe even singing because it enjoyed it; seeing a coyote pounce on a ground squirrel; spooking the deer who fled fearing I was a hunter; searching for signs of spring after winter; running the rapids; even peering through a hand lens at those minuscule mosses – I knew they had to be wrong. These creatures valued life, each in their own way, regardless of whether humans were around. Indeed, we humans were part of that history. Philosophers have to reckon not just with the polis, culture, but also with the anima, inspirited matter, by which they become philosophers. Something of the meaning of life does lie in its naturalness. No one can really become a philosopher, loving wisdom, without caring for these sources in which we live, move, and have our being, the community of life on Earth. Those Shenandoah Valley farmers thought of Earth as a “providing ground.” That word “provide” is an interesting word, isn’t it? Provisions. Providence. My career started in a countryside cradle and I grew up to preach a global, an Earth Ethic. Now a senior citizen, having traveled around the world, been on seven continents, and living half-a continent away in the Rocky Mountain west, I still claim that in April and May there is no place on Earth I would rather be than in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. There’s no better place to start a search for environmental ethics. Philosophy Gone Wild So my biography took a natural turn, away from culture. The political animal still had an ecology. Aphoristically put, I was a philosopher going wild. I introduced a class in environmental ethics, almost the first in the world. The class filled. I turned

From Shenandoah to the Mountain West  23 away more students than I could admit. I wrote a paper, “Is there an ecological ethic?,” again almost the first in the world. I sent it to several journals. They turned it down. About to go on a summer vacation, I thought, “oh well, on a lark, I might as well send it to Ethics,” then the leading journal in the field. Three weeks later my secretary forwarded to me some mail. I was startled. Ethics took it.5 Over the years, that paper has been reprinted dozens of times. I got thousands of readers, online tens of thousands. Maybe that’s when I realized environmental ethics might be getting a jump start. I recalled a proverb often used by my Shenandoah Scots forebears: “God writes straight with crooked lines.” Hiking the Colorado mountains, I came to love the pasqueflower, beautiful and the earliest large spring flower. I wrote an emotionally passionate essay and sent it to Natural History at the American Museum of Natural History.6 They took it, and, again, I had thousands of readers. Reading it, you can discover why for me finding a wild pasqueflower in bloom at Easter is as meaningful as is the Easter church service. I was less convincing when, with John Muir, I argued that there are no ugly natural landscapes. The scale is from zero upward. Promised Land and Planet with Promise The twentieth century has been the century of seeing Earth whole, the home planet. Earth is a kind of wonder: a wonderland. Humans alone know they are on a planet. But you may be thinking, Rolston is a bit too countrified, a bit too religious, a wild spirit, so I next turn to astronauts. Viewing Earthrise from the moon, Edgar Mitchell was entranced: “Suddenly from behind the rim of the moon, in long-slow motion moments of immense majesty, there emerges a sparkling blue and white jewel, a light, delicate sky-blue sphere laced with slowly swirling veils of white, rising gradually like a small pearl in a thick sea of black mystery. It takes more than a moment to fully realize this is Earth … home.” Mitchell continued, “My view of our planet was a glimpse of divinity.”7 Can we see this home biosphere as the sphere of divinity? Consider all the complexity and diversity, integrity, richness, natural history, and cultural history – the whole storied natural and cultural history of our planet. Really, the story is little short of a series of “miracles,” wondrous, fortuitous events, unfolding of potential; and when Earth’s most complex product, Homo sapiens, becomes intelligent enough to reflect over this cosmic wonderland, everyone is left stuttering about the mixtures of accident and necessity out of which we have evolved. Nobody has much doubt that this is a precious place, a pearl in a sea of black mystery. Maybe the planet is not supernatural, but it is surely super in being natural. This really is a superb planet. The astronaut Michael Collins recalls being awed: “The more we see of other planets, the better this one looks. When I traveled to the Moon, it wasn’t my proximity to that battered rank pile I remember so vividly, but rather what I saw when I looked back at my fragile home – a glistening, inviting beacon, delicate blue and white, a tiny outpost suspended in the black infinity. Earth is to be treasured and nurtured, something precious that must endure.”8

24  Holmes Rolston III For Christians, the black mystery will be numinous and signal transcendence. On an everyday scale, Earth, dirt, seems to be passive, inert, an unsuitable object of moral concern. But on a global scale? Earth could be the ultimate object of duty, short of God. Now we do begin to get absolute about natural values, about as absolute as we can ever get on Earth. Notes 1 Plato, Phaedrus, 230d, in Plato in Twelve Volumes, trans. Harold N. Fowler, vol. 9 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1925). 2 Holmes Rolston III, “September Hawking on Clinch Mountain,” Virginia Wildlife 25, no. 9 (1964): 22. 3 Holmes Rolston III, “Nature’s Mystery, Majesty in Washington County (Virginia),” Bristol Herald Courier, August 6, 1967. This piece later appeared as “Mystery and Majesty in Washington County,” in Virginia Wildlife 29, no. 11 (November, 1968): 6–7, 22–24. 4 Holmes Rolston III, “Bristolian Shoots Rapids on America’s Wildest River,” in Bristol Herald Courier (August 27, 1977): 5A. 5 Holmes Rolston III, “Is There an Ecological Ethic?,” in Ethics: An International Journal of Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy 18, no. 2 (1975): 93–109. 6 Holmes Rolston III, “The Pasqueflower,” in Natural History 88, No. 4 (April, 1979): 6–16. 7 Kevin W. Kelley, ed., The Home Planet (New York: De Capo Press, 1988), quoting Edgar Mitchell at photographs 42–45. 8 Michael Collins, “Foreword,” in Roy A. Gallant, Our Universe (Washington, DC: National Geographic Society, 1980), 6.

References Collins, Michael. “Foreword.” In Our Universe, edited by Roy A. Gallant. Washington, DC: National Geographic Society, 1980. Kelley, Kevin W., ed. The Home Planet. New York: De Capo Press, 1988. Rolston, Holmes III. “Bristolian Shoots Rapids on America’s Wildest River,” in Bristol Herald Courier (1977): 5A. ———. “Is There an Ecological Ethic?” Ethics: An International Journal of Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy 18, no. 2 (1975): 93–109. ———. “Nature’s Mystery, Majesty in Washington County (Virginia),” Bristol Herald Courier, August 6, 1967. ———. “The Pasqueflower.” Natural History 88, no. 4 (1979): 6–16. ———. “September Hawking on Clinch Mountain.” Virginia Wildlife 25, no. 9 (1964): 21–22. Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes. Vol. 9. Translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1925. Rolston’s articles and videos can be found in the Colorado State University digital archives: https://mountainscholar.org/handle/10217/100484

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Crossing Lehigh Gap: Discerning Christian Contributions and Misdirection in Wilderness Preservation Susan Power Bratton

The Root of the Problem? I’ve been fascinated with forests, streams, and ponds since I was a child and never thought of this as separate from my Christian life. Youthful stints in YMCA day camps, 4-H, vacation Bible schools, and church-based summer camps integrated spirituality, community, and outdoor experience. They introduced me to concepts like stewardship of soil and water. I learned that the Chesapeake Bay was in serious trouble; the oyster stocks were gravely depleted, the ospreys and eagles were disappearing, and even the hardy blue crabs were under stress. I never thought Christianity was the root of the problem but considered the long slow collision between careless economic development and care of natural resources to be the ultimate root of the Bay’s unraveling. University courses improved my scientific skills and provided organized field experiences in the Scottish Highlands, Costa Rica’s diversity-rich rainforests, Rocky Mountain meadows, and the Florida Everglades. An undergrad Biology and Society course assigned the Lynn White, Jr. essay the year after publication. Nonetheless, I was still exploring my religious identity and reading Christian classics. Following field research in the Adirondacks and the Great Smokies, I took a position as a research scientist with the National Park Service, where wicked and recalcitrant environmental problems, like invasive species and acid rain, increasingly ruled the backcountry. I ran into Roderick Nash’s Wilderness and the American Mind and his supposition that colonial Christians had treated the wilderness as demonic.1 Appraising what I was reading, I stood up at a Park Service conference and told Nash, speaking on wilderness history, that I thought he was wrong. I enrolled in religion courses and entered the Environmental Ethics graduate certificate program at the University of Georgia. During the early 1980s, the appointment of James Watt as US Secretary of the Interior slowed additions to the US endangered species list. In response, I published my first scholarly paper on Christian environmental thought, “The eco-theology of James Watt,” and a series of articles on Christianity and wilderness, culminating in a 1989 book, Christianity, Wilderness, and Wildlife: The Original Desert Solitaire.2 The purpose of this retrospective is to stand back from these initial investigations and reflect on whether I asked the right questions from a Christian perspective. DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-6

26  Susan Power Bratton Introducing the term “eco-theology” to the academic literature, recovering sources on the desert and Celtic monastic interactions with wildlife, and exploring intrinsic value in nature were productive ventures producing new conservations and encouraging renewed environmental activism. Reading saints’ lives and tackling Genesis and Psalms was a humbling and aesthetically rich experience that merged readily with my scientific engagement. However, in responding to the academic arguments of the 20th century, I allowed the critics to define the problems and too often settled for simple apologetics. By inadequately examining the history and forwarding popular notions about animism and Puritanism, White and Nash were not introducing the most salient issues in the first place. I accepted their simple bifurcation of living organisms and ecosystems into spirit-infused versus instrumental, and sacred versus demonic. Puritan Prototypes My current writing project on wilderness and American Christianity concurs with Mark Stoll’s Inherit the Holy Mountain, that colonial Calvinism did not demonize the landscape per se. Christian colonists had an appreciation for the beauty of the Hudson River Valley and the Edenic qualities of the New England uplands.3 Cotton Mather did not believe giant fire-breathing reptiles were lumbering around the White Mountains – he did, after all, have a master’s degree from Harvard. But the Puritan cleric’s theological and historical treatises identified Native Americans and members of the Society of Friends as dragons. Roderick Nash had cherry-picked quotes from the Puritans and presented them out of context. Wilderness and the American Mind cites passages such as Mather’s declaration: “The Evening Wolves, the rabid and howling Wolves of the Wilderness, would make more frequent Havock among you, & not leave the bones till evening, did not your Blessed Shepherd rate them off.” Nash comments: “Granted this was a jeremiad intended to shock Mather’s contemporaries into godly behavior, but his choice of imagery still reflected a vivid conception of the physical danger of wild country.”4 Nash, however, missed the question of whether Mather was referencing animals or people. In the following sentence in Frontiers Well-Defended, Mather described the vicious packs as originating in Canada – an unsubtle reference to a collision of imperial powers and French allegiances with Native American nations, supporting attacks on New England’s outlying farmsteads. For his anxious readers fearing raids and possible war with France, Mather declared: “How often when whole armies of them have come out of Canada, How often, has there happened some strange Accident, that has caused them to Return, without so much as once reaching your Borders!”5 This passage implied God was favoring the Puritan government as the New Israel. Nash’s commentary is a distraction from the issues concerning 21st-century Christians relative to Mather’s form of demonization. Mather’s writings racialized polemics directed at Native Americans and differentiated between a spiritually hazardous primitive state and the civilization of Reformed governance. His wellcirculated texts extended the folk notion of demons as black or dusky to “tawny,” “swarthy,” or “dark” Indians and associated this seething, invading shadow with

Crossing Lehigh Gap  27 “the wilderness.” The Puritan pastor built racially discriminatory barriers and mythologized a founding white Protestant elite. In investigating 17th-century sources on colonial landscapes, M.J. Bowden found that the early New England colonists rarely used the word “forest” because “there were few if any thick woods in the coastal region.” Colonial observer William Wood had informed aspiring immigrants that the notion of thick woods covering the land was false. Wood reported that “in many places diverse acres [are] clear so that one may ride a hunting in most places of the land….” The first Puritan settlers did not identify wooded terrains as “primeval.” Bowden attributes the concept of the forest primeval to 19th-century Romanticism and the national affection for the noble Pilgrim fathers celebrating the first Thanksgiving. Bowden concludes: “The Massachusetts Literati tripled the already exaggerated Puritancolonial achievement in conquering the wilderness by redefining it as a ‘forest primeval’, darker and gloomier than the Gothic forest of Grendel and Beowulf in eight-century Europe!”6 Bowden takes Roderick Nash and several other environmental and landscape historians to task for accepting the myth. Cotton Mather’s histories are an early example of dramatizing the wilderness as primitive and dangerous to aggrandize the accomplishments of European colonists. A founder of American Evangelicalism, Cotton Mather was a third-generation American Puritan resisting a religiously diversifying society. Wilderness is a social construction, and Mather was busy symbolically emptying it of any pre-colonial human presence to secure a clear title for what was to become the Protestant mainline. The opinionated Puritan was not alone. One of the first Dutch Reformed colonists in New Netherland, Adriaen van der Donck, published a book describing the colony in 1655. A Description of New Netherland repeatedly refers to the colonists as Christians, even though their level of religious commitment was highly variable. Van der Donck concluded that the derogatory term Wilden or wilde menschen should continue in use relative to Native Americans “on account of religion because they have none or so little as to be virtually in a state of nature.”7 He proposed that “original natives” would not survive the advent of Europeans and implied this was because they were unreligious. The Dutch Reformed settler was recording pre-colonial culture in the Hudson Valley “so that when the Christians shall have multiplied there, and the Indians melted away, we may not suffer the regret that their manners and customs have likewise parted from memory.”8 He attributed Native American prophetic and visionary practices during ceremonies to the presence of Satan, despite his claim the original residents of the Hudson Valley had no religion. Familiar with canon law, the Dutch lawyer separated the indigenous residents from the landscape of the Hudson Highlands, which he described as aesthetically laudable.9 Diversifying Christian Voices In presenting Puritanism as the archetype of colonial Christianity, Nash accepted Mather’s model of the New Englanders as speaking for all genuine Christian settlers. Ceding to this common-thread model entrenches a white-focused wilderness

28  Susan Power Bratton metanarrative by ignoring other traditions, including the rich African American heritage of deploying natural and wilderness imagery in the Spirituals and sermons. The Great Awakenings fueled the displacement of the psalter and precipitated a demand for livelier and more malleable sacred music. The new songs (called hymns) “appealed to Blacks because of the vitality of the words, wider use of intervals than the psalm tunes, and their rhythmic freedom.”10 With much imaginative modification, hymns became a model for the Spirituals, which were well developed as an independent form of sacred music by the early 19th century. For the enslaved, meetings in wooded glades and fields kept masters and overseers from destroying shared religious communities and inflicting physical injury. The Underground Railroad utilized backcountry routes to the North. The Spirituals thus present “wilderness” as the transition to freedom or a locale to speak with God. Spirituals like Go into the Wilderness advise meeting Jesus where Pharaoh and his army (hypocritical white Christians) do not rule. The lyrics advise: “Jesus call you. Go in the wilderness, To wait upon the Lord.” The verses ensure, “Jesus a waitin’. Go in de wilderness….All dem chil’en go in de wilderness.”11 Spirituals also link the wilderness with John the Baptist and the joy of conversion. Come Out the Wilderness asks: “Tell me how did you feel when you come out the wilderness,” then asks if the hearer got baptized in the wilderness. The third verse continues, “Did your soul feel happy when you come out the wilderness,” expecting the answer to be a resounding “Yes! I felt happy.”12 Perhaps the most significant lapse is that the Puritan-centered critique misses the appearance of colonial and federalist models of wilderness that are explicitly contrary to the exclusivity evident in Mather’s thought. George Fox, William Penn, and other 17th-century Quakers idealized American terrains as comprising God’s “peaceable Kingdom,” where Native Americans and Europeans of different sects could live securely in proximity. However, the Friends often ignored or misunderstood the values of Native Americans. Although not as committed to exclusivity as the Puritans, they “wove a creation myth of exceptionalism, claiming for themselves a special relationship with the Lenapes [Delaware] based on Quaker principles of justice, peace, religious freedom, and respect for peoples of different backgrounds.”13 On the positive side, this ethic generated a genre of spiritual pilgrimage where Friends journeyed throughout the colonies, carrying an abolitionist message to new and well-established meetings. Walking, riding horses, and paddling canoes, the Friends traversed the crests of the Virginia Blue Ridge, wove into the Hudson Highlands, and reached isolated families on Maine Islands in a quest to convince Quakers to abandon slaveholding. By retaining guides and depending on Friends’ networks for places to stay, women traveling in pairs undertook these arduous trips without a male minister tagging along. Friends and Mennonites formed the Friendly Association for Regaining and Preserving Peace with the Indians by Pacific Measures, which attempted unsuccessfully to deter warfare with Native Americans and arrange for the Lenape to remain east of the Allegheny Mountains. When sleeping in the open in a pine swamp, during a 1758 visit to Lenape camped on the Susquehanna River, master carpenter Isaac Zane, Sr., noted in his journal that he “had the pleasure of observing the motions of ye stars &…was

Crossing Lehigh Gap  29 ready to think yet those yet discovered courses of the planets had the advantage of this sort of lodging.”14 Heading to the Native Americans gathered in Valley of the Wyoming (Pennsylvania) in 1763, tailor and abolitionist theologian John Woolman camped somewhere near Lehigh Gap. After a night of dealing with a wet tent and blankets, Woolman took a cold but refreshing bath in the river the next morning. His party waited to start until the sun evaporated the dew off their gear. Woolman’s journal reports they “crossed a high Mountain supposed to be upwards of four Miles over’ the steepness of the north Side exceeding all others.”15 Reversing the notions so evident in Cotton Mather, Woolman identified the indigenous peoples not just as passive recipients of his form of Christianity but as teachers. The rugged, brushy trace and nasty weather heightened his grasp of their lifeways. Woolman contemplated the uncontrolled aspects of warfare and the physical environment: Love was the first Motion, and thence a Concern arose to spend some Time with the Indians, that I might feel and understand their Life, and the Spirit they live in, if haply I might receive some Instruction among them, or they be in any Degree helped forward by my following the Leadings of the Truth amongst them: And, as it pleased the Lord to make my Way for going at a Time when the Troubles of War were increasing, and, when, by Reason of much wet Weather, Travelling was more difficult than usual at that Season, I looked upon it as a more favorable Opportunity to season my Mind, and bring me into a nearer Sympathy with them…16 Taking a moral giant step beyond most of his contemporaries (and indeed beyond Cotton Mather), Woolman viewed interactions with the Eastern Woodland peoples and the challenges of the wilderness as enhancing his spiritual understanding. In his desire to learn God’s will in the depths of the dripping pines and hemlocks, the unassuming tailor was “quiet and content.”17 Woolman, Zane, and their friends and supporters, the Pemberton brothers, were not successful in diverting the eviction of the Lenape from their lands. However, following the Revolutionary War, the Pembertons collaborated with Benjamin Franklin to form the first abolitionist society in Philadelphia. Whose Wilderness? Sometimes we can’t see the forest for the academic clutter. When we think about Christianity and wilderness, it’s not solely about intrinsic value. It’s about social ethics putting two or more stories together to deal with privilege and pursuing justice. Ironically, the “liberal” author, Roderick Nash, replicated the colonial writers in two ways. First, in his dire portrait of Puritans, Nash utilized the same repertoire of anti-religious comparisons favored by authors like Dutch colonial administrator Adriaen van der Donck in portraying Native Americans as fearful of demons and evil spirits, and obsessed with the supernatural. They thus had little rational understanding of the true worth of the landscape. Second, Nash was erasing previous

30  Susan Power Bratton religious traditions from the landscape, simultaneously scraping away Christianity and indigenous religion. Like Cotton Mather, he imaged a pre-existing primitive state, which would return to its Edenic condition once bad human influences were removed. As my recent book, The Spirit of the Appalachian Trail, and other surveys report, African Americans comprise a much lower percentage of hikers than the prevalence of African Americans in the US population.18 Geographer Carolyn Finney has argued that the de facto definition of American recreational spaces as white still characterizes designated wilderness areas. Access to wildlands is biased in favor of ethnic majorities and trekkers from more affluent backgrounds.19 We have 400 years of pertinent American Christian literature and policies to investigate relative to this failure of ecojustice. There is nothing wrong with having Roderick Nash and Cotton Mather open the door. Looking back, however, I should free my explorations to draw on the best Christian models rather than merely rebuffing the most dismissive of Christianity’s detractors. Acknowledgment A fellowship with Virginia Humanities, Charlottesville, VA, during 2018–2019, provided support for research on colonial concepts of wilderness. Notes 1 Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1967). 2 See Susan Power Bratton, “The ecotheology of James Watt,” Environmental. Ethics 5 (1983): 28–40, and Susan Power Bratton, Christianity, Wilderness, and Wildlife: The Original Desert Solitaire (Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press, 1989). 3 Mark Stoll, Inherit the Holy Mountain: Religion and the Rise of American Environmentalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). 4 Nash, Wilderness and American Mind, 29. 5 Cotton Mather, Frontiers Well-Defended: An Essay, to Direct the Frontiers of a Country Exposed unto the Incursions of a Barbarous Enemy (Boston: T. Green Printer, 1707), 14. 6 J.M. Bowden, “Invented tradition and academic convention in geographical thought about New England,” GeoJournal 26, no. 2 (1992): 187–194. 7 Adriaen van der Donck, Charles T. Gehring, ed., William A. Starna, ed., and Diederick Willem Goedhuys, trans., A Description of New Netherland (Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, 2008), loc. 1028. 8 Ibid., loc. 1003. 9 Ibid., loc. 351–357. 10 Eileen Southern, The Music of Black Americans (New York: W.W. Norton, 1971), 40. 11 Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Army Life in a Black Regiment (New York: Penguin, 2004), loc. 3009. Originally published 1870. 12 Dolores Carpenter and Nolan F. Williams, eds., “Come Out the Wilderness,” African American Heritage Hymnal (Chicago: GIA Publications, 2001), Hymn 367. 13 Jean Soderlund, Lenape Country: Delaware Valley Society before William Penn (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), 4. 14 Joseph H. Coates, “Journal of Isaac Zane to Wyoming, 1758,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (Historical Society of Pennsylvania) 30 (1906): 417–426.

Crossing Lehigh Gap  31 15 John Woolman, The Journal and Essays of John Woolman, ed. Amelia Mott Gummere (New York: Macmillan, 1922), 136–138; Susan Sachs Goldman, Friends in Deed: The Story of Quaker Social Reform in America (New York: Highmark Press, 2012). 16 Woolman, Journal, 137–138. 17 Ibid. 18 Susan Power Bratton, The Spirit of the Appalachian Trail: Community, Environment, and Belief on a Long Distance Hiking Path (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2012). 19 Carolyn Finney, Black Faces/White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014).

References Bowden, J.M. “Invented Tradition and Academic Convention in Geographical Thought About New England.” GeoJournal 26, no. 2 (1992): 187–194. Bratton, Susan Power. Christianity, Wilderness, and Wildlife: The Original Desert Solitaire. Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press, 1989. ———. “The Ecotheology of James Watt.” Environmental Ethics 5 (1983): 28–40. ———. The Spirit of the Appalachian Trail: Community, Environment, and Belief on a Long Distance Hiking Path. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2012. Carpenter, Dolores, and Nolan F. Williams, eds. “Come Out the Wilderness.” Hymn 367 in African American Heritage Hymnal. Chicago: GIA Publications, 2001. Coates, Joseph H. Journal of Isaac Zane to Wyoming, 1758. The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (Historical Society of Pennsylvania) 30 (1906): 417–426. Finney, Carolyn. Black Faces/White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014. Goldman, Susan S. Friends in Deed: The Story of Quaker Social Reform in America. New York: Highmark Press, 2012. Higginson, Thomas Wentworth. Army Life in a Black Regiment. New York: Penguin, 2004. Mather, Cotton. Frontiers Well-Defended: An Essay, to Direct the Frontiers of a Country Exposed Unto the Incursions of a Barbarous Enemy. Boston: T. Green Printer, 1707. Nash, Roderick. Wilderness and the American Mind. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1967. Soderlund, Jean. Lenape Country: Delaware Valley Society before William Penn. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015. Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black Americans. New York: W.W. Norton, 1971. Stoll, Mark. Inherit the Holy Mountain: Religion and the Rise of American Environmentalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. van der Donck, Adriaen. A Description of New Netherland, edited by Charles T. Gehring and William A. Starna. Translated by Diederick W. Goedhuys. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008. Woolman, John. The Journal and Essays of John Woolman, edited by Amelia M. Gummere. New York: Macmillan, 1922.

3

Beholding Earth through the Eye of Its Maker Calvin B. DeWitt

There I was, in the National Zoo, alone with all its animals. It was late, the lights had gone out, and now, hoping to leave by the main gate, I found it locked. I am a zoologist and felt at home here. But as I climbed the outer wall, easing my way over its top and dropping to the street below, I was suddenly afraid. On a sidewalk at night in Washington, D.C., I was now alone with whatever else might lurk in its shadows. I was checking out something that had been bugging me. I had flown to D.C. for a meeting earlier that day but now was pondering God’s speech to the man of Uz—the patient and faithful Job. Keenly aware of God’s charge to Adam to name the animals, I’d been working to name a great amphibious herbivore based upon its detailed description God had given Job. God had challenged him to behold this creature of the Jordan that powerfully sported in its surging waters. I thought I knew its name but was puzzled by the first thing God said about its identity: “It eats grass like an Ox.” Beholding Behemoth I had located the creature I believed matched its Maker’s description to see whether it ate grass. The problem was that the only grass growing within its reach was on a terrace several feet above the floor of its enclosure. Yet, as darkness fell, this great beast lifted itself upward on the retaining wall with powerful front legs, edging its neck and massive head over the edge, awkwardly grazing on the lawn above. For an hour and more, I beheld this beast as it ate grass, its weighty hind legs supporting the strained stretch of its enormous body and head. In love with its Creator, I had done what God had asked in his speech to the man of Uz—directly, in behavioral, anatomical, and ecological detail: Behold, Behemoth, which I made as I made you; he eats grass like an ox. Behold, his strength in his loins, and his power in the muscles of his belly. He makes his tail stiff like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are knit together. His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like bars of iron. He is the first of the works of God; let him who made him bring near his sword! For the DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-7

Beholding Earth through the Eye of Its Maker  33 mountains yield food for him where all the wild beasts play. Under the lotus plants he lies, in the shelter of the reeds and in the marsh. For his shade the lotus trees cover him; the willows of the brook surround him. Behold, if the river is turbulent, he is not frightened; he is confident though Jordan rushes against his mouth. Can one take him by his eyes, or pierce his nose with a snare? – Job 40:15–24 ESV Search google for the phrase, “Behemoth and Batrachians in the Eye of God,” to join me in responding to this declaration, and if you’d like to sing with me, google also “A Zoologist Sings the Doxology.”1 My Backyard Zoo Beholding is a discipline I developed from caring for animals in the backyard zoo of my childhood, youth, and college years. It began with a Painted Turtle, joined later by one or more of all ten turtle species of Michigan. And snakes, lizards, frogs, toads, and salamanders. Then, in my aviary and aquarium room I built in our basement. Also, in a shed I built in a corner, boldly lettered A & C Herpetological Society, announcing its two-member society, Al and Cal. My friend Al lived next door, but was restricted by rheumatic fever to his screened-in front porch where we administered our society, played chess, and wrote our first publication in The Grand Rapids Press on the worth and beauty of reptiles. Neighbors, young and old, were attracted to this menagerie, asking questions that helped me learn how to explain things, even to skeptics. I augmented observational knowledge with studying zoological literature from the Ryerson Library and Grand Rapids Public Museum exhibits downtown. In my teens, I explored fields and creeks on bike rides in the country, once discovering Queen Snakes in Egypt Valley Creek, two of which would soon live in my zoo. Wonderfully, along another creek nearby, I found a skull of what looked like a cross between a beaver and muskrat. My research found it to be from South America. A Coypu. Its immensely large infraorbital foramen was extremely impressive. It was added to other discoveries in a nice oak museum display cabinet in my basement aviary. I discovered its fur, called nutria, and I concluded that there once was a fur farm nearby from which this Coypu had escaped. The Public Museum My frequent presence as an avid observer at the Grand Rapids Public Museum was soon recognized by its preparators, teachers, and director. As a youth, I had engaged the museum taxidermist, Herman Hinrichs, by my tactful and careful correction of a turtle identification in an exhibit, and thereafter was a welcome visitor to his studio. There I observed his work, interacted with him on zoology and herpetology and for a time studied a Massasauga Rattlesnake and her newborn children. I also joined

34  Calvin B. DeWitt him on field trips to the old fields of Ravenswood—later a part of the new Calvin College campus—where we banded birds and photographed nestling birds and their parents for the weekly Outdoor Page of The Grand Rapids Press. I continued teaching in the museum’s Summer Nature Program during four years at Calvin, helping young people learn herpetology and natural history. And one summer, I administered the Summer Nature Program when its director, Evelyn Grebel, was on leave. The Golden Article My love of herpetology is hardly the full story. Sometime around when I received my first public library card, when sitting quietly in church before Sunday services, I found a statement in the back section of our Psalter Hymnal. It was what I call the golden article. It had embraced my culture as I was growing up, and now I had it in writing. “We know God,” it declares, “by two means:” First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe since that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God; his eternal power and his divinity, as the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20. All these things are enough to convince men and leave them without excuse…. Second, he makes himself known to us more openly by his holy and divine Word, as much as we need for this life, for his glory and the salvation of his own.2 It was from this marvelous confession that I learned the importance of reading and studying the Bible, including memorizing key passages and texts for recitation in Sunday School after the morning church service and weekly catechism classes, after school. Wonderfully, it also affirmed the importance of reading and studying the “beautiful book” of God’s creation. When we all sang The Doxology at the conclusion of every morning and evening service in church, I relished its second line: “Praise God all creatures here below.” Fish, snails, birds, and “herps,” and spiders, wasps, and caterpillars, were all celebrated every Sunday by me, my family, and everyone else—in four-part harmony. My life and work were also accompanied by my “psalmic soundtrack” that comes from a lifetime of singing psalms and hymns from our church’s Psalter Hymnal. It keeps my mind and spirit uncluttered by competing diversions and degradations—ever present, always playing. Reading the Manuscripts of God I recall my Painted Turtle and the beautiful scientific name given to it by Louis Agassiz in 1857: Chrysemys picta marginata. At the time I wondered, what kind of person was Agassiz? Who was he, and why was he such an exuberant and dedicated scientist? In searching for answers, to my delight I found that Agassiz’s friend, the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, had written a poem: “The Fiftieth Birthday

Beholding Earth through the Eye of Its Maker  35 of Agassiz in 1857.” It was wonderful to find that Agassiz was an avid reader of “the manuscripts of God,” even 50 years after his birth in the Swiss Canton of Vaud: It was fifty years ago In the pleasant month of May, In the beautiful Pays de Vaud, A child in its cradle lay. And Nature, the old nurse, took The child upon her knee, Saying: “Here is a story-book Thy Father has written for thee.” “Come, wander with me,” she said, “Into regions yet untrod; And read what is still unread In the manuscripts of God.” And he wandered away and away With Nature, the dear old nurse, Who sang to him night and day The rhymes of the universe.3 My own profession and vocation also are reading what is still unread “in the manuscripts of God.” It is beautifully summed up in one of The Book’s Psalms: “Great are the works of the Lord; they are sought out by all who delight in them” (Ps 111:2). And these works provide evidence about God’s divinity and everlasting power that is so convicting that all of us, young and old, are without an excuse for not knowing something about our Maker. This is The Book’s message in its epistle to the Romans: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse” (Rom 1:20). Doing What I Love to Do My father did not allow me to learn his art. He told me not to become a painter and decorator as he was, but to keep doing what I loved to do. This would mean that I would do it very well, and I would eventually get paid for it. It was his rendition of the words in Matthew’s Gospel: “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Mt 6:33). My dad’s judgment proved ever so right. For more than six decades I made a living doing what I love to do. He affirmed this advice every evening after the rest of the family had gone to bed, by serving us with a glass of Vernor’s Ginger Ale and asking me to describe the discoveries I had made that day. We did this year after year, for a half-hour to an

36  Calvin B. DeWitt hour every evening. His questions helped me formulate responses with increasing clarity and detail. So, who am I and why did I become a herpetologist even though I had, at first, no idea what this word meant? In the library downtown I found The Herpetology of Michigan by Ruthven, Thompson, and Gaige, but this book did not circulate, requiring me to bike downtown to learn more about the “herps” under my care. I also took the bus to John Ball Park Zoo where, on visits to the Reptile House, I talked herpetology with its Director, Frederick See, who on occasion gave me a lizard or snake. And it was he who likely had contacted Dwight D. Davis of the Field Museum of Natural History, who recommended to his colleague, Karl P. Schmidt, my membership in the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists in my late teens. An Integrative World-and-Life View Growing up, I first thought that culture had something to do with classical music. It was something good, and I thought that I was “getting culture” by listening to and playing my trombone in band and orchestra. But at Calvin College, I found it to be more related to the comprehensive cultural heritage entered into at birth. At Calvin, this culture was reflected in a “world-and-life view” that embraced my love of science within an integrated program in theology, philosophy, language, literature, and music. It included even my love of herps and biology that propelled me into graduate school. And Calvin’s President, William Spoelhof, made it clear that attending the University of Michigan would help place our culture within the wider Western Culture of which we are part. When I came to Ann Arbor, I first lived in a house with 16 other graduate students. I was attached to Ann Arbor Campus Chapel where Rev. Leonard Verduin— a fine theologian, scholar, and beholder of nature—was pastor. He told us once that if we are looking for people with similar interests, hang out around the card catalog in an academic library. I followed his advice. And one day, as I was using the Calvin card catalog for research, I found myself standing next to him. He was over 100 years old. As my pastor from 1957 to 1963, Rev. Verduin regarded Ann Arbor as akin to Athens at the time of St. Paul. Indeed, I benefited from some 180 of his sermons, in morning and evening services, preceded by recorded classical orchestral music that prepared us for each service. This wonderful continuity of worship and learning with Rev. Verduin was interrupted just once, from September 1958 to June 1959, when he taught at Calvin to replace a faculty member on sabbatical. And it was during that same academic year that a young woman named Ruth—a clearly avid biologist who maintained a marine aquarium with sea creatures from her home state of Massachusetts—introduced me to marine biology. We soon became a team and would be so from then on, including our marriage in August, 1959. When I began my graduate work at Michigan, my graduate advisor Frederick H. Test—an eminent zoologist and distinguished field biologist—interviewed me thoroughly and concluded that I already had learned the subject matter of the

Beholding Earth through the Eye of Its Maker  37 courses I hoped to take except, at my insistence, herpetology. So, it turned out that I became well-versed in physiology and cellular and molecular biology. And toward the conclusion of one of my physiology courses, its professor, William R. Dawson, approached me in his laboratory, saying, “Mr. DeWitt, you are a pretty good physiologist; would you be my doctoral student?” I accepted, thereby beginning a wonderful saga that provided me with my own laboratory in the Museum of Natural History. Eventually it would bring me to southern California where Ruth and I lived on the open desert for three months, resulting in my research on thermoregulation of the Desert Iguana in the journal, Physiological Zoology.4 Matter, Energy, and Life In the Spring of 1963, I accepted an offer of Assistant Professor of Experimental Biology at The University of Michigan-Dearborn to teach and conduct research in experimental biology, including cellular and molecular biology, and develop a program of teaching and research in the extensive natural habitat of the former Henry and Clara Ford estate on which this new campus had recently been completed. During a wonderful seven years, I taught laboratory-based cellular and experimental biology together with field ecology and natural history. Soon, I had taught nearly every upper-level course in biology. And I was able to rescue the old BeechMaple forest on this former estate from the construction of a divided highway. After seven years of service I was given a sabbatical in 1970 to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and upon return to UM-D in 1971, I worked with my colleague, David W. Emerson—and other colleagues in biology, chemistry, physics, and engineering—to create a new integrative course we called Matter, Energy, and Life (M.E.L.). The beating heart of this course, for all incoming freshmen, was the Faculty Teaching Seminar, held every Friday afternoon for developing laboratory sessions and seminars that would be the basis for upcoming lectures in the course. We taught each other with one of two outcomes: the presenter would give the lecture to the class if we believed it was comprehensible by our students. Otherwise, it would be given by another faculty member or the course coordinator if most of us could not comprehend it. In this, we learned integrative scholarship and how to teach in fields other than our own. As a testament to its success, M.E.L. remains the only course from that era that continues in the UM-D curriculum to this day; and it was developed a half-century ago. I was soon recruited by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was convinced to join the faculty of their new Institute for Environmental Studies in January 1972. At UW I was expected by its Chancellor, Edwin Young, “to address the fragmentation of the disciplines” using “the environment” as the integrative theme. This gave me the freedom and responsibility to work across the entire university, within the spirit of “the Wisconsin Idea” that regarded the boundaries of the university to be the boundaries of the state, the nation, and beyond. This Idea supported the development of my course in Environmental Science, given with weekly laboratories and field work every semester over four decades. It also supported my graduate research, Field Investigations in Wetland Ecology, given from our home on Waubesa

38  Calvin B. DeWitt Wetlands for two half-days weekly, every fall, for three decades. The Wisconsin Idea also gave me the opportunity to engage with my local community, the Town of Dunn, which I led in developing a Land Stewardship Plan for its 4,000 people and 34.5 square miles of farms, wetlands, lakes, and woodlands, beginning in 1973. During these decades at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, my summers were devoted to the development of Au Sable Institute for some 80 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada, to professional presentations at scientific gatherings, and to presentations at colleges and universities worldwide. In addition, one year was devoted to taking a leave of absence, allowing me to join the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship, which would produce in 1980 the watershed edited book, Earthkeeping: Christian Stewardship of Natural Resources.5 An Institution-Building Paradigm When I was in 9th grade, Harold Geerdes came to a student meeting at our school to size us up for the kind of band instruments we could play. “Stretch out your arm” he had said to me. And then, “You can play the trombone.” Soon he sent us Henry Vander Linde to be our band director. He did similar recruitment at schools across Grand Rapids, and soon thereafter created the “All-City Band” where select players practiced weekly after school at Grand Rapids Christian High School. When I entered Christian High the next year, I joined their Concert Band, which he conducted. As more and more young musicians came through this system of musician development, he added a Cadet Band, and then a Marching Band. Upon graduation, many of these musicians went on into colleges and universities, including Calvin. In 1959, Harold Geerdes was appointed to the Calvin faculty as Conductor of its Band and Orchestra, a position he held for the next 20 years. This “Geerdes Paradigm” became my model for developing the Au Sable Institute. To begin, I identified 20 evangelical colleges and universities of various denominations across North American by vetting a large directory of such schools in the University of Wisconsin library. I selected 20 colleges and universities that were broadly representative of an array of church denominations. Next, I contacted a professor at each of these institutions who was closest to being an environmental scientist, and who was also a potential colleague with whom I could partner to have their college or university—through a signed agreement with their respective presidents—become an official Participating College with Au Sable Institute. Ultimately, 12 of these 20 institutions were selected for participation by the Au Sable Board of Trustees. I then wrote an Official Bulletin, listing the course being offered, and the mission and vision of the Institute. Through the Au Sable Academic Dean, I selected faculty from amongst these colleges for teaching, appointed an Au Sable Faculty Representative from each school, invited students of the Participating Colleges to enroll, and held our first summer academic sessions in 1980. As enrollment increased, a similar process was repeated time after time, until there were some 80 Participating Colleges. Each Representative was also a member of the Institute Academic Advisory Council which assembled once each summer, to assist in Institute development and service.

Beholding Earth through the Eye of Its Maker  39 Institute faculty were drawn from scientists from these colleges, along with evangelical scientists from other North American universities. And, to complete the cycle, many Au Sable students who went on to get their doctorates returned as faculty to the evangelical colleges as well as leading universities, where they continued this process and reinforced the vital work of Au Sable Institute, for new generations of students. Behemoth at Home In love with its Creator, I have been beholding God’s creatures well before I knew of God’s speech to Job. Like every other child, it was a natural thing to do. In my case, a child’s beholding of little things like ants, birds, and flowers, was soon joined with the stars above, bringing an appreciation of and resonation with David’s proclamation in Psalm 19: “The heavens declare the glory of God.” And while God “only makes mention of the heavens,” notes Calvin in his Commentary, “he doubtless includes by synecdoche the whole fabric of the world” leading us to contemplate “even in the minutest plants.”6 This means, I believe, that “beholding Behemoth” includes by synecdoche all the rest, even the reptiles. Once when I was sitting on a riverbank in Kenya, observing Behemoth sporting with each other in the water, a Rainbow Lizard settled on a warm rock next to me to bask in the sunlight. With its bright red body, bright blue legs and tail, and postural adjustments as it oriented to the sun’s rays, I had shifted my gaze from river to rock for several minutes, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. Turning, I was greeted by an armed military guard. “Do you see the large crocodile on the bank just below you? You are lucky. It had a big meal yesterday.” A bit shaken, I left on the doubletrack trail Behemoth created with their wide-apart legs through the short grass on which they graze, and on to camp. Behemoth are fierce beasts, but they had not yet begun to make their way to where they grazed each evening. Notes 1 Cf. Calvin B. DeWitt, “Behemoth and Batrachians in the Eye of God: Responsibility to Other Kinds in Biblical Perspective,” in Christianity and Ecology: Seeking the Well-Being of Earth and Humans, edited by Dieter T. Hessel and Rosemary Radford Ruether, 291–316 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000). Cf. also Calvin B. DeWitt, “Behold the Hippo: A Zoologist Sings the Doxology,” Christian Century (2012): 30–33. 2 “Confession of Faith,” in Psalter Hymnal: Doctrinal Standards and Liturgy (Grand Rapids, MI: Publication Committee of the Christian Reformed Church, 1959), 3. My learning from this Confession, Article 2, began with the 1934 edition of the Psalter Hymnal (Red Psalter) of my youth, continuing more intensively in its 1959 edition (Blue Psalter) in my 20s, and subsequently in the 1987 edition (Gray Psalter). Between these editions, slight official changes were made by the Christian Reformed Church from the French original. The 1959 edition is cited here. 3 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Courtship of Miles Standish, and other poems (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1859), 196–198. Accessed online at http://name.umdl.umich. edu/BAD8947.0001.001, University of Michigan Humanities Text Initiative, 1996.

40  Calvin B. DeWitt 4 Calvin B. DeWitt, “Precision of Thermoregulation and Its Relation to Environmental Factors in the Desert Iguana, Dipsosaurus dorsalis,” in Physiological Zoology 40, no. 1 (1967): 49–66. 5 Loren Wilkinson, ed., Earthkeeping, Christian Stewardship of Natural Resources (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980). 6 John Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms – Volume 1, trans. Rev. James Anderson (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Ethereal Library, 1845), commentary on Psalm 19:1–6. Accessed online at https://ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom08/calcom08.xxv.i.html (accessed February 3, 2023).a

References Calvin, John. Commentary on the Psalms – Volume 1. Translated by Rev. James Anderson. Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Ethereal Library, 1845. https://ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom08/ calcom08.xxv.i.html DeWitt, Calvin B. “Behemoth and Batrachians in the Eye of God: Responsibility to Other Kinds in Biblical Perspective.” In Christianity and Ecology: Seeking the Well-Being of Earth and Humans, edited by Dieter T. Hessel and Rosemary Radford Ruether, 291–316. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. ———. “Behold the Hippo: A Zoologist Sings the Doxology.” Christian Century (April 2012): 30–33. ———. Earth-Wise: A Guide to Hopeful Creation Care. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: FaithAlive, 2011. ———. “Precision of Thermoregulation and Its Relation to Environmental Factors in the Desert Iguana, Dipsosaurus dorsalis.” Physiological Zoology 40, no. 1 (1967): 49–66. ———. Song of a Scientist: Harmony in a God-Soaked Creation. Grand Rapids, MI: Square Inch Books, 2012. Stafford, Tim. “God’s Green Acres: How Calvin DeWitt is helping Dunn, Wisconsin, reflect the glory of God’s good creation.” Christianity Today (1998): 32–37. Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. The Courtship of Miles Standish, and Other Poems. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1859. http://name.umdl.umich.edu/BAD8947.0001.001, University of Michigan Humanities Text Initiative, 1996. Psalter Hymnal: Doctrinal Standards and Liturgy. Grand Rapids, MI: Publication Committee of the Christian Reformed Church, 1959. “The Eighty Most Cited Articles in Physiological Zoology/Physiological and Biochemical Zoology, 1927 to 2006.” Physiological and Biochemical Zoology 80, no. 1 (2007): 3–8. Wilkinson, Loren, ed. Earthkeeping, Christian Stewardship of Natural Resources. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980.

4

Prophets and Poets: The Capture of the Creative Vision Luci Shaw

Seeing, Hearing, Offering With feet in two worlds—the earth-bound reality and the unseen but utterly real transcendent sphere—Biblical prophets were uniquely chosen individuals. As enlisted and commandeered by God, they spoke to the people from God, and to God from the people, inhabiting the tricky threshold between heaven and earth, divine and human. Their calling was to hear divine words, see divine visions, and then speak the prophetic messages to their listeners, linking the transcendent and immanent. As a poet I have felt drawn to a somewhat similar task. I have been gifted with ideas that seem to come from beyond me, seeing “pictures in my head” (I call this “imagination,” with images, or mental representations showing up), and I have written them down, and written about them as part of the creative process, first in my reflective journal and then, by means of publication, into the public sphere. The finding of words to describe this visionary imagery has called and pressed upon me from early childhood, encouraged by my writer father. And as an adult, I pray and dream that the words and ideas continually given to me might continue to say something true and meaningful to a reader, a listener. Presented with visions, permitted to see what others could not, prophets in Scripture were called to proclaim in human language what was “un-seeable” to their audience. Some of the most lasting and vivid poetry in Scripture came from the mouths of these prophets. Throughout biblical history there were many of them, nearly always sent by God to speak words of correction, warning or fore-telling. Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Daniel, and Isaiah, known as the major prophets because of the length, complexity, and duration of their prophecies, contained image after image of blazing intensity. The so-called “minor prophets” also had this gift of perception, these briefer glimpses of unseen reality, also to be conveyed in words and actions. Habakkuk’s vision was called “a burden,” something so heavy with portent and responsibility that expressing it, living it out, was the divine yet difficult message on which the welfare of God’s people depended. These spokespeople for God were not exclusively male. Indeed, five female prophets are mentioned in Scripture, including Miriam, Huldah, Deborah, Noadiah, and one other designated simply as “the prophetess.” DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-8

42  Luci Shaw To be sure, being called by God as a prophet was not an easy assignment. It set the seers apart from and often against those they were called to challenge. Sometimes, as in the case of Jonah’s prophetic call to Nineveh, the prophet fled the daunting task. And as is so often the case, obedience was better exemplified by other members of the creational community: RELUCTANT PROPHET

Both were dwellers in deep places (one in the dark bowels of ships and great fish and wounded pride. The other in the silvery belly of the seas). Both heard God saying “Go!” but the whale did as he was told.1 At other times, the prophetic call was well-heeded by its human subjects. For example, the young boy Samuel, with his responsive spirit, woken from sleep three times by God, was the one chosen to call out the high priest Eli who had grown old and tired and had forgotten to listen to and obey Yahweh, to the detriment of the people he was meant to lead. The proverb says it succinctly: “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Prov 29:18 KJV). Through Samuel, the vision came alive again, becoming real and effective in the lives of the populace. Reflecting the settings and cultures of the hearers, presented in the language of the people, these biblical prophecies bristle with colorful imagery, pregnant with exalted and earthy metaphors that express divine realities. Much of it follows the forms of Hebraic poetry in couplets that reiterate or contrast a pivotal concept. Take the clarion call to the prophet Isaiah, whose words describe his vision of the Mighty One: “I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple” (Isa 6:1 KJV). The exalted vision that follows is pure poetry. Somehow it reaches me most powerfully as expressed in the King James version with its grand sonorities. Isaiah’s response, “Here am I; send me” (Isa 6:8 KJV) has been echoed down the centuries by more contemporary intermediaries. Yet, many of the biblical prophecies employed images that were more earthbound than those of Isaiah. Think of Jeremiah’s dream of a basket of rotten figs, inedible, like the people who he was castigating. Think of Ezekiel, who literally lived his metaphor, required by God to lie on his side, bound with cords for months on end to illustrate the bondage of the people of Judah. The prophetic vision was often challenging, heavy, a prediction of imminent destruction and calamity spoken to God’s people who were not following God’s call to faithfulness. In Jeremiah’s time, this message of doom so offended the people that they put the prophet in a deep, muddy pit to think it over.

Prophets and Poets  43 The pattern continues into the New Testament. At his conversion on the Damascus Road, God flung Saul from his horse and claimed him in unmistakable terms. The vision was blinding and unspeakable, the life-change dramatic, and the result, world-changing. In the Revelation of John the Divine, the exiled prophet on Patmos saw the blazing image of “One like the Son of Man” who transmitted to him prophetic messages for the Christian believers in seven communities of the early church. He was told, “Write what you see.” “Listen to the wind-words,” is how a contemporary translation puts it. With its brilliant, mystical metaphors John’s vision continues with some of the most arresting and high-flown language and imagery in the Bible. It is both daunting and beatific. And in our own day, with a mechanistic society trammeled with political conflicts, and a waning consciousness of the sublime, I believe poets, particularly poets of Christian faith and conviction, have a similar mandate. I’m suggesting that writers who cultivate the gift of perception will make connections with what they see in imagination and how they write about it. It is a kind of translation in the hope that something of what they see and hear will open a fresh understanding, will illuminate and recharge their readers. Jesus often prepared to speak to his hearers with the words “Truly, truly, here’s what I’m about to tell you….” It was like taking someone by the arm and saying, “Hey. Look this way! Have you noticed…? Can you see what I am seeing? Let me tell you what it means.” The challenges of contemporary prophets, “God-­ speakers,” do not have to be earth-shaking or exalted or profound, but they must call the listener to attention, speaking into other human minds, building bridges between writers and readers. In my own experience of writing poetry, work that I hope will be both apodictic and accessible, it’s as if a poem hasn’t fulfilled its purpose until it makes a connection in someone else’s imagination and thus enlarges, by increments, that companion mind. We mortals, though earth-bound, may cultivate a contemporary consciousness that seeks access to ultimate possibilities and invisible realities. We have a connection with the seen and unseen by way of Holy Spirit insight, suggesting that like John the Revelator we are called to “write what we see.” As we live in a creative world of beauty and terror, delight and disruption, possibility and plague, we are called to notice the contrasts and linkages that fascinate and compel us into truthtelling and metaphorical language. As it was for Habakkuk, burdened with a prophetic vision, so also we may be compelled to find a powerful image for a poem, or a story, or a play. Our insights and language may “burden” us with something that cries out to be spoken, that will not be gainsaid. Not everyone in scripture was called to be a prophet, not even the righteous. Not every human being will see reality through the eyes of imagination and vision. Yet in our own time we may also have access to the transcendent as our imaginations receive “pictures in our heads.” Rhythms and phrases take hold of us. Individual words and phrases will call to us from the pages of contemporary novels and journals, demanding to be written into poems. Ideas take shape and color and meaning. Rhythmic phrases hum and vibrate in our minds as they wait to be expressed in rhyme and meter or vivid prose.

44  Luci Shaw Poets, prophets, may not always be at the center of a social structure. Rather they are often on “the edge of inside,” as Fr. Richard Rohr has suggested. We stand on a kind of threshold looking out, and in, and then, using the magic of language, we may open a window, point at a landscape and ask: “You there! Can you see what I’m seeing?”—an introduction and invitation to enter our vision and make a connection. There is, then, a kind of intimacy found in a connection between the observer and the observed, and in the parallels that exist between the observer’s description and the reader’s reflection and comprehension. Often, the particulars of created being—even an unassuming flower—are thresholds of interconnection. Can you see?: CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER, WITH PEONY  

 

 

 

 

So, I didn’t latch onto a holy word and go into space and, ethereal, lose touch with my body. But God, in those thirty slow minutes, you unfolded in me the bud of a fresh flower, with color and fragrance that was more than my soul was capable of on its own.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

… We all, with unveiled face, behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord.

And when the peony showed up, I saw it as a kind of lens for vision. This was glory in pink and cream, with a smell of heaven. Petals like valves opening into the colors of my heart.  

 

 

 

 

I saw myself kneeling on a grass border, my knees bruising the green, pressing my face into the face of this silken, just-opened bloom, and breathing it, wanting to drown in it. Wanting     to grow in its reflected image.2 The Practices of Poetic Vision The prophetic-poetic vocation is not carried out by happenstance. It requires a habit of being, familiar routines, and repeated practices. The practices and habits that have become life-giving and integral to my life have included the keeping of a reflective journal, and little notebooks everywhere to be found: all around the house, easily accessible in the car, roving in my purse. And when images or ideas come to mind, there’s a fresh page available for me to jot down words or intriguing ideas to

Prophets and Poets  45 be crafted, later, into poems. When I’m reading poetry by other writers, or even a news magazine or a literary journal, words and phrases often leap off the pages and demand their inclusion in an essay or a poem. Another habitual practice is I read widely—The Holy Bible and other, less sanctified sources of interest and information: The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Christian Century, The Economist, news magazines (though I’ve learned to limit my viewing of television news). Later, I transfer the compelling words and phrases into my computer, for further refining work. Often I adapt them as I write, as they emerge into creative form as poems or essays. Paying attention has become my rule of life, a persistent modus vivendi. I love the Latin word ad-tendere, “attention,” meaning, a leaning in or into, a leaning toward. Paying attention implies a seriousness of intention, of focus, of investigation in reaching for an essential value. Also, in writing poetry and reflective prose, I’m conscious of the value of a certain familiarity with other languages: I grew fluent with French during the years I lived in Canada and studied Latin for four years in high school, and in college I declared a minor in New Testament Greek. And in attending to words, I use the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) for authenticity, with its helpful definitions and linguistic origins. Understanding something of where words come from enriches them. For me, then, writing involves entering into the heart of language, and of an incident’s is-ness, or an awareness betokened by haecceity, the essence or inherent nature of a particular thing, a knowing-ness emphasized by Duns Scotus in the 14th century, and practiced to extraordinary effect by Gerard Manley Hopkins. I find that reading a poem aloud is a way of entering its heart from a fresh angle. No poem is meant to lie silent on a page. So I rehearse my poetry by voicing it aloud, or I ask someone else to read it aloud to test its rhythms and its effectiveness. On Becoming a Poet, In the Garden My father was a popular conference speaker who was invited to speak at churches and conferences around the world. Our family, my mother, brother and me, traveled with him, which meant interrupted school and academic schedules. Out of a happy but chaotic childhood I’ve come to value what I call “Reversing Entropy.” Entropy is a measure of molecular disorder or randomness and I’ve always felt the call to bring some kind of order out of chaos, or to find pattern in the chaos. While this venture is expressively practiced in any art form, and in our unique human endeavors, generally, for me it has been poetry that has offered a unique way of restoring order (an activity God is deeply involved in). And in this craft, I’ve always loved to find some kind of significance in the ordinary, translating it into something that bears witness to the extraordinary. How did I become a poet? Some of my earliest memories are of putting bright little words together to make something new or compelling, a habit for which I had my father’s enthusiastic encouragement as he carried my youthful poems in his briefcase to show his friends. In spite of interrupted school work, my exposure to different cultures, scenes, and settings was culturally and intellectually stimulating,

46  Luci Shaw and my parents practiced reading aloud good literature in our family almost daily. That kind of focused listening brought us into an immediate experience of literary form, and of the kind of structure and rhythms that make language work. Beyond this rich and focused listening to word and form, natural beauties have also always called my name, from the eucalyptus trees, with their pungent, astringent scent in the Blue Mountains of Australia, to the Muskoka Lakes in the province of Ontario (as a kid I still remember the intense sensory pleasure of exploring the water’s edge and climbing the mossy rocks in bare feet). I became competent at swimming, sailing, diving, tent camping, and canoeing, and once took a four-day rafting trip down the Grand Canyon. And in adult life, the extraordinary landscapes of the high desert in New Mexico and Arizona continue to speak into me. And so perennially, ineluctably, I’m stirred by the call of redemptive beauty and the mandate of creation care. Indeed, I love it when some headline in the local paper expresses, in a mundane headline, a startling announcement: COMEBACK FOR SNOWY PLOVER

Associated Press headline, Oct. 13, 2014 O, lesser flake of feathers, O downy shore-winged picker of cockles and mites, twig-legged runner through ripples, who was it called you out of extinction  to flit and flirt again with the waves? Who missed you enough to amend your habitation? Who restored you, winging you back to the beaches of our lives? What urgent impulse then spirited you, safe in your dappled egg, to break shell, chick stirring in shallow sand-scrape, lifting to fly the salt wind—rising in drafts over the wild surf, your pinions riding the breath of God?3 Climate change is unmistakably upon us, from the devastating wildfires in Oregon and California, to globally unprecedented heat waves (last summer we recorded a temperature of 110 degrees on our own back deck, here in Washington State). We’ve watched the snow-pack melt and disappear on Mt. Baker, just an hour’s drive from our home in Bellingham; the dark rock formations are reappearing, revealing the bones of the mountain.

Prophets and Poets  47 Communities of Hope Yet, there are communities of hope. A memorable adventure in my seventies involved a boat trip with a group of graduate students from Regent College (Vancouver, B.C.), as we wended our watery way among the Gulf Islands that cluster offshore in Washington and British Columbia. Loren and Mary Ruth Wilkinson, pioneers in creation care, have always been my heroes. Each summer, for decades, they have taught and led a course in “Technology, Wilderness, and Creation.” So I found myself wedded to a team of rowers, becoming one with the landscape and seascape in a ship’s boat modeled after that of explorer Dionisio Galliano. Students rowed in sync, at one with the water and the islands for a week, camping in our pup tents overnight, and later writing essays about our experiences, our observations. It was an exercise in paying attention, immediacy, cooperation, and unity of purpose. Yes indeed, there are communities of hope. And among myriad other recollections, I recall the work and vision of those prophetic and personal heroes of mine, such as Peter and Miranda Harris, friends, promoters and advocates of the worldwide movement of A Rocha International. Harbingers of hope, sometimes we are cheered as efforts in conservation prove fruitful, and the broadest sense of poetry, poiesis, is practiced in communities of hope, bringing creational transformation. And I also recall joining Loren on a bluff path above the Georgia Straits on Hunterston Farm, the Wilkinsons’ property, as we grubbed up arms-full of spiny yellow gorse, the noxious, insubordinate weed that invades our regional landscape. We conversed, as he and I worked, about Martin Heidegger’s theories of the “Insubordinate Idea.” Ironically, we shared exactly what Heidegger never fully inhabited: an incarnational community of justice, transformation, and hope. Why? Is that not curious? Perhaps not. For he missed the Incarnation—creation’s mundane gift and glory, the integrating ground of prophetic and poetic word and vision —where the parallels between physical and metaphysical realities bloom: THE GOLDEN RATIO & THE CORIOLIS FORCE

The Coriolis force acts on moving objects, such as water going down a drain, which are deflected as a result of the planet’s rotation, spiraling right in the Northern Hemisphere and left in the Southern. This morning God himself – his wafer – lay for a moment on my tongue. I felt the blood of God race through my veins. Week by week Christ’s flesh gets broken down in my own body cells, as the platelets in my plasma, like an uncurling swirl of skyward birds, like my life spiral, maintain their slow unwinding.

48  Luci Shaw The second law The hurricanes, like commas on the weather map. Amoebas. Waterspouts. Curled fetuses. Convolvulus vines twisting counterclockwise on the trellis. Dust devils dancing across fields. The spiral nebulae. The nautilus. The human ear. My bathwater scrolling down the drain—everything made by God looks God-like, and these unfolding spirals seem to me the shape of God. The universe, once wound up, is now rewinding, like my life — to zero and the Everything of God (who lay this morning naked on the manger of my tongue).4 Notes

1 2 3 4

Luci Shaw, Sea Glass: New and Selected Poems (Seattle: WordFarm, 2016), 58. Ibid., 29. Ibid., 19. Ibid., 179.

Reference Shaw, Luci. Sea Glass: New and Selected Poems. Seattle: WordFarm, 2016.

5

A Table and a Planet: From Hearthkeeping to Earthkeeping Mary Ruth Wilkinson and Loren Wilkinson

In the winter of 1970, snow was heavy in upstate New York, as it often is. We had moved, with our three-year-old twins Heidi and Erik, to the barracks of marriedstudent housing at Syracuse University for a Ph.D. program in humanities in the fall of 1969. All of us loved the winter weather: snowmen, shopping trips with the sled, and drifts sometimes deep enough to jump into from the roof. In the spring, as the snow melted, we began to explore the Onondaga hills to the south. One Sunday afternoon we drove a graveled road along a ridge till it was blocked by the lingering snow. We walked on the snow a bit further till we came to a snow-covered bridge; under it a glorious waterfall burst out and cascaded into a snow-filled gorge. We fell in love with the place (and the name of the road: “Woodmancy”) and came back often through the spring. But as the snow melted, we discovered to our horror that the gorge below the waterfall had long been used as a convenient dump: it was littered with bottles, cans, and other rotted garbage. It was a kind of desecration. We wanted to do something about it. That was in the spring of the first “Earth Day.” Loren was teaching freshman English at LeMoyne, a Jesuit college in Syracuse, and told his class about it. Instead of participating in a “Teach-In” for Earth Day, we enlisted an enthusiastic group of students, rented a truck, bought a lot of plastic garbage bags, and determined to clean up the gorge by the waterfall. But that first Earth Day in Syracuse began with an intense thunderstorm and heavy rain. Reluctantly, we canceled the trunk rental and called off the cleanup. The sun was shining by mid-afternoon, and we have often regretted that we did not carry through. But as the summer progressed and we explored the gorge further we realized it would have been a largely futile exercise: the cans and bottles were superficial garbage over a deeper accumulation of old appliances and wrecked cars which we never could have moved. A virtue deeper than our urge for tidiness was lacking in the culture that produced the dump. But we were shaped by that culture, along with most of the “developed” world which regarded Nature as a resource—or a convenient place to throw things “away.” That non-event from our first Earth Day has often seemed to us emblematic of much of the environmental movement: a well-intentioned desire to do good, DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-9

50  Mary Ruth Wilkinson and Loren Wilkinson which doesn’t touch the roots of the problem. We knew (in Bob Dylan’s words) that “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” The “counterculture” was blooming. We were eager readers of that countercultural bible, The Whole Earth Catalogue.1 There, along with articles on geodesic domes, hand-cranked ice cream freezers, and techniques for self-enlightenment, we found Wendell Berry’s essay “Think Little.” It put the “changin’ times” of the counterculture in a sobering perspective: …the environmental crisis should make it dramatically clear, as perhaps it has not always been before, that there is no public crisis that is not also private…. Every time we draw a breath, every time we drink a glass of water, every time we eat a bite of food we are suffering from it…. Nearly every one of us, nearly every day of his life, is contributing directly to the ruin of this planet. A protest meeting on the issue of environmental abuse is not a convocation of accusers, it is a convocation of the guilty. That realization ought to clear the smog of self-righteousness that has almost conventionally hovered over these occasions and let us see the work that is to be done.2 About that time, Mary Ruth read Wendell Berry’s book The Long-Legged House.3 In it Berry makes an early form of the case that he has been making powerfully for more than 50 years: that we can’t care for a whole planet, but we can at least begin to care for a place and a community, beginning with our own marriage and family. We need to be rooted. Having children made us painfully aware both of that need for a place—and of how miserably we were failing. Though we had deep roots ourselves (Mary Ruth in a midwestern town, Loren on an Oregon farm), our quest for schooling and jobs did not give that rootedness to our children. By the time they were teenagers we had moved seven times. But we caught glimpses of rootedness. One was the gift of one of Loren’s professors, Randall Brune, who worked almost every weekend expanding the Onondoga trail system in New York’s hill country. He invited us to help, which we did often. Years earlier Mary Ruth had fallen in love with wildflowers on a hike with her family to an alpine meadow in Glacier National Park. As we slowly cleared a place to walk through those recovering Eastern woodlands, she re-discovered and went deeper into that whole world of unnecessary beauty: bloodroot, trilliums, hepaticas…. And Loren found the trail-building—often along the old stone walls of longabandoned farms—oddly reminiscent of his own childhood in the dwindling forests of his own family’s Oregon farm. As a child, he had discovered trilliums— along cow-trails beside old trees. But half the work on the farm had been logging that remaining riverside forest in order to make room for crops and cattle. (The last old-growth Douglas fir trees on that farm were cut down to provide him money to go to college.) So he found the act of trail-building powerfully symbolic of the intended human task. For he knew another kind of building all too well: one summer before college he had helped a cousin whose job was to survey logging roads into the forested Oregon mountains. They worked just ahead of the fallers and the

A Table and a Planet  51 bulldozers, whose only relation to the virgin forest was extraction, and whose only legacy was stumps and eroding soil. His dissertation at Syracuse University was about the revolution in human consciousness that had begun a century and a half before with Romanticism in Europe. Transplanted to the New World it had grown, through thinkers like Thoreau and Muir, into the young environmental movement. One of the contemporary thinkers he was reading was the German philosopher Martin Heidegger, whose difficult early work had become focused on the nature of technology: the difference between “calculative thought,” which regarded the earth only as a resource, and “meditative thought,” whose purpose was to clear a space in the forest of Being which let the wonder of things appear around it.4 One of Heidegger’s main metaphors for that kind of thought was that it was a kind of holzwege, a path through the forest.5 A word he used to describe the attitude necessary for such a respectful presence was Gelassenheit, “releasement.” Loren knew—but did not reflect on—the fact that the term came from the Christian mysticism of Meister Eckhart. We were trying to be serious Christians—but we did not yet see the deep connection between Gelassenheit, Heidegger’s groping toward a new way of being in creation, and kenosis: the self-giving love at the heart of our faith. Neither of our backgrounds—even after a good Christian liberal arts education, and seminary—had given us much in the way of resources to think deeply about the implications of the Christian Gospel for the natural world. But that was to begin to change as we began full-time teaching. Our first teaching job after graduate school was in the English department at Seattle Pacific College. We were delighted to begin to put down roots in Cascadia, and to begin to get to know the inlets and islands of what we now call the Salish Sea. The environmental movement was already flourishing there. Industrial logging was spreading up the mountains toward treeline; salmon runs were declining; tanker traffic was increasing on Puget Sound. But real wilderness was only an hour’s drive away. So we divided our weekends between trying to find a church with a good Sunday school for our kids—and backpacking into mountain lakes. At the same time, we were becoming more aware that the same vices which had dumped garbage in our New York waterfall were rapidly diminishing even these last healthy American ecosystems. And we found we couldn’t teach English literature, in a Christian College, without trying to bring our feeling for the created world, and the cultural history we were teaching, together with our faith in the God who, we believed, held it all together in Christ. In our second year of teaching there we took a class of students up for a weekend together in a large old house, one of several built near the turn of the century for officers (and their families and servants) who managed “Fort Casey” (now a state park). The college had acquired the barracks and these old grand old houses, which were then largely unused. “Camp Casey” as it was called, was beautifully situated, in old woods, opposite the Straits of Juan de Fuca, by a lake rich with migrating ducks and geese, in sight of the Olympic Mountains across Puget Sound, and near a rich natural prairie (whose farms are now part of a National Historic Reserve).

52  Mary Ruth Wilkinson and Loren Wilkinson That weekend with the students on Whidbey Island changed our lives. We can’t remember much of the academic content we were supposed to cover. What we do remember was the powerful rightness of being under the same roof, cooking in the same kitchen, eating meals around the same table, with the students we were teaching, all in a place where the wonder of the created world (forest, mountains, ocean) could not be avoided. As we drove back to the ferry that Sunday afternoon we sketched out the idea of a whole environmental studies program with students in that house on Whidbey Island. The college was agreeable—so the next fall we moved in there with our two children and sixteen students. Our overarching purpose was to think about what it meant to live self-consciously as Christians on a planet where—as a whole culture was beginning to learn—“when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”6 (Those words of John Muir became a kind of motto for the program.) We were joined by other faculty—in physics, biology, recreation, art—who came up from Seattle for the day, and they were enthusiastic about the experiment. So were the students, aware they were trying to let our Christian faith inform what was becoming a burgeoning “movement.” “The Environment” became a commonplace word in the 1970s. And there was a lot of new stuff to have the students read, both light and heavy, from The Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth, to Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, published in 1974, the year of our first program.7 So together we read and talked about books like those, always coming back to the question: what does the Christian faith we all profess have to do with what we were studying? Does God care about whales and sea grass? When we turn our eyes upon Jesus (as the song says) should the things of earth grow strangely dim? Or should we see them more clearly? Since we can’t study ecology without starting with evolution, what does “creation” mean? If the Christian life is about “going to heaven,” why should we care for the earth? What do we say to Lynn White, when he says that Western Christianity bears a huge burden of guilt for the environmental crisis?8 Those were engaging class sessions. But the rest of the time we were either outdoors, getting to know the life of the forest and the sea—or indoors, sharing the tasks of cooking and cleaning, and learning to put up with each other’s inexhaustible strangeness. And that’s where the deepest learning seemed to happen. We have stayed in touch with many of those students over the decades. Those were lifechanging months for many of them as well. But when they talk about the impact which the “Casey Quarter” (as it came to be called) had, they don’t say much about the classes or the books. Those were essential. But the thing that made it powerful was the experience of living together. “The classes were good,” one of them told us recently. “But the most important thing was being in the kitchen working and talking with Mary Ruth.” Living together wasn’t always easy. After a few weeks the enchantment wore thin. “Christian community” was a lot easier to talk about than to live. But as we

A Table and a Planet  53 think back on that time, we realize that we were learning that we can’t talk or think wisely about the virtues which we need in order to care for the earth apart from the virtues we need in order to care for each other. We remember one incident in particular when a particularly brilliant—and difficult!—student was complaining because he had learned we were eating cabbage rolls that night, and he detested cabbage rolls. We had been talking in class about the relevance of Paul’s urging in Philippians 2 that we have “the mind of Christ,” an attitude which puts the welfare of the other before that of the self. We saw that attitude was as pertinent to our behavior in creation as it was to something as trivial as the quirks and tastes of other persons. We had a table big enough for all 18 of us to sit around comfortably, and meals became an important part of the program—not just because of what we talked about, but also because of what we ate. We were beginning to learn that we too were part of a food web, and that agriculture was one of the most destructive of human activities. We were not completely vegetarian—but were aware that eating meat involved us in a costly sacrifice. One year our beef was provided by a steer from Loren’s brother’s farm in Oregon. We made sure the students knew his name was “Blacky” and hung a picture of him on the dining room wall. Meal-time blessings—sung or said—began to make us aware of something that became much clearer to us years later: that every human meal is a kind of sacrament, illuminated by the Communion meal at the heart of Christian worship. We continued the Casey program for three years, till we felt that our children, who now were ten, needed a different environment. And though the success of the program depended in part on its setting in the country, by the sea, we knew that the problems we were thinking about had to be dealt with in the city. So we decided to redesign the program so that it would involve other faculty on the island campus, and we would move back to Seattle. We had just made that hard decision when we heard of Calvin College’s first “Center for Christian Scholarship” project: to bring a group of scholars together to work for a year thinking seriously about (in their words) “Christian Stewardship of Natural Resources.” Three Calvin faculty—Peter De Vos (a philosopher), Eugene Dykema (an economist), and Vern Ehlers (a physicist)—were already chosen, as well as Cal DeWitt (a biologist from the University of Wisconsin). Loren applied and was accepted. So late that summer we loaded our Volkswagen with the kids, our dog, our cat, and a canoe, rented a U-Haul, and moved to Grand Rapids. That was an enormously valuable year. It introduced us to the rigor and richness of the Reformed tradition, and to colleagues like Nicholas Wolterstorff, Alvin Plantinga, Rich Mouw, and George Marsden. More importantly: it gave us a chance to pull together, in the company of the other careful thinkers in that first Calvin Center project, the thinking that had taken shape among the communities of students on Whidbey Island. Loren ended up being the editor of the book the team produced, which became a resource for other Christians concerned about the care of creation. It was

54  Mary Ruth Wilkinson and Loren Wilkinson published in 1980, and Eerdmans asked us for a revised edition in 1990.9 The original team got together again and the first thing we noticed was the shortsightedness of the topic we were given: “stewardship of natural resources.” “Stewardship” is a valuable, necessary, but dangerous idea, for it can (though it need not) imply an attitude of arrogance and detachment on the part of the “steward.” (That was the subject of another Calvin Center project in 2019, which recently produced a book published on the 40th anniversary of our book, called “Beyond Stewardship.”) 10 But the worst blind spot in the wording of that first Calvin Center project was to give the name “natural resources” to what we are trying to be stewards of—as though, as the garbage-filled gorge below that Woodmancy waterfall implied, creation’s only value is its usefulness to we humans. So the revised edition had the vastly better subtitle, “stewardship of creation.” That was only the subtitle. The title of the book may have been the project’s greatest contribution to the Christian environmental movement. And it takes us back to the table, and the attempt to live together as a community in a place which we love. After our year at Calvin we returned, not to Seattle Pacific, but to a small academic program in the mountains of southern Oregon called “The Oregon Extension.” It too brought faculty and students together in a remote and beautiful place to think about the human condition. That’s where we did the final work of editing the book from the Calvin project. But we did not yet have a title beyond the ponderous “Christian Stewardship of Natural Resources.” We remember sitting around our table after a meal. Loren was arguing for something that contained the Greek word oikos, which means “home” or “household”—but is also the root of eco-logy, economics, and ecu-mene—the idea of the world as one community. Mary Ruth argued that was way too obscure and most people wouldn’t know what “oikos” meant. “We’re talking about something much more homey, like housekeeping: that we are housekeeping the earth. How about ‘earthkeeping’?” she said, and we had our title. The word holds more wisdom than we realized. To begin with (as Steve BoumaPrediger has pointed out) “creation” is pretty grandiose, given the size of the universe. The earth, our home, is only a tiny corner of the whole creation. And by linguistic coincidence, the “earth” evokes another word, “hearth,” the traditional warm center of a home where people gather and food is cooked. And that word holds “heart” as well. So “earthkeeping” chimes with “hearthkeeping” and “heartkeeping.” Another richness of the word is “keeping.” It is the common translation of the word describing the task given to Adam and Eve in the Genesis 2 creation story: to care for and keep the garden. The same word appears in the Aaronic blessing: “The Lord bless you and keep you.” We are to “keep” the earth, as God “keeps” us—with sacrificial love. This rambling account of the complicated first 16 years of our married life and our attempts to link our Christian faith with the care of creation is a kind of prelude to the rest of it, which has been more rooted, but just as full. In 1981, after three years at the Oregon Extension, we were invited to come to Regent College, in

A Table and a Planet  55 Vancouver, British Columbia (where we are now dual citizens of both the United States and Canada). Regent is a graduate school of Christian Studies, which attracts students from around the world. They come, from many places and vocations, to think about what their faith in the crucified God implies for their own life and work in the world. Over more than 40 years in that international community we have learned a tremendous amount from the Biblical and theological wisdom of colleagues like Jim Houston (a Scot), Klaus Bockmuehl (a German), Jim Packer (English), Iain Provan (another Scot), Rikki Watts (Australian), and Eugene Peterson (another Northwesterner). But we have learned the most from the students, many of whom have given up a great deal to come to study in the beautiful but expensive city of Vancouver. They often live in cramped basement apartments with little ability to experience the forests, mountains, and islands just out of reach around them. We wanted to share with them some of the richness and beauty of creation. That hope led— through a long series of providentially choreographed events—to a group of us buying a waterfront farm on Galiano Island, an hour’s ferry ride away. To make it happen we had to sell our house in Vancouver and move here ourselves, which we did in 1988. We have an old oak table (a gift of Mary Ruth’s parents), which can expand from a 4-foot circle, which seats four comfortably, to a long oval that can seat 18. A saw-horse and plywood extension adds another half-dozen places. We planted a large vegetable garden and added more fruit trees. Over the years many hundreds of students—sometimes one or a couple, sometimes a dozen, occasionally a whole class of 20 or more—have found a place around that table. Eating food they helped to plant, weed, harvest or prepare deepens the lesson we began to learn when living and working together with those students on Whidbey Island: meals are a costly gift. That table—in fact any table with food on it—has helped us deepen and share our early lessons about “earthkeeping.” We were helped by what we were learning at Regent—from both colleagues and students—about what it means to be made in the image of the triune Creator. We have come to appreciate the 15th-century Russian artist Anton Rublev’s great icon of the holy trinity—three figures seated around a table, the open place in front inviting us, through food, into that circle of shared life. On one level it pictures a simple act of hospitality: Abraham and Sarah’s providing food and drink for three strangers. On another it has made us see that every meal is a kind of communion meal, in which the guest becomes the host. Eating is necessary to living. But eating involves us in death: that principle is basic to both a table and a planet. We often sing a blessing: “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow,” or “Be present at our table Lord.” After the “Amen” we sometimes look around in wonder at the harmony of our different voices. As Jeremy Begbie has argued, singing together is perhaps the best way to imagine that God is a community and that being itself is communion.

56  Mary Ruth Wilkinson and Loren Wilkinson Two courses emerged from our life on Galiano. One, “Food: Creation, Community and Communion” grew directly out of our experiences around the table, and involved 20 or so students living and working together for a couple of weeks studying a wide variety of aspects of eating—from basic ecology and physiology, through world hunger, to the fact that eating is a part of Christian worship. It came to be known simply as “The Food Course.” The other course, “Wilderness, Technology and Creation,” is older, and known simply as “The Boat Course.” It involves a week-long voyage among the Gulf Islands in old wooden boats propelled only by oar and sail. That dependence on an older technology, in navigating currents and weathers which we cannot control, provides a chance to think about what it means to be a human creature in creation (especially because, over the 25 years of the course, it has been increasingly necessary to ask students to leave their “devices” behind!). Both these courses have taken on aspects of pilgrimage: a journey together. We found that those experiences in the inexhaustible variety of creation were deepened by a daily liturgy, using simple prayers, scripture, and reading to provide a context for the day’s work. At the beginning of each course, we provide the students with two gifts which they can keep. One is a little booklet, Voyages (for the Boat Course) or Taste and See (for the Food Course), which outlines the activities for the days ahead, along with simple liturgies for morning and evening prayer. The booklets contain scriptures, quotes, poems, and hymns that resonate with course themes. The other gift is a cloth napkin, sewn by Mary Ruth, on fabric with a food or agriculture pattern (for the Food course), or sea life and boats (for the Boat course). The pattern is a reminder of the course, but the napkin itself is a reminder of the grace of creatures and Creator which makes any meal possible. In various forms those courses continue, though (due to advancing age) we are not as involved as we once were. But they have helped us distill a few earthkeeping essentials. One is the centrality of eating mindfully at a table together—often with the blessing of candlelight. Another is the good and often hard work of living, working, and learning together as a community. We all grow and mature as we and the students go from the initial exhilaration of a new course with new folks, through mutual frustrations with each other, to a deeper wisdom about ourselves and creation. But the undergirding essential is doing these within the framework provided by prayer and scripture. The old words from the end of the family service of evening prayer in the Book of Common Prayer are more relevant than ever in this time of drastic changes, in both culture and climate. They give hope: Be present, O merciful God, and protect us through the silent hours of this night, so that we who are wearied by the changes and chances of this fleeting world, may repose upon your eternal changelessness. And we often send off guests and students from our door by reciting a blessing taken from the end of morning prayer in Celtic Daily Prayer, which is part of our

A Table and a Planet  57 morning liturgy. The words also make a good conclusion to these reflections on Earthkeeping and Hearthkeeping: May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you, wherever He may send you. May He guide you through the wilderness, protect you through the storm. May He bring you home rejoicing at the wonders he has shown you, May He bring you home rejoicing once again into our doors. Notes 1 Stewart Brand, Whole Earth Catalogue: Access to Tools (Menlo Park, CA: Portola Institute, Inc., 1968). 2 Wendell Berry, “Think Little,” in A Continuous Harmony: Essays Cultural and Agricultural (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975), 73–74. 3 Wendell Berry, The Long-Legged House (New York: Counterpoint, 2003). 4 Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays (New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2013). 5 Martin Heidegger, Off the Beaten Track, eds. and trans. Julian Young and Kenneth Haynes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 6 John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1911), Chapter 6. 7 Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III, The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind (New York: Universe Books, 1972). Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (New York: HarperCollins, 1999). 8 Lynn White, Jr. “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis,” in Science 155 (1967): 1203–1207. 9 Loren Wilkinson, ed., Earthkeeping: Christian Stewardship of Natural Resources (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980). Cf. also Loren Wilkinson, ed., Earthkeeping in the Nineties: Stewardship of Creation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991). 10 David P. Warners and Matthew Kuperus Heun, eds., Beyond Stewardship: New Approaches to Creation Care (Grand Rapids: Calvin College Press, 2019).

References Berry, Wendell. The Long-Legged House. New York: Counterpoint, 2003. Berry, Wendell. “Think Little.” In A Continuous Harmony: Essays Cultural and Agricultural, 69–82. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975. Brand, Stewart. Whole Earth Catalogue: Access to Tools. Menlo Park, CA: Portola Institute, Inc, 1968. Dillard, Annie. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. New York: HarperCollins, 1999. Heidegger, Martin. Off the Beaten Track, edited and translated by Julian Young and Kenneth Haynes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. ———. The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2013. Meadows, Donella H., Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III. The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind. New York: Universe Books, 1972.

58  Mary Ruth Wilkinson and Loren Wilkinson Muir, John. My First Summer in the Sierra. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1911. Warners, David P., and Matthew Kuperus Heun, eds. Beyond Stewardship: New Approaches to Creation Care. Grand Rapids: Calvin College Press, 2019. Wilkinson, Loren, ed. Earthkeeping: Christian Stewardship of Natural Resources. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980. ———, ed. Earthkeeping in the Nineties: Stewardship of Creation. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991. White, Lynn Jr. “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis.” Science 155 (1967): 1203–1207.

In the Garden Todd Davis When the last pollinator fluttered its wings and folded into itself, like newspaper as it catches flame, we’d already buried the skeletons of the remaining hummingbirds, the husks of bees, what little was left of the antennae of moths and butterflies, the tiny corpses of the penultimate wasp and ant, the sting and bite of these small lives no longer a threat. Nothing had to be done for the scurrying beetles who burrowed into caskets of their own making, but some of us hung the now still bodies of swerving bats from lampposts, while others gathered them in nets, making pilgrimages to caves to lay them to rest. At a museum in Washington, D.C., small brass plates named each creature, explained their place in the vanishing taxonomy. Underground installations housed seeds for plants and trees, and we collected an example of each species that played a role in fertilization, pinned them to a board with elaborate charts that identified body parts and their peculiar uses. We were most interested in their mechanical efficiency and wished to recover the ways they conveyed pollen from anther to stigma. We brought in theologians who revised the sign of the cross, a version that emphasized reproductive organs and the importance of fecundity. Even the scientists believed resurrection, grown in a Petri dish, was our only chance: stigmata marking the wings of a swallowtail or monarch, each of us longing to touch the holes we’d help to make in the colorful fabric. This was our prayer to unburden us of doubt, and despite our lack of faith, we ached for a peach at the end of a branch, a plum or apple, the honeyed pears we greedily ate in August, juice dribbling from our chins, fingers sticky with our own undoing. The few scientists who were not already living off-planet began to create new designs for our children’s hands and lips, working to enhance the ridges in the brain that help to discern and process olfactory signals. They wrote code while the future slept in its fleshly rooms, reprogramming the cells for stunted growth, perfectly proportioned for the work that lay ahead. Where some might have seen deformity, we saw beauty: sons and daughters walking orchard rows, crawling between cornstalks and vineyard grapes, scaling almond trees whose cupped blossoms waited to be filled with our answers. The children stopped at each bloom, stooped with fingers shaped like paintbrushes, caressing silky petals as grains of pollen caught against their skin, enough static so this precious dusting wouldn’t fall away, until they delivered it to a flower of our choosing.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-10

II

Grounding Narratives of Ecoflourishing and Virtue: Stories Worth Telling

Disarm Laura Kathryn Dvořák Disarm. Oh, to be a fleck of grain Or slender blade of grass Shaking in the field Where I stop And lay my armor down. Witness this fervent mercy. Wet your lips and Drink it in.

Share with me At the gathering table, For there is nectar to sip And food for hungry hearts.

To be the breeze That gently and finally Kisses flesh exposed. To be the ray of sun That dawns on high Burning the sweat suffered From carrying such a weight For so damn long.

Anchor this newly buoyant being. Teach me what it is to be Both earthbound and free.

Disarm. Take this shield As I tend to weathered wings Once bound and clipped. Lay it down for me, with me. Let it shine in the light Or rust in the rain, For it is no longer Mine to bear. Disarm.

Let peace arrive, Soft and boundless In the terrifying space That fear once filled.

This guarded gardenOnce reluctant to growNow proffers jeweled fruit, Tender verdant leaves And deep roots reaching To center once again. Newfound grace for fallow ground.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-12

Hold my hand in yours As I sigh in surrender To tired bones Reveling in joy delayed.

Drop this river’s dam. Let the floodwaters rise In shudders quiet and deep. Disarm.

For she is at home here And you are ready.

6

When Good Christians Destroy the Earth: The Virtue of Limits and the Limits of Virtue Jonathan A. Moo1

Not far from where I live there was until recently 50 acres or so of the sort of healthy ponderosa pine woodland that has become all too rare, a forest of scattered, mature trees with an open understory, where on a spring day like today the sunlight filtering through the canopy would illuminate extravagant yellow flowers of arrowleaf balsamroot, and birdsong would fill the air. But a few months ago, every tree here was razed. Slash piles and a few stumps are the only reminder of giants that had been hundreds of years old. The soil that hasn’t already washed away downhill is a maze of bulldozer tracks. Virtue ethics prompts me to ask the question, “What sort of a person would do something like that?” My temptation is to answer, “A greedy and arrogant cretin who cares only about maximizing profit.” But here’s the problem. Though I don’t know the developer of this particular plot of land, I do know plenty of people who treat the land and its creatures with the same apparent disregard. Yet many of them are paragons of Christian virtue and embody in significant ways many of the virtues for which I might hope. They are people I admire, whose lives are exemplary in their service and generosity in Christ’s kingdom. They are temperate and modest in how they arrange their lives, and, in their dealings with others, they are loving, humble, kind, and generous. There is much I learn from them and seek to emulate – even in regard to environmental ethics. The grateful and humble lifestyle that traditional Christian virtue inculcates stands as a beacon of hope and sanity amidst the consumption-driven madness of our current civilization. Weary of endless theological and ethical debate, it has led me to wonder if in our churches and Christian communities at least we might bypass polarizing discussions about Scripture, science, and politics and focus instead on a simple return to traditional Christian virtue. Focus on the cultivation of individual virtue that aims at true human flourishing, and we might, almost incidentally, promote the flourishing of the earth too. But it doesn’t work. Or, rather, it doesn’t work without the difficult and inevitably conflicted task of reframing the narratives of which we see ourselves a part, of redefining what we mean by flourishing and recapturing a truer vision of what it means to be limited human creatures. In our age of widespread ecological collapse and climate crisis, ignorance and the accumulation of unintended effects contribute DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-13

64  Jonathan A. Moo as much to the ruin of the earth as outright greed and evil. The developers of oncewild places, the drivers of bulldozers, the wielders of chainsaws in ancient forests, the diggers of coal, the executives of fossil fuel companies, the economists cheering on endless growth, the preachers encouraging us to turn our eyes away from the things of the earth, even the college professors of environmental studies who fly to conferences in California to talk about limits and self-restraint – many of them are good people, virtuous Christians even, seeking (as my university expresses it) to honor God, follow Christ, and serve humanity. But meanwhile the unintended effects of our collective actions and our ignorance are destroying God’s creation. Virtue ethicists might quibble by suggesting that such people are not actually practicing the virtues appropriately, that true prudence and justice and humility require in our context attentiveness to how we treat the rest of creation. And they would be right. But the project of redefining and cultivating individual virtues in a way that attends to the flourishing of all of life won’t even get off the ground without attention to the narrative in which these virtues find their place. This chapter begins with the conviction that thinkers like bell hooks and Wendell Berry are correct to identify self-restraint and the acceptance of limits as essential for our belonging to a community and a place, as well as – so John Muir might tell us – for belonging to the earth and the entangled life of the universe.2 Humility and self-restraint (or, as it is traditionally known, temperance, sophrosune) are, I suggest, among the most important virtues for ecoflourishing, and their secure place in the Christian tradition means there is potential to develop them in ways that can inspire Christian environmental thought and practice. Yet, my argument is that unless these virtues are embedded within a story that acknowledges the connectedness of all of life, the distinctive value of the non-human, and the reality of ecological limits and climate crisis, they remain impotent to contribute to the flourishing of all of life. My suggestion that we recenter the formative role of narrative – and what it reveals about ourselves, the creation, and creation’s telos – is hardly novel, given the prominence of narrative in virtue ethics generally. Among recent work specifically on environmental virtue ethics, I note especially Brian Treanor’s Emplotting Virtue, whose essential insight informs my work here: “a complete virtue ethics must take into account the important role of narrative in the understanding and the transmission of the virtues.”3 My focus, however, is more narrowly on the role of limits, humility, and self-restraint in the Christian tradition, and my argument about the necessary role of narrative is more fundamental. It raises questions, at least for me, about whether the focus on individual character that is at the heart of virtue ethics makes it too narrow a framework for our current moment. My criticism of virtue ethics is anticipated in an essay by Holmes Rolston III, with the revealing title, “Environmental Virtue Ethics: Half the Truth but Dangerous as a Whole.”4 Rolston claims that by focusing on the cultivation of individual character, virtue ethics misses the requirement of any “authentic environmental ethic” which must be concerned first and foremost with the wider good of the land and its creatures.5 A narrow focus on cultivating individual virtue dangerously restricts our vision, he says: “I need something bigger on my horizon than

When Good Christians Destroy the Earth  65 my virtues.”6 Moreover, the only reason it might be virtuous to acknowledge and respect the value of other life is if other-than-human life does in fact have value. Kant thought that our treatment of other creatures matters because someone who is cruel to animals is unlikely to treat their fellow human beings well. But the purely instrumental role of other life in this scenario is hardly an adequate basis for an environmental ethic. If the only aim is to train me to treat other people well or to help me become a better person and has nothing to do with the value of other life in and of itself, why not extend the same kindness to a piece of gum stuck on my shoe or to a mere simulation of nature that I might interact with through virtual reality?7 Virtue ethics does not allow us to evade the question of whether and how other life ought to be valued and respected for its own sake. Wendell Berry long ago expressed the point that Rolston is getting at, which is also central to my thesis here: “We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world…. We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us.”8 In what follows, I begin with an assessment of the role of limits in environmental thought generally, and I consider the potential strengths and weaknesses of virtue ethics to reshape the way the issue is traditionally framed, especially a Christian virtue ethic that embraces humility, limits and self-restraint. Given my argument about the limitations of virtue ethics and the necessity of narrative, I conclude with a glance at some biblical texts on limits and belonging that might provide a foundation for a Christian virtue ethic that aims at the flourishing of all of life. Limits-based Approaches to Environmental Ethics Our culture trains us to aspire to a life without limits. For the average modern person, the very idea of limits is anathema: boundaries are always to be pushed against and eventually crossed; progress necessarily entails the overcoming of limits. Yet environmental thought, whether it has gone by that name or not, has generally been a countervailing force. It is rooted in the assumption, derived from ecological science and going back at least to the 18th- and 19th-century naturalist Alexander von Humboldt (and recognized long before that in indigenous ways of knowing), that human beings belong to and are inseparable from the interconnected living systems of nature, and that these systems are necessarily constrained by certain limits. For the sake of our own flourishing and the flourishing of other life, traditional environmentalism suggests that we must learn to live within these natural limits. The best-known attempt to apply an explicitly limits-based approach to human development and the environment is probably the work of the Club of Rome, which published in 1972 what would become the best-selling environmental book of all time, Limits to Growth.9 Although such explicit attention to limits later fell out of favor, some environmental and indigenous thinkers, scientists, and the rare contrary economist have kept up the discussion. Most significantly, in 2009 Will Steffen at the Stockholm Resilience Center, along with dozens of fellow scientists, launched a project exploring “planetary boundaries” with the aim of determining

66  Jonathan A. Moo a “safe operating space” within which human activity should be constrained if the earth is to continue supporting us.10 The economist Kate Raworth has built on the insights of the planetary boundaries team to reimagine how we might construct a sane and just economic system that doesn’t destroy the source of our wealth and flourishing. In her so-called “Doughnut Economics,” the question is not only how we live under the ecological ceiling imposed by planetary boundaries but at the same time how we strengthen the social foundation at the center that enables us to meet the needs of all.11 Despite the popularity of limit-based approaches among traditional environmentalists, however, there are challenges. Limits-based approaches can suffer from ill-defined, uncertain, or rather arbitrary limits (such as some might argue for the 1.5 or 2.0 degree Celsius increase in global temperature to which the IPCC suggests we seek to limit the earth). There is the substantial risk of overshoot if we take a limit as permission to push right up to a boundary we have identified. Cal Dewitt suggests elsewhere in this volume that a “limit ethic” is a poor substitute for a “center ethic,” where the aim is not simply to stay below a certain level but to find the center where life flourishes. Dewitt uses the example of thermoregulation: the goal is not for the body to remain below a certain temperature but rather to aim for the temperature where it best functions. Discussions of limits also have a bad reputation. Besides swimming upstream against modern notions of progress, the specter of Thomas Malthus and his fear of uncontrollable human population growth haunts talk of limits. Malthus argued that human population growth would eventually lead to starvation and collapse. Malthusian-inspired fears have since been implicated in coercive attempts to control reproduction and women’s bodies, and it has been used by wealthy westerners to shift the blame for environmental problems away from our consumption habits and onto the population growth of the poor in the majority of the world. Moreover, many past predictions of when limits would be reached have proven wrong. It should be acknowledged that this case against limits is often overstated; the modeling in Limits to Growth, for example, has proven startlingly accurate.12 But at a minimum, the failure of past prognostications leads to suspicion about our ability to identify limits, especially as they apply to creative and technologically advanced human societies. It is often observed that the negative consequences of exceeding limits may not be experienced, by humankind at least, until sometime in the future. Given that there are people right now living in poverty, would trying to keep humanity within certain limits mean denying the present needs of the poor in favor of the merely possible or probable needs of future generations? How much do we discount future generations in our decision-making? And how do we account for the fact that there is always the possibility that in the future we may develop new technologies that enable us to escape the consequences of our present actions? Finally, whatever one might think about the hypothetical significance of limits, it seems difficult – and some would claim impossible – for societies ever voluntarily to choose restraint. The very notion of limits stands in the way of modernity’s commitment to progress. It is with this conviction that some former

When Good Christians Destroy the Earth  67 environmentalists have in recent decades given up any talk of limits. Stylizing themselves “eco-modernists” or “eco-pragmatists,” they advocate that we grasp the new-found powers given to us in the Anthropocene and use technology, innovation, and wisely-directed growth to buy our way out of ecological devastation and climate crisis.13 The success of ecomodernism (whether it goes by that name or not) can be discerned in the assumption informing most political discussions of climate change, that what we face is fundamentally a technical and economic problem that can be solved with economic and technical fixes, whether those be carbon taxes, renewable energy, carbon capture, and storage, or more dramatic forms of geoengineering. Few politicians are willing to put their careers on the line by talking about limits, restraint, or sacrifice. The Potential of Virtue Ethics to Address Limits In the background of most ethical discussion of environmental limits is some form of consequentialism, where the challenge is determining the costs and benefits of crossing a given boundary, and the question is to whom those costs and benefits will accrue. Whether the interests of other-than-human life should be explicitly included in such assessments leads some ethicists to attempt an expansion of deontological ethics towards the consideration of our duties not only towards fellow human beings but to other forms of life or the whole biosphere – and hence asks whether imposing limits on ourselves ought to be done on behalf of other creatures as much as on behalf of humankind. But such discussions get bogged down in what can seem like irresolvable debates about what constitutes the greatest good and whether non-rational creatures can be said to have the sort of intrinsic value that demands our respect or imposes certain duties upon us. It is in part due to the persistence of such disagreements that in 1983 Thomas Hill proposed a retrieval of virtue ethics as a more fruitful way forward for environmental ethics.14 Noting the limitations of utilitarian and Kantian approaches to environmental ethics, Hill suggested instead an ethic that focuses on individual character and the cultivation of virtues such as correct understanding, proper humility, self-acceptance, and aesthetic appreciation of nature that leads individuals to cherish and care for other-than-human life. Rather than merely assessing the rightness or wrongness of actions, laying out rules, debating what might contribute to the greatest good, or arguing whether nature has intrinsic value, the hope was that inculcating a love of nature could inspire individuals to lead environmentally virtuous lives. Virtue ethics seems to allow us to set aside debates about whether other life has intrinsic value and to evade questions about whether natural limits call for restraint or are merely challenges to be overcome. Rather than focusing on external limits, we are invited to discover our proper measure within ourselves.15 By returning to ancient visions of flourishing and the good life, we might – in the interest of pursuing virtues that contribute to our true happiness, eudaemonia – learn to embody self-restraint, humility, and love and accept limits on ourselves that incidentally create space for the flourishing of other life as well.

68  Jonathan A. Moo Such is the promise of environmental virtue ethics.16 Christians in particular have reason to reclaim the virtues of humility, temperance, and prudence and to consider how these might apply to our life as limited human creatures enmeshed in the community of God’s creation. Humility already has a prominent place in the Christian tradition, a distinctively Christian virtue that Aquinas links to the cardinal virtue of temperance, or what we might call self-restraint. Norman Wirzba has recently reflected on the potential of reclaiming a “creaturely humility” that roots us in the earth and, by acknowledging our dependence on others and our enmeshment in the life of creation, open us up to joy. He concludes with the biblically-informed insight that “there can be no joy … apart from the humble realization that life is always together and never alone, and the affirmation that our lives are never our own.”17 It makes for a compelling vision: a humility grounded in recognition of our creaturely, embodied limits and a temperance informed by prudence in how we live well as members of the community of creation that is expressed in self-restraint and self-limitation in pursuit of a truly flourishing life in love of God and neighbor. Surely this is something to work and pray for. But this returns us to the challenge with which I began: to embrace humility and self-restraint in a way that is relevant or anywhere near sufficient to the ecological challenges of our time requires attentiveness first to the nature of the story in which we see ourselves. Conflicting Stories If our foundational stories tell us that other creatures are of only instrumental value, that the earth is not our home, that our aim is heaven and the transcendence of creaturely life, and that God’s creation is essentially limitless (and perhaps that science is not to be trusted, because God would never give us a gift like fossil fuels if we weren’t meant to use them all), then Christian virtue won’t help us in the face of ecological and climate crisis. For those who think Scripture calls us away from concerns for the earth and its life and towards transcendence of creaturely limits, it’s difficult to see why a virtuous life would require restraint in our use of the gifts of creation or sustained concern for the life of other creatures. To take one example from Scripture, the Epistle of James on the face of it would seem to support just the sort of virtuous life to which an environmentalist might aspire. James even sounds like a virtue ethicist when he observes that it’s not possible for a fig tree to produce olives or a grapevine to produce figs (James 3:12). How a person acts depends on what sort of person they are. Therefore, the wise and understanding person will be known by their good way of life and humility (or “gentleness”; praütes) that is produced by wisdom (v. 13).18 We are warned against jealousy, selfish ambition, and arrogance (3:14–16), and James claims that such vices, expressed in envy and the desire for what one does not have, lie at the root of all disorder, evil, and strife (3:16; 4:1–2). This diagnosis of the source of upheaval in the human realm lends itself well to a critique of our current obsession with consumption and limitless growth at the

When Good Christians Destroy the Earth  69 expense of other life; and James’s warnings to the rich and call for solidarity with the poor (e.g., 4:13–5:6) have much to offer a contemporary Christian vision of environmental justice. Yet in the very same context, James’s contrast of the wisdom that comes “from above” with “earthly” (epigeios) wisdom (3:15), and the claim that friendship with the “world” (kosmos) makes one an enemy of God (4:4) just as easily lends itself to the sort of spiritual-material dualism that enables Christians to participate in the ruin of the earth. Many otherwise virtuous Christian people are useless in the face of ecological and climate crisis because their reading of Scripture leads them to accept the sort of separation of humankind from nature that turns out also to be a hallmark of modernity. Driving a wedge between the spiritual and the material, such forms of Christianity have ironically enabled the unencumbered and unchallenged flourishing of greed. According to Emmanuel Katongole, a peculiar marriage between modernity and Christianity has much to do with the ecological and social crises in Africa and, we might say, with the ecological and social crises of much of our world. Katongole claims that Africans traditionally recognized themselves as belonging to an extended community of the living and the dead, with the land itself as the “umbilical cord” of that belonging, linking present, past, and future. But for colonial moderns, the land became associated with all that was primitive and needed to be overcome, a notion that Christianity reinforced by linking the land with animism and witchcraft. Life lived in connection with the soil lost its dignity, and success and prosperity now were supposedly to be found exclusively in the city. Land lost its value, people lost their motivation to care for it, and so the land was left open to exploitation. The modern notion of progress as always necessarily away from the land, away from place and from community, has created what Katongole says is fundamentally a crisis of belonging, and it is this crisis, he says, that underlies the ecological and social crises in many parts of Africa.19 For Katongole, however, it is Christianity itself that offers a better vision, a vision held out in the Christian Scriptures taken as a whole and one that Pope Francis reminded the world of in Laudato si’. Here, Katongole points out, the pope identifies the spiritual “wound” that lies at the heart of the ecological crisis as our inability to live as creatures made from dust, who belong to the earth and to each other. In Scripture, to belong to creation, to belong to each other, to belong to our own bodies, is seen as a gift; and to the extent that embracing limits enables us better to belong, and to love and honor God, even limits are a source of joy as we enter into the reciprocal life of creation and rest in the grace of God. To return to James, we could (and should) query the meaning in this context of “world” and “earthly,” but we also can simply observe that the whole point of the book is to emphasize that true faith and wisdom that comes from above must be worked out in the practical and everyday life of this world. Most importantly, its canonical context places James’s practical wisdom within a wider biblical story that envisions God’s kingdom as a place for the flourishing of all of life – and where the one who is savior and king shows his followers what true life in the kingdom looks like (cf. Philippians 2:1–11).20

70  Jonathan A. Moo Biblical Limits and Flourishing21 In the biblical story, limits serve in the first place to mark out and define the one amongst the many. In Genesis, Job, and the Psalms, creation involves God separating and setting limits so the different elements of creation might be distinguished. The most important of these distinctions is the one between the unlimited God and everything else. And human beings unquestionably fall on the creaturely side of this creator-creation divide. In Genesis 1, human beings are created on the sixth day as one land animal among others. Their distinctive role as image bearers of God does not mean that they fail to belong to the rest of creation; it means rather that they are called to particular responsibility within the community of creation. This human vocation is described in Eden as the “working” and “keeping” of the land where they are planted (Genesis 2:15) – the land to which they belong, as adam from the adamah (2:7). Human days are limited, and wisdom comes with learning to “count our days” (Psalm 90:12). The Apostle Paul enjoins readers to think “with sober judgment” about themselves, with humility not to consider themselves something more than they are (Romans 12:3). The limitations inherent to being physical beings, bound in time and space, are not the result of a fall from grace but an intrinsic part of the good gift of creation. In the Hebrew Bible, one of the ways Israelites were reminded of their place in the economy of God’s kingdom was through the regular cycle of Sabbath days, seventh-year fallowing of fields, and Jubilee years when debts were forgiven and any land accumulated given back. Such practices require trust in God’s provision and are reminders that life does not consist in the boundless pursuit of gain. Even good human work has its limits and is not an end in itself. In such texts, there is an awareness of potential scarcity and injustice that requires cautiousness, attentiveness to limits, and a readiness to redress inequalities that arise. In an example of how to deal with potential limits on space, there are commands in the Hebrew Bible not to move boundary stones or to add field to field and house to house (Deuteronomy 19:4; Proverbs 23:10; Isaiah 5:8). If I move my boundary stone and take more land for myself, I have taken it away from my neighbor and failed in my duty to them. There are also restraints set on consumption that acknowledge the possibility of future scarcity. For example, when gathering bird eggs for food, one is not to take the mother along with the eggs (Deuteronomy 22:6–7). It’s a precaution to maintain what we might call a sustainable harvest, and it reveals the necessity of prudence and self-restraint. In the biblical tradition, each small act is seen within a wider context of belonging to an interdependent community, where the guide for your actions is wisdom, humility, recognition of mutual dependence, and love. If such texts remind us of Scripture’s realism about the potential of inequality and injustice, the same principles of caution and limits apply even in contexts of apparently unlimited abundance. For example, in John’s Gospel, Jesus reveals the abundance of God’s kingdom by feeding five thousand with nothing more than five barley loaves and two fish. Yet after everyone has eaten their fill, Jesus tells his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted” (John 6:12). Here, even in a context of overflowing abundance, the gifts of creation are not to

When Good Christians Destroy the Earth  71 be disdained, left to rot, or wasted. Jesus’ followers are called to a carefulness and restraint that reflects awareness of their own creatureliness and dependence and gratefulness for what God provides. The economy of God’s kingdom is thus based not on scarcity, but abundance. The embrace of limits and restraint is possible in the biblical tradition only because of a more fundamental reordering of desire. The unlimited desire of human beings cannot be satisfied by the accumulation of things; and so the apparent sacrifice involved in the acceptance of limits and restraint becomes in reality a way for people to acknowledge that true joy and abundance is found elsewhere. Thus, Jesus claims to have come so that his followers “may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). And if there was any doubt about Scripture’s vision of the goodness of this given, limited life, the incarnation puts all doubt to rest. In Christ the unbounded God takes on the limited life of flesh and blood, binding God to creation and showing the material of this world to be a fitting vehicle for the revelation of the divine. To belong to Christ is to belong to the in-flesh one and so to belong again to our own bodies, each other, and the earth. Jesus shows what it is to accept the goodness of this bounded human life. In the Gospel narratives of Jesus’ temptation, rather than grasping at the divine power that is his to turn stones to bread, Jesus accepts the limitations of creatureliness. In Mark’s version, readers also glimpse the result of Jesus’ faithfulness, when we learn that Jesus is with the wild animals (Mark 1:13). As Richard Bauckham has argued, Mark alludes here to Jesus’ role in ushering in the peaceable kingdom that Isaiah foresaw would be brought in by God’s king.22 Jesus restores the relationship between humanity and creation, pointing the way toward the peaceable kingdom of God. As the rest of the New Testament suggests – and as I have argued at length elsewhere – the future hope that Scripture holds out for humankind is thus not their removal from nature or creation but rather their reconciliation, with God and hence with each other and the earth and its life too.23 Belonging, then, is a gift not only of creation but of new creation. What biblical hope offers is not the transcendence of nature or escape from this world but rather the redemption of this mortal life, taken up into the life of God. Here is a story where ecological virtue can be seen as a sign of participation in the life of God’s kingdom. Its aim is not becoming a better and happier person, or to save the world, but to act in loving acknowledgment of the goodness of the earth and its life in which we are caught up, in humble and joyful acceptance of our role as limited human creatures within the web of creation, and in grateful response to the work God has already accomplished and is bringing to completion in Christ through the Holy Spirit. Notes 1 I am grateful for the invitation from Nathan Carson and Steven Bouma-Prediger to contribute to this volume and for the opportunity to participate in one of the most fruitful and enjoyable academic meetings I’ve attended, at the Author Symposium in Yosemite National Park in October 2021. A portion of the material here was included in talks I presented at the University of Cambridge in 2017 and Hong Kong University in 2019,

72  Jonathan A. Moo and I’m grateful for the feedback received then and for the rich conversations with coauthors at the Yosemite symposium. 2 See John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (1917); Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry (2002); bell hooks, Belonging: A Culture of Place (2008). 3 Brian Treanor, Emplotting Virtue: A Narrative Approach to Environmental Virtue Ethics (Albany: SUNY Press, 2014), 22. 4 Holmes Rolston III, “Environmental Virtue Ethics: Half the Truth but Dangerous as a Whole,” in Environmental Virtue Ethics, eds. Ronald Sandler and Philip Cafaro (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005), 61–78. 5 Ibid., 73. 6 Ibid., 72. 7 Philip Cafaro recognizes that virtue ethics on its own may imply that a good human life could “be lived just as well in a largely artificial world” (p. 17), but his proposed corrective – that we include in our ethic an appreciation for the diversity and otherness of nonhuman nature – has no grounding unless such diversity and other life is valuable in and of itself. Cf. Philip Cafaro, “Thoreau, Leopold, and Carson: Toward an Environmental Virtue Ethics,” Environmental Ethics 23, no. 1 (2001): 3–17. 8 Wendell Berry, “A Native Hill,” in The Art of the Commonplace, 20. 9 Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III, The Limits to Growth; A Report for the Club of Rome's Project on the Predicament of Mankind (New York: Universe Books, 1972). Cf. Ugo Bardi and Alvarez Pereira, eds., Limits and Beyond: 50 years on from The Limits to Growth: what did we learn and what’s next? (London: Exapt Press, 2022). 10 See https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries.html. 11 Kate Raworth, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2017). 12 See, e.g., Gaya Herrington, “Update to Limits to Growth: Comparing the World3 Model with Empirical Data,” Journal of Industrial Ecology 25, no. 3 (2020): 614–626. 13 See, e.g., the publications of those associated with the Breakthrough Institute (https:// thebreakthrough.org). 14 Thomas E. Hill, Jr., “Ideals of Human Excellences and Preserving Natural Environments,” Environmental Ethics 5, no. 3 (1983): 211–224. 15 Paul van Tongeren, “Temperance and Environmental Concerns,” Ethical Perspectives 10, no. 2 (2003), 122. 16 For a short survey, see Ronald L. Sandler, “Environmental Virtue Ethics” in The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, ed. Hugh LaFollette (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2013), 1665–1674. Significant Christian contributions include Kathryn Blanchard and Kevin O’Brien, An Introduction to Christian Environmentalism: Ecology, Virtue, and Ethics (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2014), and Steven Bouma-Prediger, Earthkeeping and Character: Exploring a Christian Ecological Virtue Ethic (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2020). 17 Norman Wirzba, “Creaturely Humility: Placing Humility, Finding Joy,” in The Joy of Humility: The Beginning and End of the Virtues, eds. Drew Collins, Ryan McAnnallyLinz, and Evan C. Rosa (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2020), 121. 18 I take the genitive of “wisdom” (sophias) as a genitive of source. 19 Emmanuel Katongole, “Who Are My People? Christianity, Violence, and Belonging in Post-Colonial Africa,” Henry Martyn Lectures, University of Cambridge, February 20–22, 2017. Cf. also Emmanuel Katongole, Who Are My People? Love, Violence, and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame Press, 2022). 20 For a compelling exploration of Paul’s portrayal of Christ as ideal king and the flourishing life intended for those under his rule, see Julien C. H. Smith, Paul and the Good Life: Transformation and Citizenship in the Commonwealth of God (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2020).

When Good Christians Destroy the Earth  73 21 Some of what follows is condensed from material that I wrote for Douglas J. Moo and Jonathan A. Moo, Creation Care: A Biblical Theology of the Natural World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2018). 22 Richard Bauckham, “Jesus and the Wild Animals (Mark 1:13): A Christological Image for an Ecological Age,” in Jesus of Nazareth: Essays on the Historical Jesus and New Testament Christology, eds. Joel B. Green and Max Turner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 3–21. 23 See Jonathan A. Moo and Robert S. White, Let Creation Rejoice: Biblical Hope and Ecological Crisis (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2014).

References Bardi, Ugo, and Alvarez Pereira, eds. Limits and Beyond: 50 years on from The Limits to Growth: What did we learn and what’s next? London: Exapt Press, 2022. Bauckham, Richard. “Jesus and the Wild Animals (Mark 1:13): A Christological Image for an Ecological Age.” In Jesus of Nazareth: Essays on the Historical Jesus and New Testament Christology, edited by Joel B. Green and Max Turner, 3–21. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994. Berry, Wendell. The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry, edited and introduced by Norman Wirzba. Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2002. Blanchard, Kathryn, and Kevin O’Brien. An Introduction to Christian Environmentalism: Ecology, Virtue, and Ethics. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2014. Bouma-Prediger, Steven. Earthkeeping and Character: Exploring a Christian Ecological Virtue Ethic. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2020. Cafaro, Philip. “Thoreau, Leopold, and Carson: Toward an Environmental Virtue Ethics.” Environmental Ethics 23, no. 1 (2001): 3–17. Herrington, Gaya. “Update to limits to growth: Comparing the World3 model with empirical data.” Journal of Industrial Ecology 25, no. 3 (2021): 614–626. Hill, Thomas E Jr. “Ideals of Human Excellences and Preserving Natural Environments.” Environmental Ethics 5, no. 3 (1983): 211–224. hooks, bell. Belonging: A Culture of Place. New York: Routledge, 2008. Katongole, Emmanuel. “Who Are My People? Christianity, Violence, and Belonging in Post-Colonial Africa.” Henry Martyn Lectures, University of Cambridge, 2017. ———. Who Are My People? Love, Violence, and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa. Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame Press, 2022. Meadows, Donella H., Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III. The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind. New York: Universe Books, 1972. Moo, Douglas J., and Jonathan A. Moo. Creation Care: A Biblical Theology of the Natural World. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2018. Moo, Jonathan A., and Robert S. White. Let Creation Rejoice: Biblical Hope and Ecological Crisis. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2014. Muir, John. My First Summer in the Sierra. Boston, MA and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1917. Raworth, Kate. Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2017. Rolston, Holmes III. “Environmental Virtue Ethics: Half the Truth but Dangerous as a Whole.” In Environmental Virtue Ethics, edited by Ronald Sandler and Philip Cafaro, 61–78. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005. Sandler, Ronald L. “Environmental Virtue Ethics.” In The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, edited by Hugh LaFollette, 1665–1674. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2013.

74  Jonathan A. Moo Smith, Julien C. H. Paul and the Good Life: Transformation and Citizenship in the Commonwealth of God. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2020. Treanor, Brian. Emplotting Virtue: A Narrative Approach to Environmental Virtue Ethics. Albany: SUNY Press, 2014. van Tongeren, Paul. “Temperance and Environmental Concerns.” Ethical Perspectives 10, no. 2 (2003): 118–128. Wirzba, Norman. “Creaturely Humility: Placing Humility, Finding Joy.” In The Joy of Humility: The Beginning and End of the Virtues, edited by Drew Collins, Ryan McAnnallyLinz and Evan C. Rosa, 107–136. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2020.

7

“Ecoflourishing” and Story: Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Hope Loren Wilkinson

The Necessity of Stories We humans can’t flourish, ecologically or any other way, without stories. For stories are one of the things which make us human. Richard Kearney points this out in his book On Stories: Telling stories is as basic to human beings as eating. More so, in fact, for while food makes us live, stories are what make our lives worth living. They are what make our condition human…without this transition from nature to narrative, from time suffered to time enacted and enunciated, it is debatable whether a merely biological life could ever be considered a truly human one.1 Stories are also an essential way of learning about virtue and vice. In his book on ecological virtue ethics, Earthkeeping and Character, Steve Bouma-Prediger quotes Alasdair MacIntyre’s well-known words about stories in After Virtue: “I can only answer the question ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question ‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?’.” Bouma-Prediger then adds: “a founding story is not a husk that can be shucked to get to the kernel inside but is indispensable to knowing who we are.”2 While some “founding stories” promote hope, others promote hopelessness. And whether they are hopeful or hopeless, we are shaped by two larger classes of story: stories that humans tell, and stories that the universe tells. The human-created stories which we know best are individually created fictions, like the fantasy and science fiction books and movies I am considering in this chapter. But there are also “meta-narratives,” the big stories which are created not by individuals but collectively, by cultures. “Capitalism,” “Communism,” and “Democracy” are such big stories; so are the stories we create around religious assumptions, like Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. But whether shaped by persons, politics, economics, philosophies, or religions, these are all stories that humans are telling, individually or collectively.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-14

76  Loren Wilkinson Stories of the Universe The second big kind of story is not one told by humans at all; it is rather the cosmic story in which we find ourselves. It is the story of the universe. And though there are a great many human-told stories, there are really only two Big Stories of the universe. But since one of them takes two forms I will speak of three. The first story says that the universe is an accident – a random combination of matter and energy in which life and intelligence are no more than random bubbles on the surface of a cosmic pond. It began about 14 billion years ago, and will dwindle toward entropic equilibrium, some trillions of years in the future. In this story, as one cosmologist puts it, “our universe is simply one of those things that happen from time to time.”3 This is the default origin story of natural science which is committed to a kind of “methodological atheism.” It is an enormously complicated story, endlessly interesting. But ultimately, by itself, it gives us no reason for the virtue of hope. The universe came from nothing and will end in nothing. In this story there is no meaning. We can call it “The Accidental Universe” story. It is consistent not only with natural science, but also with Buddhism. This rather grim story has been modified by many in a version that seems to provide more hope, though ultimately it too is trapped by its commitment to the assumption of an accidental origin. It begins at the same point: about 14 billion years ago the universe began as a singular event, whether we call it a quantum fluctuation or a big bang. Perhaps it is one of a near-infinite number of other universes, but we can never know. Fortunately, our particular universe, through a unique and improbable balance of basic forces and basic particles, has produced stars, galaxies, and life. It is the result of many life-friendly coincidences and is organizing itself into consciousness. We, who find ourselves here in this corner of our galaxy, are part of a planet waking up and beginning to know itself. Perhaps the same thing has happened on millions of other planets, but we have not yet heard from them. We can call this “The Waking Universe” story. It is consistent with pantheism, some forms of panentheism and animism, and is the default story of much environmental spirituality. The third story is compatible with a big-bang beginning. But it assumes a personal consciousness, the Creator, prior to that beginning. This Creator has accompanied the long story of cosmic and biological evolution and has communicated (though not necessarily exclusively) with human beings. This is “The Created Universe” story, and it is shared by Judaism, Christianity, Islam and many Indigenous traditions. In this story, the universe has a purpose, and has room for hope. These three Big Stories – the Accidental Universe, the Waking Universe, and the Created Universe – can be told in many different ways, but fundamentally they are not stories that human beings make. We find ourselves in them. The Stories We Tell I turn now from the story the universe tells to the stories we tell. And I focus on two related forms of those stories – fantasy and science fiction. They are both, I believe, attempts to connect our little individual stories with one of the three big stories.

“Ecoflourishing” and Story  77 But they are quite different. Fantasy usually looks to the past, science fiction to the future. Both reflect a dissatisfaction with ordinary life. But although they assume quite different stories of the universe, they are also the most popular stories we tell. A look at any list of the most popular books and movies quickly confirms this claim. In the lists of best-selling books of all time (excluding three religious texts, the Bible, the Koran, and Mao’s Little Red Book), the top twenty will almost always include Alice in Wonderland, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and all seven of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter stories. In the past century, books have been surpassed by movies as our main way of experiencing stories. Of the 100 top-grossing films in the world, all but a handful tell either fantasy or science-fiction stories. At present, the top-grossing film of all time is Avatar. It deals directly with “eco-flourishing” (though on a different planet!), and is an intriguing blend of fantasy and science fiction. I will return presently to that film – and to the significance of that blend. For now, however, I want to explore a bit further those two oddly related types of story – fantasy and science fiction – and the reasons why there is such a hunger for them today. Both of them, I believe, are illuminated by reflecting on the virtue of hope and its corresponding vice, despair. Fantasy: Recovery, Escape, and Consolation One of the best guides to fantasy is “On Fairy Stories,” a lecture given in 1939 at St. Andrews University by a scholar who himself became the best-selling fantasy author of the 20th century, J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien first goes to some length defining what he means by “Fairy Story”: not a story about “fairies,” but primarily about ordinary people who find themselves in faërie, a realm where they encounter wonder. He shows us its ancient roots in world culture, and points out that it is a primordial kind of story, never intended mainly for children, though it has been relegated to them because it went out of fashion after the Enlightenment. He concludes by listing some of its characteristics, and it is these which bear particular relevance for the search for a larger story that can nourish both hope and “ecoflourishing” in our time. In his words, “Fairy-stories offer…in a peculiar degree or mode, these things: Fantasy, Recovery, Escape, Consolation….”4 Tolkien means by Fantasy the ability of the human imagination to “make things up,” things that don’t exist in the “real” world. But (unlike most popular usage) he does not mean to belittle this capability, and so relegate it to something which only children or neurotics do, but to elevate it. In his words: “That the images [as in imag-ination] are of things not in the primary word…is a virtue not a vice. Fantasy (in this sense) is, I think, not a lower but a higher form of Art, indeed the most nearly pure form, and so (when achieved) the most potent.”5 His other three characteristics depend upon this imaginative ability of humans to be “sub-creators,” to make “secondary worlds.” They enable a Recovery of what has been lost in our experience of the primary world. Familiarity has made the essentially magical nature of anything at all lose its wonder. Fantasy, suggests Tolkien, can restore that wonder, in ways that are captured in his description of his own “Recovery”: “It was in fairy-stories that I first divined the potency of the words,

78  Loren Wilkinson and the wonder of the things, such as stone, and wood, and iron; tree and grass; house and fire; bread and wine.”6 And his own work has given such an experience of Recovery to millions of readers. No one who has encountered Treebeard in Fangorn, or walked among the mallorn trees of Lothlorien, is ever likely again to enter a forest without some sense of wonder. The importance of such a restoration is of crucial importance in an era when books like Richard Louv’s The Last Child in the Woods need to be written and read.7 And the idea of restoration takes us to his third characteristic of “fairy stories”: Escape. Fantasy and science fiction are often dismissed as “escape literature,” but there is much in our anthropocene age that demands escape. Tolkien points out that in the “real” world the only people worried about escape are jailers.8 And of course he wrote long before the time when the virtual began to eclipse the real; today many of the walls we need to break out of are screens. The escape which fairy tales promise is more needed now than ever before. Consolation is the fourth characteristic of fantasy that Tolkien describes. He speaks of many ways in which we need to be consoled – for example, our alienation from animals by not being able to speak with them. Thus many fantasies involve talking animals. And he concludes: “…lastly there is the oldest and deepest desire, the Great Escape, the Escape from Death.”9 In this context he speaks of the consolation of the happy ending: “…and they lived happily ever after.” To describe that consolation he invents a term which might usefully be adapted in our catastrophic age: Eucatastrophe.10 Tolkien’s words are poignantly relevant now at the threshold of the anthropocene, in the shadow of steadily grimmer reports about climate change. Many contemporary environmentalists tend toward burn-out, despair, and suicide. They need consolation: The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending…which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce extremely well, is not essentially “escapist” nor “fugitive.” In its fairy-tale – or otherworld – setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.11 Phrases like “a sudden and miraculous grace,” “universal final defeat,” and the word evangelium hint at the larger story Tolkien is drawing on, and he spells out the connection of fairy tales to that story in a brief, eloquent epilogue which he added in the published version of lecture. I will return to that epilogue toward my conclusion. Science Fiction: Dyscatastrophe and Hope But first we must deal with the very serious complaint that Tolkien’s idea of “eucatastrophe” is indeed a “fantasy” or a “fairy tale” in the clinical and negative sense, for it seems to be out of touch with the hopelessness of our current planetary

“Ecoflourishing” and Story  79 situation. Here we turn to that modern counterpart of fantasy, science fiction, in which planetary dyscatastrophe is a common theme. Most definitions of science fiction take pains to distinguish it from fantasy. The most succinct is Arthur Clarke’s, in the foreword to his collected short stories: “Science fiction is something that could happen – but you usually wouldn’t want it to. Fantasy is something that couldn’t happen – though you often only wish that it could.”12 Clarke’s distinction between fantasy and science fiction takes us back to where we began, with the tension in our time between conflicting big stories. When he describes fantasy as something which “couldn’t happen,” he is implicitly rejecting one overarching story in favour of another. In fantasy (as he sees it) the universe has a purpose, where all might be well “… ever after.” It is a story in which hope is possible. That’s why we wish it could be true. But science fiction, written within the domain of science, is usually committed to the other story: the accidental universe in which no meaning is possible. Human hopes and longings seem out of place there. A great many science fiction stories explore such an ultimately meaningless world. Nevertheless, despite this tendency of science fiction to promote despair, there is another kind of science fiction that reaches toward hope, and thus reflects the fairy tales’ consolation of a happy ending. This reaching toward hope appears in three common science fiction themes. The Hope for Escape from Death

The first of these hopes appears in stories about technological attempts to fulfill what Tolkien calls the deepest longing – an escape from death. This hope appears in various ways. One is through projections of medical technology and biological knowledge forward into imagined techniques that can extend life, perhaps indefinitely. It is almost a given in science fiction that people in the future are assumed to live longer. Another version of this hope for escape from personal death is an important part of the transhumanist belief that someday computer technology will make it possible to upload our consciousness from the “wetware” of our brain into a cybernetic hardware more worthy of the software of our consciousness. Robert Sawyer’s Mindscan is a good example, exploring the intriguing idea of the same mind existing in two bodies, one old-fashioned and organic, and the other artificial and deathless.13 Yet another escape from death is focused not so much on individual immortality as on survival of the species: the belief that since humanity is vulnerable when it is limited to one planet, prone to occasional catastrophic events, we need therefore to spread to other planets – eventually other star systems. This motivation frequently appears in the current enthusiasm for travel to Mars. The Hope for Extraterrestrial Life

The second way that science fiction expresses hope is in the near-religious certainty that there must be life and intelligence elsewhere in the universe. Contact with aliens from space is a major science fiction theme. More often than not these aliens are hostile. Recall various versions and descendants of H.G. Wells’ War of

80  Loren Wilkinson the Worlds, including the panic-causing 1938 radio adaptation by Orson Wells, a fact in curious tension with our enthusiasm for somehow making contact with them. But fear of higher intelligence is transcended by the hope that a more ancient civilization might be wiser and more virtuous than our own – or at least might have a better grasp of the cosmic story we are in. Think of the ambiguously hopeful ending of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey14: The black monument discovered on the moon is like the one which (much earlier in the film) was the impetus for the development of primates into Homo Sapiens. Now, when humans are on the threshold of space, they seem to be answering an invitation from a superior society, beckoning the race into some yet richer future. That new beginning is indicated by the image which culminates the film, of a fetus in space, yet to be born. The Hope for Healing the Earth

A third way in which science fiction expresses the fairy-tale longing for a happy ending is through telling stories about how, having finally taken seriously the current sickness of the planet, we might begin to take steps to heal it. This kind of fiction is in part a development from serious contemporary speculation about how we might “geo-engineer” the planet to reduce atmospheric CO2 and avoid disastrous warming and sea-level rise. It is a kind of balance to the shallow but widespread idea that we can leave a ruined planet behind and go somewhere else. The most important writer here is Kim Stanley Robinson. A couple of decades ago he wrote a very substantial series of novels on the “terraforming” of Mars: Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars.15 But always present as a backdrop to his description of the emergence, over time, of a kind of utopia on Mars, is the deteriorating situation back on Earth. More recently his 2020 Ministry for the Future – which begins only a decade or so in the future with a disastrous heat wave that kills millions – describes attempts in economics, politics, and technology to lower the temperature, attempts which are largely successful.16 (Sometimes the book sounds more like a policy manual than a novel. Robinson is regarded by some as America’s most significant political thinker!) But perhaps Robinson’s most profound book is his 2015 novel Aurora.17 It uses a fairly common science-fiction convention: a centuries-long voyage to establish a human settlement around a nearby star. The story begins near the end of that long voyage as the travelers, all of whom were born in and have grown up on the ship, prepare to arrive at their new planet. That ship is described in considerable detail and is in itself a tribute to Earth’s ecological variety. It is made up of two rotating tori, each of which contains several large artificially maintained environments in which different terrestrial habitats have been established (grassland, prairie, tundra, and rainforest). But (in contrast to their natural flourishing on Earth) it has proven very difficult to maintain the health of these habitats artificially. By the time they reach their destination, the habitats are beginning to fail. And the planet they arrive at, though somewhat Earth-like, turns out nevertheless to be fatal to humans. So the explorers make the difficult decision to return. Some of them (barely) succeed. The novel ends with a woman who has spent her whole life in the artificial

“Ecoflourishing” and Story  81 environments of the spaceship, kneeling, in the waves on a beach, kissing the sand, with the words “What a planet!” Aurora conveys the clear message that the only place we humans can flourish is on our home planet. In Search of a More Hopeful Story So “ecoflourishing” – whether or not called by that name – is becoming an important theme in contemporary science fiction, both books and movies. Climate change has encouraged that trend, since one of the few things we do know about the future is that the temperatures will be warmer and the sea levels higher. In fact, that certainty has given rise to a sort of sub-genre, “cli-fi.” Many of these stories about our near future are dark; a surprising number (like Robinson’s Ministry for the Future) are hopeful. Many recent science fiction novels turn away from stories that illustrate vices of humanity like domination and greed and instead tell stories that give a central place to virtues like humility, self-control and love. But the problems they face in telling such stories take us back to the cultural conflict in our time between two big stories of the universe. If the cosmos is a self-organizing accident (which is the default origin-story of science) it is hard to justify any action other than self-preservation: genes are indeed “selfish.” Accordingly, many more recent science fiction stories are in search of an alternate big story. Three authors and some of their books are worth mentioning here. One is Ursula Le Guin (also an important writer of fantasy, the “Earthsea” novels). Her science fiction novels The Dispossessed, The Left Hand of Darkness, and Five Ways to Forgiveness, as well as many of her short stories, show us worlds where empathy and love are more important than power.18 Her religious inspiration is Taoism (one of her works is a translation of the Tao Te Ching). Another profound recent work is the two-volume story by Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow and Children of God.19 A lapsed Catholic, Russell said she wrote the works to give the religion of her childhood a last chance to reclaim her soul; in the end she converted to Judaism. But the books make clear her belief in the reality of a Creator. More recently the Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood has written a futuristic trilogy (Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, and Madadam) in which the real heroes are a group called “God’s gardeners.”20 Like all Atwood’s work, the trilogy is highly ironic: God’s gardeners also play a role in eliminating most of humanity, but the allusion to Noah in the title of her second book suggests her view that in certain circumstances this might be a godly thing to do. (And the hymns of God’s gardeners would be a good addition to Christian worship!) However, the most common “big story” appealed to as a source of hope in recent science fiction is what I have called the Waking Universe story, in which somehow consciousness and purpose is emerging in a universe that began accidentally. A good example of that idea underlies that most popular of movies, James Cameron’s Avatar.21 On one level it is simply another well-produced science fiction film – like Cameron’s earlier movies Terminator 1 & 2, and Ali – with spectacular visual effects. But it tries to be a good deal more than that. Cameron is a serious environmentalist. Ecoflourishing (whether or not he uses the term) is his passion. Avatar is

82  Loren Wilkinson an attempt to tell a story which promotes the virtues that nourish ecoflourishing and exposes the vices which impede it. The central conflict of the story is between the Na’vi – the humanoid native people of a richly-forested planet, Pandora – and a human colony whose only purpose is extracting “unobtanium,” a rare element essential to Terran technology. Technological ingenuity has transported the humans there and maintains their habitat in the alien environment. But the technology also enables a few scientists to enter Na’vi bodies (the avatars of the title) to live in that complex environment and interact with its natives. Eventually they side with the natives in their struggle against the exploiters. But deeper than that conflict is Cameron’s attempt to tell a story of ecoflourishing through the relationship of the Na’vi to their planet, in contrast to the merely exploitative relationship of the humans. That story effectively combines science fiction and fantasy. The “machinery” of the story – space flight, robots, computers – is straight out of science fiction. But the heart of the story has all the elements outlined by Tolkien in his essay “On Fairy Stories.” The plants and animals in the made-up world of Pandora (enhanced by computer graphics and 3-D presentation) are part of that admirable “secondary world.” Yet strange and beautiful as they are, they are not more so than any of the millions of creatures that make up our own ecosphere. In fact the effect (like the enchanted forests of fäerie) is to give the viewer a kind of recovery. Certainly for Jake Sully, the paraplegic avatar driver, it is a recovery of the use of his limbs. It is also an escape from the sterile mechanism of the colony’s artificial environment. And when a fellow scientist, injured in the battle, is taken to the spiritual heart of the Na’vi, the “tree of souls,” we almost (but not quite) witness what Tolkien calls the Great Escape, the escape from death. That scientist’s words, before her attempted healing by the Na’vi, sum up the tensions in Avatar: “I’m a scientist, remember – I don’t believe in fairy tales.” But just before her death she confesses to a kind of religious conversion: her last words are “I’m with her, Jake – she’s real.” The “her” is Eywa, the goddess of the Na’vi people. We learn that Eywa is a kind of planetary brain, made up of all the connections, like synapses, of the forested planet, connections in which the Na’vi can participate. Eywa resembles Gaia, the goddess of the Earth, who in much contemporary eco-feminism and neo-paganism is the center of that second story, of a waking universe, an evolving consciousness in nature. Many today hope that such a story will provide a framework for ecoflourishing. This search for another religious story is part of the thesis of Bron Taylor, who has edited a collection of scholarly essays on Avatar and Natural Spirituality.22 In his introductory essay, “The Religion and Politics of Avatar,” he suggests that the reason for the film’s popularity is that the Na’vi and their planetary goddess Eywa, provide a story that reinforces a tendency toward animism and pantheism in our culture. In an earlier book, Dark Green Religion, Taylor argues that such naturebased faiths are becoming the default religion of those who seek ecoflourishing in the 21st century.23 Nevertheless, it is not at all clear that any pantheism can provide a story which can nurture the virtue of hope, which we need in order to heal the anthropocene, nor

“Ecoflourishing” and Story  83 can it combat the vices which have produced it. Pantheism is still a kind of atheism, for it is necessarily bound to the story of an accidental universe. Any purpose which might seem to emerge from such randomness is ultimately illusory, and can give no basis for consciousness which seeks a purpose. Science fiction tells its stories of human action within such a purposeless universe. Fantasy on the other hand assumes a purpose “beyond the walls of the world.” The significance of Avatar is that it essentially moves from science fiction to fantasy – and from the plotless story of modern culture to a story with a plot, centered on a deity – to whom, at one point, Jake Sully prays. Eucatastrophe in the Cosmos So there is much evidence in current science fiction that it is seeking to move away from the plotless story of the accidental universe, where ecoflourishing is meaningless, to stories of a waking universe, where hope is possible. The “consolation” that such stories hint at is the “good news” or evangelium which Tolkien speaks of. So words from his epilogue to that essay on fairy stories provides a good conclusion to these thoughts on story and ecoflourishing: The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels – peculiarly artistic, beautiful, and moving: “mythical” in their perfect, self-contained significance…. But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation. The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man’s history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the “inner consistency of reality.”24 We need stories in order to flourish. The best science fiction, in print and film, points us toward fantasy – and the best fantasy points us toward the Christian story, which Tolkien calls “the eucatastrophe of Man’s history.” Perhaps also it is the eucatastrophe of the history of the cosmos. For the universe can only wake up to a Creator who precedes the universe. The enormous popularity of both science fiction and fantasy today is a symptom of the fact that something is wrong with the human presence on Earth. Some of that literature traces that sense of wrongness all the way to despair. But many novels and films are turning away from the despairing story that the universe is an accident, and are groping, through stories of a waking universe, toward stories that say we are part of a created cosmos. Such stories nourish the virtue of hope. And they point toward the possibility of flourishing in this corner of creation, our living planet. Notes 1 Richard Kearney, On Stories (New York: Routledge, 2008), 1. 2 Steven Bouma-Prediger, Earthkeeping and Character (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020), 16.

84  Loren Wilkinson 3 Edward Tryon, cited in Dennis Danielson, The Book of the Cosmos (Cambridge, MA: Perseus, 2000), 482. 4 J.R.R. Tolkien, “On Fairy Stories,” in The Tolkien Reader (New York: Ballantine Books, 1966), 46. Subsequent Tolkien references are to this work, with page numbers cited parenthetically in the main text. 5 Ibid., 47. 6 Ibid., 59. 7 Richard Louv, The Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder (Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2008). Louv’s widely-read book explores the reasons for—and the consequences of—the fact that contemporary children don’t play outdoors as much as they used to. 8 Tolkien, “On Fairy Stories,” 60. 9 Ibid., 67. 10 Ibid., 68. 11 Ibid. 12 Arthur C. Clarke, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (London: Gollancz, 2001). 13 Robert Sawyer, Mindscan (New York: Tor, 2005). 14 2001: A Space Odyssey, screenplay by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur Clark, directed by Stanley Kubrick, released in 1968 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. 15 Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars (New York: Random House, 1992); Green Mars (New York: Random House, 1993); Blue Mars (New York: Random House, 1996). 16 Kim Stanley Robinson, Ministry for the Future (London: Orbit Books, 2020). 17 Kim Stanley Robinson, Aurora (London: Orbit, 2015). 18 Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed (New York: Harper and Row, 1974); Five Ways to Forgiveness (New York: Harper, 2017); The Left Hand of Darkness (New York: Ace Books, 1969). 19 Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow (New York, Ballantine Books, 1996); Children of God (New York: Ballantine Books, 1998). 20 Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake (New York: Anchor Books, 2004); The Year of the Flood (New York: Nan A. Talese, Doubleday, 2009); Maddaddam (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2013). 21 Avatar, written and directed by James Cameron, released 2009, by 20th-Century Fox. 22 Bron Taylor, Avatar and Nature Spirituality (Waterloo, Ontario: Willfred Laurier Press, 2013). 23 Bron Taylor, Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010). 24 Tolkien, “On Fairy Stories,” 71–72.

References 2001: A Space Odyssey. Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur Clark, directed by Stanley Kubrick. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1968. Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake. New York: Anchor Books, 2004. ———. The Year of the Flood. New York: Nan A. Talese, Doubleday, 2009. ———. Maddaddam. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2013. Avatar. Written and directed by James Cameron. 20th-century Fox, 2009. Bouma-Prediger, Steven. Earthkeeping and Character: Exploring a Christian Ecological Virtue Ethic. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020. Clarke, Arthur C. The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke. London: Gollancz, 2001. Danielson, Dennis. The Book of the Cosmos. Cambridge, MA: Perseus, 2000. Kearney, Richard. On Stories. New York: Routledge, 2008. Le Guin, Ursula K. The Dispossessed. New York: Harper and Row, 1974.

“Ecoflourishing” and Story  85 ———. The Left Hand of Darkness. New York: Ace Books, 1969. ———. Five Ways to Forgiveness. New York: Harper, 2017. Louv, Richard. The Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2008. Robinson, Kim Stanley. Red Mars. New York: Random House, 1992. ———. Green Mars. New York: Random House, 1993. ———. Blue Mars. New York: Random House, 1996. ———. Ministry for the Future. London: Orbit Books, 2020. ———. Aurora. London: Orbit, 2015. Russell, Mary Doria. The Sparrow. New York: Ballantine, 1996. ———. Children of God. New York: Ballantine, 1998. Sawyer, Robert. Mindscan. New York: Tor, 2005. Taylor, Bron. Avatar and Nature Spirituality. Waterloo, Ontario: Willfred Laurier Press, 2013. ———. Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. Tolkien, J.R.R. “On Fairy Stories.” In The Tolkien Reader. New York: Ballantine Books, 1966.

8

‘I all-creation sing’: Christina Rossetti’s Cosmic Liturgy and Challenge to Anthropocentrism Joshua King

“Christianity is the most anthropocentric”—literally, human-centered—“religion the world has seen,” Lynn White announced in 1967. This introduced the now familiar “Lynn White Thesis,” that Christianity blessed Western exploitation of nature by declaring God had made it to serve humans. White acknowledged exceptions, namely St. Francis, who, he thought, heretically “tried to depose man from his monarchy over creation and set up a democracy of all God’s creatures.” Exhibit A for White was the well-known “Canticle of the Creatures,” which addresses all creatures as Brothers and Sisters who praise “their Creator in their own ways.”1 This chapter agrees that White had a point: to counteract the vice of anthropocentrism Christians must reencounter other creatures as fellow worshippers, participants in a liturgy of creation in which we are inextricably interdependent. Yet White was also wrong: St. Francis was hardly an ecological loner—there are ample Christian precedents for respecting the praise of other creatures, and we might learn from them. I turn to my own scholarly area, the literary religious culture of Victorian Britain, and Christina Rossetti, best remembered for “In the Bleak Midwinter” and a bizarre poem about goblins and juicy fruits. Yet Rossetti is helpful for her approach to creation in her poetry and theological prose. Rossetti views creation as a “cosmic liturgy,” a phrase and concept associated with Hans Urs von Balthasar.2 While not in Rossetti’s own vocabulary, I believe “cosmic liturgy” aptly articulates her understanding of creation as a vast act of worship exceeding human comprehension and purposes. This way of encountering created reality, I will contend, encourages the virtues of humility, loving respect for other created things, and pursuit of mutual flourishing with them. Rossetti thereby exemplifies in her contexts the assertion of biblical scholar Richard Bauckham that “a living sense of human participation in creation’s praise of God…is the strongest antidote to anthropocentrism in the biblical and Christian tradition.”3 The anthropocentrism that I join Bauckham in resisting is the arrogant assumption that “it is only in relation to human beings that anything else acquires value”4—a presumption often paired with further normative claims, such as that nature’s other members should be thoroughly subjected to human agendas. Rossetti’s own view of creation’s worship was enabled by her actual worship practice. From age twelve she attended leading London churches of DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-15

‘I All-Creation Sing’  87 Anglo-Catholic ritualism, which arose in the Church of England by the 1840s. Anglo-Catholic ritualists held that Christ was truly present in the wine and bread of Eucharist, or Communion, and they adapted contemporary Catholic and Prereformation worship practices.5 Anglo-Catholic worship affirmed that “Christ’s taking on human form, and his repeated manifestation in bread and wine,” was “symbolic of a larger reality in which God was manifest in every aspect of the natural world.”6 Worship climaxed in the sacramental encounter with Christ through the materials of creation in bread and wine. The entire worship experience was meant to heighten awareness of a God who indwells and communicates Himself throughout creation. Decorative fauna, finely ornamented objects, flowers and greenery, incense, stained glass, candle flames, chanted worship of choir and congregation, and brightly colored cloths and masonry in Rossetti’s churches and others, suggested that all materials and members of creation were involved in acts of worship that moved toward communion with Christ in the Eucharist. Rossetti develops this liturgical perspective when criticizing anthropocentrism in her poem “To what purpose is this waste?” Drafted in 1853, when she was twenty-three, but revised and republished in her last decades, the poem remained relevant to her vision of creation. Its title comes from a passage in the book of Matthew where the disciples resent a woman for wasting expensive perfume in anointing Jesus—“to what purpose is this waste?,” they ask (26:8, AV). It should have been sold to help the poor. Jesus reproves the disciples for making human utility their standard, rather than his adoration. The speaker of Rossetti’s poem is reproved for a parallel misjudgment, in her case the arrogant assumption that creation exists for human needs and purposes, rather than adoration of its creator. In other words, the speaker practices the anthropocentric vice that Lynn White will place on Western Christianity’s doorstep over one hundred years later. The poem’s speaker opens by recalling how, when in the countryside, she felt disdain for aspects of creation that do not directly delight or sustain humans, such as “Honey of wild bees in their ordered cells” that no “human mouths … taste.”7 If Earth was made for humans to subdue to their uses, the speaker wondered, what purpose is served by such untapped abundance? “I said, smiling superior down: What waste/Of good, where no man dwells” (28–31). Smiling “superior down,” the speaker smugly assumed along with many of Rossetti’s contemporaries that Genesis 1:28, which urges humans to exercise “dominion over” the “earth” (1:28), had established her species as sovereigns over a planet existing for their use. From this perspective, the flourishing of other creatures without regard for pressing human needs can only be a “waste”—irrelevant to the job assigned nonhumans by God. Yet then the speaker says she sat down under a tree and “forgot myself in sleep” (41). Her “eyes were opened to behold/All hidden things/And mine ears heard all secret whisperings” (43–45), so that her “proud tongue” was “silenced by the force of utter Love” (46, 48)—the divine love creating and sustaining all things. By “forget[ing] myself,” falling asleep to her “proud” anthropocentric consciousness,

88  Joshua King the speaker awakened to a cosmic congregation. While describing this congregation, the speaker shifts to the present tense, indicating that the poem is being uttered after the reorientation under the tree that she has just recounted in the past tense. She voices a newly humbled perspective: All voices of all things inanimate Join with the song of Angels and the song Of blessed Spirits, chiming with Their Hallelujahs. One wind wakeneth Across the sleeping sea, crisping along The waves, and brushes thro’ the great Forests and tangled hedges, and calls out Of rivers a clear sound, …Till all their voices swell Above the clouds in one loud hymn Joining the song of Seraphim, Or like pure incense circle round about The walls of Heaven… (49–57, 59–63) The speaker now perceives a vast more-than-human host contributing to a “hymn” lifted also by angels and spirits who have entered Paradise. Her language alludes to worship in Anglo-Catholic sanctuaries, in which the main body of the church, where the congregation participated, was distinguished from the chancel. In the chancel, a white-robed choir and incense-swinging priests and officiants led the chanted service, stationed before the focal point of the entire liturgy, the eucharistic altar. In these lines, other-than-humans are closer to the altar than the speaker, swinging incense and leading chanted hymns. Rather than supervising or leading worship, the speaker is invited to discern and participate in a liturgy already taking place. For Rossetti, this is not simply anthropomorphism or the pathetic fallacy. Rather, Rossetti draws on Anglican liturgy for anthropomorphic metaphors to express what she took to be reality: that creation glorifies God through its interactive diversity in ways exceeding human needs or purposes. From this humbled, receptive posture, the speaker can affirm that simply by existing, things offer “A silent praise” to God, and even through their “pain” make a “silent prayer,” forming a “hymn, an incense rising toward the skies” (109–111). Tempering liturgical metaphors with recognition of untranslatable, other-than-human agency and expression (a “hymn” that is “silent praise”), Rossetti practices what Kate Rigby calls “a negative ecopoetics,” which acknowledges that “there is a dimension to our encounters with things, other, world, and God that will always exceed our capacity to respond.” Disavowing total comprehension or expression of creation, poetry can invite us to lend “our own human voices to” a “polyphonic song” exceeding human contributions, containing more-than-human “voices, for which we ourselves cannot stand in.”8 Such humbled expression, Kate Soper contends,

‘I All-Creation Sing’  89 enables “our very empathy with” other creatures,” which “requires … respect” for “their difference from us and the ways this may constrain our capacity to ‘communicate’ on their behalf.”9 If God receives creatures’ pain as prayer, then he receives their delight as praise. So, a foraging bee’s satisfaction augments the “pure incense” of worship: A lily blossoming unseen Holds honey in its silver cup Whereon a bee may sup, Till being full she takes the rest And stores it in her waxen nest… (65–69) Fulfilling itself and providing for its colony, the bee honors God’s grace, indicated by allusions to the Eucharist. The white flower’s “silver cup” recalls a chalice used to hold the wine, often tulip-shaped, and placed on the flower-decked altar in AngloCatholic services. Here humans are not priests mediating the praise of creation on creation’s behalf. The flower is itself priest and chalice, distributing the sacrament of life to the bee, an analogy grounded in what Rossetti took to be a reality: the incarnate Christ, through God’s pervasive Holy Spirit, upholding and indwelling creation as its life source. This creaturely liturgy is “unseen,” requiring no human validation. Yet contemplating it, the speaker is recalled to the worship she must enter: …The fair blossom lifted up On its one stately stem of green Is type of her, the Undefiled, Arrayed in white, whose eyes are mild As a white dove’s, whose garment is Blood-cleansed from all impurities And earthly taints, Her robe the righteousness of Saints. (70–77) The “silver cup” of the flower’s “blossom lifted up” mirrors the chalice lifted in consecration in Anglo-Catholic services.10 Rossetti elsewhere follows Anglo-­ Catholic liturgical floral symbolism in identifying lilies with Christ and Mary, describing Mary as a “Lily” who “bore one fair lily [Christ]; sweeter, whiter, far/Than she or others are” (“Herself a rose” 6–9). Here the lily typifies Mary the “Undefiled” who bore Christ, who is received in wine lifted by the priest. The lily also symbolizes Christians “blood-cleansed” by Christ and lifted into his resurrection, a rise foreshadowed as the lily’s stem “lift[s] up” its blossom. Anglo-Catholics recalled and anticipated this redemption at Easter, when lilies adorned their churches.11 The lily and bee point the speaker toward Christ’s redeemed human community. Yet the lily and bee differently participate in and honor Christ as the source of their life, simply by blossoming, supping, and storing.

90  Joshua King The speaker goes on to assert that seemingly insignificant nonhumans honor Christ in pursuing their various pleasures: And other eyes than our’s [sic] Were made to look on flowers, Eyes of small birds and insects small: The deep sun-blushing rose Round which the prickles close Opens her bosom to them all. The tiniest living thing That soars on feathered wing, Or crawls among the long grass out of sight, Has just as good a right To its appointed portion of delight As any King. (78–88) Miniscule, evanescent things are divinely “appointed” to their own delights without needing to please human “sight.” The rose’s erotic exposure of its “bosom” suggests interdependent fulfillment, insects pollinating the plant in satisfying themselves. The “prickles” of the bush “close” the gates of this miniature hortus conclusus, enclosed garden, deterring larger creatures such as humans, even as the rose within “opens” to the “appointed” creatures “small” enough to enter. Myriad, fleeting experiences of creation beyond human awareness (“other eyes[/I’s] than our’s”) participate in praise by delighting and thriving. To such reserved pleasures these fleeting things have as much right as “any King.” Here capitalized, “King” suggests that Christ, creation’s King, delights that this should be so. Rossetti elaborated her understanding of creation’s liturgy in Seek and Find, her 1879 book on the Benedicite, an ancient canticle or hymn. The Benedicite calls all of creation into worship, each of its thirty verses summoning different members, including humans, to “bless ye the Lord: praise Him, and magnify Him for ever.”12 Included in the Book of Common Prayer in Rossetti’s Church of England, the Benedicite appears to have been used more frequently in her time as a result of Anglo-Catholic floral decoration and sung services.13 This might explain the uptick of responses to the Benedicite in Anglican books, poems, sermons, and periodical essays in the last decades of the nineteenth century, a trend to which Rossetti contributed through Seek and Find. To my knowledge, Seek and Find is unique among late-century Anglican responses to the Benedicite in stressing nonhuman participation in salvation. As theologian Denis Edwards notes, since at least the Reformation, Catholic and Protestant salvation theologies have foregrounded “humans and God” to the virtual neglect of the wider creation.14 In this view, the late biblical scholar Terence Fretheim comments, nature existed to “enhance…human life” and provide the scenery for God’s salvation of humans.15 By contrast, Rossetti’s Seek and Find represents all of creation as a worshipping, liturgical community that participates in Christ’s redemption and praises

‘I All-Creation Sing’  91 God, as indicated by an opening three-columned table, which pairs the Benedicite with scriptural texts. Each of the “Works of the Lord” that are called upon to praise God in the Benedicite is listed under the first column, titled “The Praise-Givers Are,” while the second and third columns, titled “God’s Creatures” and “Christ’s Servants,” offer scriptural verses inviting readers to consider how each aspect of creation in the Benedicite fulfills those two roles. The column headings can be read as a sentence: “The Praise Givers Are God’s Creatures, Christ’s Servants.”16 The verses listed under the “Creatures” column come predominantly from the Old Testament, and those under “Christ’s Servants” primarily from the New Testament, indicating the inclusion of all creatures in the movement of salvation history leading up to and through Christ. This refutes modern Western divisions between creation and human redemption, between natural and sacred history. Rossetti reinforces the point by arranging Seek and Find into a “double series” of studies titled “Creation” and “Redemption,” with each member of creation mentioned in the Benedicite considered under both headings. Rossetti thereby calls readers to regard more-than-humans as fellow worshippers and participants in Christ’s redemption. Her title—Seek and Find—highlights her conviction that, since all creation holds together in Christ, he might be sought and met in all its members. Everything, Rossetti notes, can be encountered as a praisegiving manifestation of some aspect of Christ—from the stars to rocks, to “the multiform family of living creatures” that shares “the earth in man’s company” (SF, 287). Therefore, she remarks, “contemplation of any creature” can help readers “discern” and draw closer to “Jesus” (SF, 326). Redemptive growth in Christ requires relating to him by lovingly contemplating and interacting with other creatures, rather than disentangling oneself from them. At the end of Seek and Find, Rossetti warns against failure to recognize Christ in other-than-humans, by, for example, treating them as expendable resources. This is to risk being “numbered amongst those” in Jesus’ parable of the sheep and goats “who, standing on the left hand of the bar of judgment, shall make answer, ‘Lord, when saw we Thee?’ (St. Matt. xxv.41, 44)” (SF, 327). In the parable, Jesus says he will condemn those who have failed to see, honor, and serve him in other humans, whom he calls “my brethren” (Matt. 25:40, AV). Rossetti extends “brethren” to all those she has designated “Christ’s Servants” in Seek and Find—from whales to plants to stars to water. Rossetti uses familial language to assert that communion with Jesus entails kinship with other creatures. In fact, nonhumans participate in every dimension of humanity’s redemption. Among Rossetti’s examples are the ways in which plants form the meanings of the “Sacred Canon” and shape “Sacred History” (SF, 101). Rossetti’s botanical history of redemption includes scriptural symbols and types of Christ “culled from the ‘family of green things’” (SF, 262), the myrrh offered Christ in infancy and burial (263, 266), the “green grass” on which Christ seated those for whom he multiplied bread (SF, 264), and the “sycomore-tree [that] helped forward the salvation of Zacchaeus” (SF, 265). If other creatures contribute to human salvation, they also experience their own communion with God and destinies in Christ. Considering “our brute fellow-creatures,” Rossetti contends that “we do not ourselves possess faculties whereby to define the limits of all they are and all they are not,” or of the

92  Joshua King “scope” of their participation in the divine, now “or” in “the future” awaiting them (SF, 114–115). Rossetti portrays creation as a procession of worship, a liturgy, moving in kinship toward redemption. This is evident through two further dimensions of Seek and Find: her insistence on the vast, cosmic scale of the procession and on the participation of creation in the Eucharistic meal. Rossetti considers the cosmic scale in her meditation on “Earth.” She entertained the “vast-periods theory,”17 which sought to reconcile the Genesis creation stories with depths of time and space revealed by geology and other sciences. In this theory, Rossetti notes, each of the six days in the creation story corresponds to a vast stretch of time “by us unmeasured and immeasurable” (SF, 87). This theory poses a problem for Rossetti, who assumes Adam and Eve were historical individuals. From this perspective, regarding each day of creation as an eon would seem to entail believing that humanity’s first parents, created on the sixth day or eon of time, would have had to pass through the entire following eon, the seventh day of God’s Sabbath rest at the start of Genesis 2, before experiencing the Fall in Genesis 3 (SF, 87). Such an eon would far surpass even the nearly millennial lifespan attributed to Adam. Yet, Rossetti notes, “we are” told “of” the seventh day’s “commencement and character”—on it, God “rested,” and he “blessed” and “sanctified” it (Gen. 2:2–3)—but no mention is made of this seventh day’s “completion” (SF, 88). Rossetti therefore wonders whether this seventh Sabbath day is unfinished, meaning that the age “in which we are now all living and dying, is that very primeval Sabbath still in progress, still incomplete[,] but in the foreknowledge of Almighty God and in fulness of time to be completed” (SF, 89). If this is true, the Sabbath of the seventh day, when God rests and celebrates creation, is revealed as creation’s incomplete goal: all of creation, as Norman Wirzba has observed, is meant to share in God’s “rest, tranquility,…peace” and celebratory “delight.”18 If creation is a Sabbath in progress, it is also God’s sanctuary, blessed and declared holy. In this view, Rossetti asserts, all “the earth becomes holy ground…on which none but a very dove’s foot is meet to rest,” suggesting that each environment must be encountered in the humility, purity of motive, and disavowal of violence biblically associated with doves (SF, 90). Rossetti quotes Jacob’s words as he awakened from his dream of the ladder ascending to heaven, seeing with new eyes a place previously unknown to him in the wilderness: “Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven (Gen. xxviii. 16, 17)” (SF, 90). Every dimension of creation is involved in the vast unfolding of God’s Sabbath-in-progress. It is a divine dwelling place to be inhabited with reverence. If creation is an unfinished Sabbath, moving toward peace, Christ’s return at the end of time brings not creation’s obliteration but transformed liberation. For this reason, Rossetti called Sunday “the Christian First Day.”19 Rossetti’s Anglo-­ Catholic view of Sunday approaches that of Eastern Orthodoxy as articulated by theologian Alexander Schmemann. For Schmemann, the Christian Sunday signifies the “first” day, a “new Lord’s Day.” On Sunday, the Church celebrates a new

‘I All-Creation Sing’  93 first day of creation, in effect claiming that the seven-day creation of Genesis has begun again. This is because Sunday honors the resurrection of Christ when the new creation began in Christ’s created body as it was raised from death and glorified forever in the communion of the Trinity. The present world that God declared good on the “seventh day” is meant for Sabbath peace, but is nonetheless still in partial revolt against God, still in progress toward the reconciliation and peace affirmed on Sunday.20 Sunday therefore anticipates transformation of the present seven-day creation into the Sabbath peace and communion achieved in Christ. Sunday worship is a movement toward the Eucharist, which, being the presence of the crucified but risen Christ, is a foretaste of the unbroken praise and communion of new creation in what Rossetti called the “Sabbath of eternity” (FD, 462). If Rossetti approached the Eucharist as a foretaste of new creation’s Sabbath, she also received it as an invitation into the self-giving, costly love of God that peace requires. In Seek and Find, Rossetti reflects on Christ’s “self-emptying” (SF, 171) exposure of himself to the full suffering and present “disjointed[ness]” of creation (SF, 170), so that he might begin in his life creation’s return toward the Sabbath reconciliation and “praise” for which it is meant (SF, 169). In view of Christ’s “life-procuring Passion” communicated by the Eucharist, Rossetti asks (SF, 170), “What should be the measure of our gift to him?”—and answers “His to us: self for Self, all for all” (SF, 171). “Members” of Christ’s “Body” are through the Eucharist invited into Christ’s way of life, which Rossetti calls the “Divine nonexclusiveness”: this means living in Christ’s self-giving, loving way, anticipating creation’s peace by giving way to others’ needs, surrendering the human contest over “mine which is not thine, and thine which is not mine” (SF, 260). Turning to the “Green Things” called to praise God in the Benedicite, Rossetti identifies the praise they offer with their manifestation of this “Divine nonexclusiveness.” Here Rossetti embraces what Emma Mason calls “green grace,” an “ongoing and immanent” divine “force” drawing creation into the self-emptying, interdependent life of the new creation reconciled to God.21 Humans must come to embrace this graced, self-giving life, but nonhumans can in some cases instinctively experience it, and, particularly in the case of plants, exemplify it.22 Rossetti recalls Christ’s description of himself as a grape vine of which his disciples are branches (John 15:1–8). She finds “the multitudinous unity of” this “plant” a fit embodiment of the Christian community enlivened by Christ. Christ acts as the “Root” that “feeds its branches with its very life,” a phrase that recalls feeding on Christ’s life in the Eucharist, which is itself made possible by the “fruit” that a grape vine produces (SF 261–62). Here Rossetti acknowledges that sacramental wine not only draws communicants into a vine-like life, with many branches sharing one source of sap, but also literally depends on sap flowing through vines. Becoming one in Christ through the Eucharist, by which His life is shared, relies on all the processes and creatures that contribute to making the Eucharist. Elsewhere in Seek and Find, Rossetti considers how the “Dews” mentioned in the Benedicite act as Christ’s servants, and notes that “Corn, wine, and dew (that is, water)” are “elements of the two great Christian Sacraments” (SF, 215). She also identifies the elements of the Eucharist with fruitful harvests and rain (Deut. 33:28; 215).

94  Joshua King Rossetti thereby reminds readers of the biogeochemical cycles that make wine and wafer possible. All terrestrial bodies and processes in turn are made of matter generated by stars. The late geologist and Orthodox Christian writer George Theokritoff observes that consequently, Earth and everything in it, including our bodies and blood, as well as the Eucharistic bread and wine, are cosmic in origin…. Thus Christ’s words, ‘This is my body; this is my blood,’ have a profound literal sense in that the matter making up the Eucharistic bread and wine—and that making up [his] flesh and blood…—share the same cosmic origin.”23 Rossetti’s interest in “the new astronomy” of her day means that she might have anticipated Theokritoff’s cosmic vision of the Eucharist, as is suggested by her inclusion of “galaxies” in Seek and Find as one of God’s works that praise Him and participate in salvation history (SF, 37).24 The meal in which new creation is anticipated, in which humans are invited into Christ’s self-giving love that overcomes divisions of mine and thine, arises from countless interactions of other creatures, stretching back to creation’s origin. Rossetti, then, conceives of creation as a cosmic liturgy moving through fathomless time, in which the Church’s Eucharistic worship and redemption depend on a vast web of other creatures. In keeping with her Eucharistic theology, Rossetti highlights eating as a site of these interdependent acts of giving and receiving. For example, she notes God’s provision of prey for wild animals in Job (SF, 124), as well as the offering of the “Paschal Lamb” each year of Christ’s “mortal life”: the lamb, in pointing to Christ’s sacrifice (SF, 291), was also eaten by him to become part of the body he offered on the cross (SF, 278, 291). Similarly, fish that nourished Christ and his disciples during his ministry (SF, 278) again did so when caught by his direction in the meal following his resurrection (Jn. 21:1–13), a “feast” that Rossetti associates with the Eucharist, noting that it was “laid…by unearthly as well as by earthly hands” (SF, 279). Stressing dependence by Christ and his disciples upon the bodies of other creatures, Rossetti places at the center of salvation history what Norman Wirzba calls the “humbling, even terrifying… acknowledge[ment]” of “one’s dependence on the deaths of other creatures,” whether animal or vegetal. Membership in creation’s redemptive liturgy is defined by always being “viscerally (through…stomachs), implicated in and in-formed by others,” all “of which together depend on…God as their source.”25 In 1881, two years after Seek and Find, Rossetti applied her vision of creation’s cosmic liturgy in a poetic liturgy, a poem modeled on the Benedicite called “‘All thy works praise thee, O Lord’: A Processional of Creation.” This “Processional of Creation,” whose movement and inclusion of many choral voices mirrors the communal chanting of a liturgical canticle, was likely written in dialogue with church celebrations at harvest time, or harvest festivals, in which Rossetti had long engaged. The Benedicite appears to have been regularly invoked during harvest festivals, when its call to “green things” to “bless the Lord” would complement

‘I All-Creation Sing’  95 churches decorated with flowers, vines, fruits, vegetables, branches, and mosses.26 Always included were wheat and grapes, affirming connections like those traced above in Seek and Find between the fruitfulness of creation and communion with Christ in the Eucharist.27 Harvest festivals opened with large choirs “singing, in procession.” They would normally conclude with a “processional hymn” that celebrated creation’s bounty as a manifestation of God’s love and glory, and they included an “anthem” taken from a passage such as Psalm 145.28 Also taking the first half of its title from Psalm 145 (“All thy works praise thee”), Rossetti’s poetic “Processional of Creation” incorporates these elements of harvest festivals. Whereas the Benedicite calls on creation to praise God, Rossetti’s “Processional” represents humans as joining praise that is already taking place. The initial first-person pronoun—“I… sing”—is creation voiced as a single entity: “I all-­ creation sing my song of praise” (PC, 1). Readers are placed in an older, collective identity already belonging to and shared with other-than-humans. Each stanza of Rossetti’s processional hymn follows a triple rhyme scheme, the three-in-one pattern evoking Rossetti’s sense of “multitudinous” creation expressing and sustained by the Triune community: creatures later praise both God’s “Unity” and “Trinity” (PC, 6, 9). Humans do not join the song until the final movement of the poem, when they sing, “All creatures sing around us, and we sing” (PC, 150). The Church is a late addition to an ancient choir, human praise building and relying on the “days” and “multitudinous ways” of countless other creatures. To predicate human benefit upon the diminishment of other creatures would be to banish necessary voices from the song. Rossetti reaffirms that creation’s liturgy exceeds human scales and timelines by “updating the astronomical phenomena of the Benedicite” to reflect nineteenthcentury science.29 “Galaxies and Nebulae” join the song, declaring that “No thing is far or near” (PC, 31). Rossetti nods to problems in determining “the structure and extent of the universe” focused on “the status of nebulae,” which were debated to be either “remote galaxies or star-making mists within our” galaxy: knots and systems of stars might be infinitely far apart, even though they appeared relatively near.30 “Float[ing] neither far nor near” (PC, 32), galaxies and nebulae challenge human comprehension of space, time, and scale, as does the infinite presence of the one “round” whose “Throne” they “Weave dances…perpetually” (PC, 33). As Rossetti notes in Seek and Find, such galactic displays decenter Earth, revealing it as “a very small thing amid their magnitudes” (SF, 192). Rossetti further affirms that many threats to human flourishing, and indeed to known life, nonetheless contribute to the praise. “Cold,” personified as a choir member, adds its chilling tones to Rossetti’s “Processional”: “My praise is not of men, yet I praise God” (PC, 63–65). The “Processional” suggests that dimensions of creation’s liturgy such as coldness “praise God” precisely by not attracting or challenging “praise…of men.” Like galaxies, coldness beneficially confronts humans with their limitations of judgment and a creation that does not privilege their interests: “all our decisions,” Rossetti asserts in Seek and Find, “will not bias” the value to be revealed for creation’s components in the “day” of Christ’s return, the fulfillment of the Sabbath still in progress (SF, 64).

96  Joshua King Rossetti’s cosmic liturgy refutes anthropocentric reduction of creation to human purposes and benefits, inviting instead virtues of humility, loving respect, and pursuit of mutual flourishing with more-than-humans. In agreement with contemporary theologian Carmody T.S. Grey (and Thomas Aquinas), Rossetti understands that a vast “multiplicity of creatures,” and their diverse relationships to each other, are required to represent and honor God’s infinitely diverse goodness. Needless destruction of biological and ecological diversity therefore constitutes a “liturgical impoverishment,” a silencing of worship.31 Rossetti regards denial of the rights and delights of morethan-humans as an assault upon one’s praise-giving brethren, in whom Christ should be met and recognized, and she warns that there may be eternal consequences for anthropocentric pride, carelessness, and violence that blasphemously deny the presence and praise of God. She knew consequences were more immediate. In Seek and Find, she invites readers to imagine a world fully reduced to the resources that the British imperial economy was declaring it to be—and making it resemble—through clearcut forests, globalized agriculture, and coal-blackened skies: “Suppose we no longer had cornfields and orchards, but a magazine of ‘constituents,’ gluten, starch, saccharine matter…: no longer leafy branches for shade and leafless branches for fuel, but fogs and clouds for the one, and combustible gases for the other!” (SF 96). Today, we can even more easily imagine a world reduced to (some) humans’ commodities, stripped of praise-giving diversity. In Rossetti’s “Processional of Creation,” fish “set forth” God’s “Praise” through “our many fashions and our colours and our speeds” (PC, 127–28). What is happening to such adoration now, when, by the middle of this century, the ocean may contain more plastic than fish by weight,32 and when human activity is driving a mass extinction likely to impoverish life on Earth for millions of years?33 The stakes are indeed high. Will we creatively renew and practically affirm the worship offered by all creation’s members? Notes 1 Lynn White, Jr., “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis,” Science 155, no. 3767 (1967), 1203–1207. 2 Elizabeth Theokritoff, “Liturgy, Cosmic Worship, and Christian Cosmology” in Toward an Ecology of Transformation: Orthodox Christian Perspectives on Environment, Nature, and Creation, ed. John Cryssavgis and Bruce V. Foltz (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013), 295. 3 Richard Bauckham, Living with Other Creatures: Green Exegesis and Theology (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2011), 162. 4 Timothy Clark, The Value of Ecocriticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 14. 5 Nigel Yates, Anglican Ritualism in Victorian Britain, 1830-1910 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 1–2. 6 Karen Dieleman, Religious Imaginaries: The Liturgical and Poetic Practices of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti, and Adelaide Proctor (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2012), 114. 7 Christina Rossetti: The Complete Poems, ed. R.W. Crump and Betty S. Flowers (New York: Penguin, 2005). Unless otherwise noted, poems are from this edition and lines are cited in the text.

‘I All-Creation Sing’  97 8 Kate Rigby, “Earth, World, Text: On the (Im)possibility of Ecopoiesis,” New Literary History 35, no. 3 (2004), 437–440. 9 Kate Soper, What is Nature? Culture, Politics and the non-Human (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), What is Nature?, 173. 10 Reed, John Shelton, Glorious Battle: The Cultural Politics of Victorian Anglo-­Catholicism (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1996), 69. 11 Edward Young Cox, Church Decoration: A Practical Manual of Appropriate Ornamentation (London: Frederick Warne & Co, 1876), 14, 70. 12 Book of Common Prayer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1865), 37. 13 “On the Use of the Benedicite,” The Parish Choir (Dec. 14, 1846), 100. 14 Denis Edwards, “Key Issues in Ecological Theology: Incarnation, Evolution, Communion,” in Theology and Ecology across the Disciplines: On Care for Our Common Home, eds. Celia Deane-Drummond and Rebecca Artinian-Kaiser (London: T&T Clark, 2018), 66. 15 Terence Fretheim, God and the World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005), 250. 16 Seek and Find: A Double Series of Short Studies of the Benedicite (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1879), 5. Hereafter SF with page numbers cited in text. 17 Diane D’Amico and David A. Kent, “Christina Rossetti’s Notes on Genesis and Exodus,” The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies 13 (2004), 88. 18 Norman Wirzba, Living the Sabbath: Discovering the Rhythms of Rest and Delight (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006), 33. 19 Christina Rosetti, Face of the Deep: A Devotional Commentary on the Apocalypse (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1892), 462. Hereafter FD and cited in text. 20 Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Press, 2018), 63–64. 21 Emma Mason, Christina Rossetti (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 191, 180, 160. 22 Ibid., 112. 23 George Theokritoff, “The Cosmology of the Eucharist,” in Toward an Ecology of Transformation, eds. John Cryssavgis and Bruce Foltz (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014), 133. 24 Linda Marshall, “Astronomy of the Invisible: Contexts for Christina Rossetti’s Heavenly Parables,” in The Culture of Christina Rossetti: Female Poetics and Victorian Contexts, eds. Mary Arseneau, Anthony Harrison, and Lorraine Janzen Kooistra (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1999), 197. 25 Norman Wirzba, From Nature to Creation: A Christian Vision for Understanding and Loving Our World (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015), 99–100, 107. 26 Cox, Church Decoration, 81, 72–73. 27 Ibid., 7. 28 “A Harvest Festival in the City,” The Graphic 12, vol. 309 (Oct. 30, 1875), 432. 29 Marshall, “Astronomy of the Invisible,” 204. 30 Ibid., 204–205. 31 Carmody T.S. Grey, “In Defense of Biodiversity: Biodiversity in Ecology and Theology,” Theology and Ecology across the Disciplines: On Care for Our Common Home, ed. Celia Deane-Drummond and Rebecca Artinian-Kaiser (London: T&T Clark, 2018), 227–39, 234–237. 32 Bill McKibben, Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2019), 46. 33 David Farrier, Anthropocene Poetics: Deep Time, Sacrifice Zones, and Extinction (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019), 92.

98  Joshua King References “A Harvest Festival in the City.” The Graphic 12, no. 309 (1875), 432. Bauckham, Richard. Living with Other Creatures: Green Exegesis and Theology. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2011. Book of Common Prayer. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1865. Clark, Timothy. The Value of Ecocriticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Cox, Edward Young. Church Decoration: A Practical Manual of Appropriate Ornamentation. London: Frederick Warne, 1876. D’Amico, Diane, and David A. Kent. “Christina Rossetti’s Notes on Genesis and Exodus.” The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies 13 (2004): 49–99. Dieleman, Karen. Religious Imaginaries: The Liturgical and Poetic Practices of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti, and Adelaide Proctor. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2012. Edwards, Denis. “Key Issues in Ecological Theology: Incarnation, Evolution, Communion.” In Theology and Ecology across the Disciplines: On Care for Our Common Home, edited by Celia Deane-Drummond and Rebecca Artinian-Kaiser, 65–76. London: T&T Clark, 2018. Farrier, David. Anthropocene Poetics: Deep Time, Sacrifice Zones, and Extinction. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019. Fretheim, Terence E. God and the World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation. London: Abingdon Press, 2005. Grey, Carmody T. S. “In Defense of Biodiversity: Biodiversity in Ecology and Theology.” In Theology and Ecology across the Disciplines: On Care for Our Common Home, edited by Celia Deane-Drummond and Rebecca Artinian-Kaiser, 227–39. London: T&T Clark, 2018. Marshall, Linda. “Astronomy of the Invisible: Contexts for Christina Rossetti’s Heavenly Parables.” In The Culture of Christina Rossetti: Female Poetics and Victorian Contexts, edited by Mary Arseneau, Anthony Harrison and Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, 194–211. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1999. Mason, Emma. Christina Rossetti: Poetry, Ecology, Faith. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. McKibben, Bill. Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? New York: Henry Holt, 2019. “On the Use of the Benedicite.” The Parish Choir (December 14, 1846). Reed, John Shelton. Glorious Battle: The Cultural Politics of Victorian Anglo-Catholicism. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1996. Rigby, Kate. “Earth, World, Text: On the (Im)possibility of Ecopoiesis.” New Literary History 35, no. 3 (2004): 427–442. Rossetti, Christina. Christina Rossetti: The Complete Poems, edited by R.W. Crump and Betty S. Flowers. London: Penguin, 2001. ———. The Face of the Deep: A Devotional Commentary on the Apocalypse. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1892. ———. Seek and Find: A Double Series of Short Studies of the Benedicite. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1879. Schmemann, Alexander. For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy. Yonkers, New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2018. Soper, Kate. What is Nature? Culture, Politics and the Non-Human. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995.

‘I All-Creation Sing’  99 Theokritoff, Elizabeth. “Liturgy, Cosmic Worship, and Christian Cosmology.” In Toward an Ecology of Transformation: Orthodox Christian Perspectives on Environment, Nature, and Creation, edited by John Cryssavgis and Bruce V. Foltz, 295–306. New York: Fordham University Press, 2013. Theokritoff, George. “The Cosmology of the Eucharist.” In Toward an Ecology of Transformation: Orthodox Christian Perspectives on Environment, Nature, and Creation, edited by John Cryssavgis and Bruce V. Foltz, 131–136. New York: Fordham University Press, 2013. White, Lynn Jr. “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis.” Science 155, no. 3767 (1967): 1203–1207. Wirzba, Norman. From Nature to Creation: A Christian Vision for Understanding and Loving Our World. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015. ———. Living the Sabbath: Discovering the Rhythms of Rest and Delight. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006. Yates, Nigel. Anglican Ritualism in Victorian Britain, 1830-1910. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

9

John Muir, Deep Time, and the Hope of Ecoflourishing Michael Kunz

Introduction I often wonder what man will do with the mountains – that is, with their utilizable, destructible garments. Will he cut down all the trees to make ships and houses? If so, what will be the final and far upshot? Will human destruction like those of Nature – fire and flood and avalanche – work out a higher good, a finer beauty? Will a better civilization come in accord with obvious nature, and all this wild beauty be set to human poetry and song?… And what then is coming? What is the human part of the mountains’ destiny?1 These words were penned in late summer of 1875 by the person often considered the patriarch of American environmental conservation, John Muir. If one visits the national parks of California’s Sierra Nevada, Muir’s words seem to appear in every visitor center and on every other interpretive sign along trail or turnout. The National Park Service evidently believes that John Muir’s legacy still has relevance to conservation and our relationship to the land.2 Muir’s early scientific discoveries were of the pervasive influence of Sierra glaciers both present and ancient, but in 1875 his attention had turned to giant sequoias. That August Muir left his home in Yosemite to undertake an arduous three-month trackless journey over ridge and down canyon to the southern Sierra. Accompanied only by his mule Brownie and provisioned with meager rations, he set out in search of the extent and status of sequoia groves. Sequoias from the area around Yosemite already were well-known tourist attractions, but the groves were few and relatively small. Muir’s expedition south was to survey the more extensive groves reputed to inhabit the southern Sierra and to evaluate the threats to their existence. Advancing technology and impending access presented an imminent threat to their existence. His concern was not unfounded; within a few decades, lumbering operations would fell giants within almost a quarter of the groves’ area. Muir was an accomplished botanist who spoke lovingly of what he called the “plant people,” those both large and small. Many are the possible starting points for understanding Muir’s basis for hope, but consider beginning with giant sequoias. These trees, the largest on the planet by volume, occur naturally only in approximately seventy groves along a narrow elevational band of California’s central and DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-16

John Muir, Deep Time, and the Hope of Ecoflourishing  101 southern Sierra Nevada.3 Muir called them “God’s first temples.”4 Mature monarch trees can measure a hundred feet in circumference at their base and rise almost as high as a football field is long. The oldest individuals have weathered nearly three thousand years of storm and drought and fire. Their majesty served as impetus for the 1864 establishment of the world’s first parks dedicated to preservation of natural splendor.5 The temples are burning. Mature sequoias are well adapted to low and moderate intensity fires, but a decade of drought, higher temperatures, low humidity, intense winds, and, in many places, accumulation of fuel from a century of fire suppression have altered Sierra Nevada fire behavior. Beginning in 2015, these giants have been overwhelmed by a series of high-intensity fires that have impacted more than half the groves. The death toll is still being tallied but, as of this writing, it numbers likely a fifth of all large sequoias and has happened in an instant of time as measured by a sequoia life.6 There is a profound sense of loss for those who love these trees; monarch sequoias cannot be replaced in less than a thousand years. There is also an accompanying sense of despair for the giants remaining in locations where changing climates may no longer sustain them. At current rates of loss, these temples will mostly disappear within a generation of short-lived humans. Hope seems scarce in a world where giant sequoias are just one of a multitude of ecological tragedies. It is a very hard time for those of us who deeply love this good Earth, and hope is not the obvious response. Muir’s 1875 journal entry mirrors our contemporary situation. He ponders destinies of both humans and nature in a reflection that seems to balance on a knife-edge of despair and hope. His sojourn into the sequoias marked a pivotal transition into environmental advocacy and conservation.7 Muir’s vision may still be useful in discerning a hope-filled path into the future. If hope is understood as actively striving toward an unseen yet envisioned future, we can learn much from Muir about the virtue of hope in a time of despair.8 His close confidant Jeanne Carr noted that Muir’s uncommonly deep perception of nature was due to his ability to “see with a glacial eye.” His path toward hope though, perhaps unexpectedly, wends its way through what is now called deep time – the long arc of Earth’s history that precedes and perhaps follows our short human history.9 Muir’s way is also interwoven with his understanding of Nature’s ecological and evolutionary processes that act through deep time. In many Christian circles, the implications of deep time are seldom discussed, yet they may alter calculations of value, strategies for conservation, and the basis for hope of ecoflourishing. Deep Time Past And in looking through God’s great stone books made of records reaching back millions and millions of years, it is a great comfort to learn that vast multitudes of creatures, great and small and infinite in number, lived and had a good time in God’s love before man was created.10

102  Michael Kunz In the autobiography of his early years, Muir tells of his family’s homestead on the Wisconsin frontier. He recounts the story of their dog “Watch” who was dispatched for raiding the neighbors’ chickens. Muir notes the irony of destroying a pet for having an appetite too similar to our own. He then skewers religious piety by contrasting dinner table discourse about the biblical vision of a peaceful, bloodless millennium, with “the millions of squabs that preaching, praying men and women kill and eat.”11 Unsurprisingly, Muir uses this story as a platform for launching into a lesson regarding the consequences of human appetites by citing the passenger pigeon. In the span of Muir’s lifetime, commercial exploitation of pigeon to satisfy this American hunger eliminated from the wild what was the most abundant bird in North America. The last passenger pigeon died in captivity three months before Muir’s own death in 1914. What is unexpected is how Muir ends his story of Watch and human depredation of birds. He does so by recounting the aforementioned quote about deep time and the comfort he takes in knowing that “vast multitudes of creatures, great and small and infinite in number, lived and had a good time in God’s love before man was created.”12 What line of logic compelled Muir to connect a story of human environmental destruction with a digression into deep time? Muir transitions from the tragedy of exploited species to deep time by noting current species whose microscopic size allows them to escape our reach. So also, fossil species entombed in the great stone books flourished and enjoyed lives apart from any possibility of human contamination or exploitation. Muir’s vision of the human–nature relationship required a non-anthropocentric humility. He asks, “Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation?” In his estimation, the belief that the world was created especially for the use of humanity was “a presumption not supported by all the facts.”13 The reality of deep time past was his strong argument that we should not. No evidence of human presence could be found within the vast geological records being uncovered in the 19th-century, challenging the anthropocentric worldview of Creation’s purpose.14 The existence of vast, prehuman history disturbed comfortable orthodoxies. It not only challenged a literal interpretation of Genesis, but it also raised questions of theodicy. If death is a consequence of human sin as suggested in Genesis 3, God is not to blame. If death is woven into the very fabric of nature, then a merciful and compassionate God has some serious explaining to do. Such concerns remain important to young earth advocates and the broader unease regarding an ancient universe.15 Muir’s worldview turns this approach to deep time on its head. In his experience of nature in the Sierra Nevada, death is a reality, but the beauty and joy of life outweighed the necessary counterpoint of life’s end. Life as a gift of grace was compensation enough for gratitude. For Muir, who treasured the entire breadth of non-human life, the depth of natural history was not disconcerting, but comforting. If microscopic life can avoid human notice, giant sequoias clearly cannot, and California lumbermen viewed these trees only as board feet of lumber. Muir knew their ancient fossil lineage. In another 1875 journal entry, he reflects: “They stand sound and serene after the hardships of wind and weather of five thousand years

John Muir, Deep Time, and the Hope of Ecoflourishing  103 [sic]. They are antediluvian monuments, through which we gaze in contemplation as through windows into the deeps of primeval time.”16 Longevity, not just as individuals, but as a species, imbued sequoias with sacred value, for they provided Muir a window into earth’s deep history.17 Deep Time Future Species develop and die like individuals, animal as well as plant. Man himself will as surely become extinct as sequoia or mastodon, and be at length known only as a fossil. Changes of this kind are, however, exceedingly slow in their movements, and, as far as the lives of individuals are concerned, such changes have no appreciable effect. Sequoia seems scarcely further past prime as a species than its companion firs…, and judging from its present condition and its ancient history, as far as I have been able to decipher it, our sequoia will live and flourish gloriously until A.D. 15,000 at least—that is, if it be allowed to remain in the hands of Nature.18 Deep time played a role in Muir’s advocacy for sequoia conservation. After he returned from his 1875 odyssey through Sierra sequoia groves, Muir published the article entitled “God’s First Temples: How Shall We Preserve Our Forests?” Fossils documented the broad extent of ancient sequoia and other redwood species across much of the northern hemisphere, yet their current confinement to narrow bands of California habitat suggested decline and imminent extinction.19 If this be the species’ trajectory, logging the groves would scarcely alter their fate and would put them to positive human use; a limited future tips the scale of value in favor of exploitation. Muir justifies sequoia preservation by arguing for their persistence into the distant future in the absence of human despoliation. Such an argument requires a world with the prospect of a deep future. Our vision of earth’s future time horizon affects our priorities. Contemporary Christian eschatologies echo the kinds of arguments Muir encountered. James Watt, Secretary of the Interior under President Reagan, publicly stated that we must conserve for future generations while vigorously pursuing unsustainable exploitation of natural resources. From his dispensationalist perspective of an impending second coming of Christ, these two positions are fully compatible. The end of natural history in a shallow future can convince Christians to consign creation care to a secondary or insignificant position in the hierarchy of Christian ethical priorities. If God is set to restore Creation quickly irrespective of the degree of its current travail, human acts of conservation and restoration may appear superfluous rather than prophetic. Deep Time Process Nature is ever at work, building and tearing down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another.20

104  Michael Kunz In September 2021, dry lightning ignited fires in Sequoia National Park. As fires expanded in multiple directions through drought-parched forests, particular attention was devoted to the perimeter around Giant Forest – the most visited grove of the park and home to half of the ten largest sequoia trees, including the General Sherman Tree, largest tree by volume on the planet and Mecca for hundreds of thousands of visitors annually. Heat-reflective aluminum blankets were placed around the largest and best-known trees to preserve these much-loved monuments. Meanwhile, the fire raced through fifteen other groves in and near Sequoia and Kings Canyon parks. Limited resources had prevented setting preventive prescribed fires in many groves. Nature’s beauty is an outcome of processes in deep time both ecological and evolutionary. Before the term “ecosystem” was coined in the 20th-century, Muir wrote of such ecosystemic cycles and flows.21 While the major chord of Muir’s nature writing emphasizes beauty and harmony, a dissonant minor key is also present and essential: “Thus, by forces seemingly antagonistic and destructive, Nature accomplishes her beneficent designs – now a flood of fire, now a flood of ice, now a flood of water; and again in the fullness of time an outburst of organic life….”22 The ethical and philosophical quandary in which Muir finds himself is that his conservation advocacy opposes the destruction of nature by humanity, while simultaneously recognizing that natural destructive processes are necessary to its flourishing. Threading this needle is difficult, as can be seen in hindsight. Muir witnessed both positive and negative effects of fire in sequoia forests during his 1875 journey. Fire of intermediate intensity incinerates young sequoias along with the thick growth of fir trees that otherwise choked the groves, while sparing fire-resistant mature giants. Muir observed profuse sequoia seedling establishment where fire exposed sunlit bare ground but concluded that disturbed ground from treefall would suffice for sequoia regeneration.23 He and his contemporaries failed to recognize that the healthy 19th-century forests were the result of centuries of native American use of frequent, moderate fire disturbance. The lack of such disturbance in the 20th-century contributed to the lack of resilience toward climate-change-induced droughts and the present consumption of vast acreages of old growth Sierra forests, including sequoia groves. Environmental care requires attention to processes as well as objects. Ecological adaptations are the result of evolutionary processes acting through deep time. While many Christians have been raised with the dogma of conflict between evolutionary ideas and religious faith, Muir did not share that perspective. In private correspondence Muir opined: “A more devout & indefatigable seeker after truth than Darwin never lived….”24 Darwin’s evolutionary ideas suggested humanity was a consequence of processes similar to those that created the rest of life. Such a non-anthropocentric leveling of species would have attracted Muir’s sympathy. Darwin’s view of evolution provided a vision of life that stressed common ancestry and relationship between all forms of life, giving literal support to Muir’s view that all nature is kin.25 On the other hand, the Darwinian emphasis on competition and struggle for survival was not aligned with Muir’s worldview. The natural selection mechanism of Darwin’s evolutionary paradigm was described in terms of the liberal laissez-faire

John Muir, Deep Time, and the Hope of Ecoflourishing  105 economic philosophy of Darwin’s and Muir’s day. These economic and evolutionary paradigms were grounded in the Newtonian conception of reality modeled as a multitude of separate but interacting individualistic particles, be they atoms, organisms, or economic consumers.26 Muir conceived of nature as being organized along sympathetic and mutualistic relationships – an approach that fits well with more contemporary perspectives of evolutionary theory. Rather than deterministic, reductionistic analysis of particulate nature, holistic understandings of the relational nature of reality have become prominent. 20th-century paradigm shifts in physics and ecology have led to new understandings of evolution.27 Our approaches to conservation must change if nature’s processes are as significant as nature’s entities. Protection of individual species is inadequate without conservation of the communities of life in which species are embedded, and, more broadly, the local ecosystems on which living communities depend. When viewed from the perspective of deep time, even traditional ecological concepts, as holistic and relational as they may be, are an inadequate basis for conservation. The evolutionary nature of life adds another required dynamic perspective. In their edited volume Evolutionary Conservation Biology, Ferriere et al. observe: All patterns of biodiversity that we observe in nature reflect a long evolutionary history, molded by a variety of evolutionary processes that have unfolded since life appeared on our planet. In this context, should we be content with safeguarding as much as we can of the current planetary stock of species? Or should we pay equal, if not greater, attention to fostering ecological and evolutionary processes that are responsible for the generation and maintenance of biodiversity?…[Conservation biology faces] the necessity for a shift from saving things, the products of evolution, to saving the underlying process, evolution itself….28 Extraordinary effort to save selected famous giant sequoias now may be justified for the same reason Muir then tirelessly encouraged his countrymen to experience the beauty of national parks. Natural beauty that speaks loudly to the broad public is essential to generate support for conservation. But long-term successful conservation practices must follow the lessons of deep time. Giant Forest was ultimately spared not because the biggest individuals were wrapped with foil, but because it was one of the few places where the ecological and evolutionary processes were adequately promoted. Deep Time Hope We soon cease to lament waste and death, and rather rejoice and exult in the imperishable, unspendable wealth of the universe, and faithfully watch and wait the reappearance of everything that melts and fades and dies about us, feeling sure that its next appearance will be better and more beautiful than the last.29

106  Michael Kunz Muir was not blind to destruction both natural and human induced. Hope for ecoflourishing in the face of such destruction requires confidence that nature will not simply recover, but that it is on a trajectory toward a better future. This is what Muir saw in ecological and evolutionary processes acting through deep time. Is this also a hope we can share? The Scottish Enlightenment scientist James Hutton’s 1788 Theory of the Earth has been considered the foundational text of modern geology and instrumental to the concept of deep time. Its concluding sentence regarding earth history states: “No vestige of a beginning; no prospect of an end.”30 Contemporary geology, physics, and cosmology now reveal vestiges of a planetary beginning 4.5 billion years ago and a projected prospect of an end as the sun exhausts its energy stores 5 billion years into the future. Current cosmology sets us squarely in the middle of planetary deep time. Such immensity can elicit many emotions, but not necessarily hope. Just as John Muir wondered, we also may ask: “And what then is coming? What is the human part of [Nature’s] destiny?” Do we trust with Muir that, amidst our lament of waste and death, the arc of the universe bends toward beauty or, indeed, even a kingdom of Heaven? Evolution provides a possibility, but not the necessity, of direction and purpose. Darwin himself was reticent to attribute directionality to evolution, privately admonishing himself not to consider creatures “higher” or “lower;” life simply adapts to changing circumstances by mechanistic processes of selection without foresight or direction. Evolutionary biologist and paleontologist Stephen J. Gould presented a fundamental dichotomy of worldviews with the metaphors of “time’s cycle” or “time’s arrow.”31 Gould emphasized the contingency inherent in his view of evolution which might, with slightly different circumstances, never have evolved vertebrates and lineages leading to humans.32 Such contingency and lack of apparent directionality lead many to abandon a teleological view of the cosmos and with it, hope. Gould centered his case for contingency and non-directionality on fossils dating to the Cambrian Period half a billion years ago when multicellular life underwent remarkable diversification. He highlighted discoveries that revealed an array of strange and unique fossils, including an obscure progenitor of vertebrates. Gould suggested that had this species met an untimely end, evolutionary history might never have produced the multitude of vertebrate species that includes humanity. Sentient life was for Gould a fortunate happenstance.33 Christian antipathy and even condemnation of evolutionary ideas have multiple concerns, but the lack of apparent purpose is an important one.34 For other Christians, incorporating deep time perspectives into contemporary faith seems less urgent or even irrelevant when confronting concerns about our immediate environmental crises. But there is a consonance between faith and science that is often unrecognized. As Michael Dowd proclaims in his book Thank God for Evolution, deep time may ultimately enrich and support reflective faith and hope rather than destroy it. John Haught considers evolutionary deep time “Darwin’s gift to theology.”35 Catholic cultural historian Thomas Berry insists that an ecological, evolutionary cosmos

John Muir, Deep Time, and the Hope of Ecoflourishing  107 is the common emerging story of the universe.36 If this shared story is irrelevant or contradictory to Christian faith, such a faith has little to say to those beyond its own tribe. Though nature in many particulars is contingent, there appears to be an arc to the evolving universe. Paleontologist Simon Conway Morris, who contributed to the fossil discoveries Gould highlighted, presents this alternative view of evolution. Repeated convergent patterns in the history of life lead toward similar adaptive solutions. Evolutionary particulars may be contingent, but in its broad brushstrokes, time and again life finds its way forward.37 The mechanism of natural selection may be non-teleological, as are the mechanisms of all natural sciences, yet patterns of change appear to move through deep time. Complexification, diversification, webs of interdependencies, and capacity for sentience and care characterize evolution just as reliably as galaxies, stars, and planets emerged from an initial Big Bang singularity by mechanisms that lack apparent purpose. The patterns codified as “laws of nature” result in what Darwin concluded were “endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful [that] have been, and are being, evolved.”38 The disturbances of mass extinctions may significantly retard the progress of the arc, but they may also redirect it in new and unexpected paths. Humankind may also contribute in unique and beautiful ways to Creation’s flourishing, or we may do the opposite. As constructive or damaging as we may be, over deep time Creation’s inherent nature will find ways to renew and progress. Muir and we observe and mourn the loss of what we love, but we trust (as did Muir) that higher beauty will emerge over shallow ecological time and deeper evolutionary time. Moreover, this interweaving of life and death, creation and destruction, is not foreign to Christian faith, but integral to it. In Christological perspective, Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection reveal not simply a one-time event, but the pattern of what God has done throughout deep time and will continue to do.39 The resurrection then is a promise of God’s continuous work revealed dimly even in deep time processes of ecology and evolution. Many are the possibilities and perspectives of deep time futures. Biblical prophecies have always carried certain expectations, only to later be reinterpreted through new lenses. So also may we hope but see only dimly. And, there are indeed diverse scaffolds that can support a theology of hope for ecoflourishing in deep time. One is the Catholic vision leading from Teilhard de Chardin through Thomas Berry and to contemporary thinkers such as Ilia Delio and John Haught.40 Provocatively, Haught begins his book, Resting on the Future: A Catholic Theology for an Unfinished Universe, with this unvarnished assertion: A fundamental truth is that we inhabit a universe that evolves in deep time. He then asks the reader to contemplate a series of questions vital to the cultivation of virtuous hope, in light of that fundamental truth. What if, Haught asks, “we began to take more seriously the evolutionary understanding of life and the ongoing pilgrimage of the whole natural world? What if we realized that the cosmos, the earth, and humanity, rather than having wandered away from an original plenitude, are now and always invited toward the horizon of fuller being up ahead?”41

108  Michael Kunz For solace in loss and hope for the future, consider again John Muir. The elder Muir spent years of burdensome effort opposing the planned flooding of Hetch Hetchy to serve as a reservoir for San Francisco. This twin of Yosemite Valley in the newly established Yosemite National Park was equally the glorious, long, loving work of what Muir called “snow flowers” in deep time. The political defeat and certain destruction of this most beautiful valley left Muir dejected and exhausted.42 If hope is manifested as actively striving toward an unseen yet envisioned future, Muir emerged from this greatest defeat hopeful. After deeply mourning the loss, he threw his renewed energy into a writing project of his seven voyages to Alaska.43 There he had observed the slow but inexorable work of glaciers carving new beauty into the earth. In Alaska, he had witnessed the creation of future Yosemites. When he died of pneumonia on Christmas Eve, 1914, John Muir left behind on his bed the notes and writings that would be assembled posthumously as Travels in Alaska.44 Therein he declares his basis for hope in deep time: “One learns that the world, though made, is yet being made. That this is still the morning of creation….”45 Notes 1 John Muir, John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir, ed. Linnie Marsh Wolfe (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1979), 215. 2 In an era of heightened awareness regarding America’s historical injustices, Muir’s writings regarding Native peoples have received increasing and appropriate scrutiny and criticism. I acknowledge this, but still consider his to be an important voice. 3 The exact enumeration of groves is not consistent. Dwight Willard puts the number at 67. Dwight Willard, A Guide to the Sequoia Groves of California (Yosemite National Park: Yosemite Association, 2000). 4 John Muir, “God’s First Temples: How Shall We Preserve Our Forests?,” in John Muir: Nature Writings, ed. William Cronon, 629–633 (New York, NY: Penguin Literary Classics, 1997). 5 William Tweed, King Sequoia (Berkeley, CA: Heyday, 2016), 29–39. Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias were the first features set aside for perpetual preservation in their natural state. 6 A preliminary mortality estimate from the 2020 Castle Fire is 7,500–10,500 large sequoias (4 feet or more in diameter), or 10–14% of all large sequoias. Nathan Stephenson & Christy Brigham, “Preliminary Estimates of Sequoia Mortality in the 2020 Castle Fire,” in National Park Service – Articles, https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/preliminaryestimates-of-sequoia-mortality-in-the-2020-castle-fire.htm (Accessed May 3, 2021). The Castle Fire burned through a dozen groves. The 2015 Rough Fire burned through eight groves but with less mortality to large sequoias. In 2017, two separate fires (the Railroad and Pier Fires) each burned with high intensity and high mortality in single groves. Mortality rates among large trees in areas of high fire intensity in these four fires approximated 90%. In 2021, the Windy and KNP Complex Fires entered approximately 20 groves, several with high intensity. As of this writing large sequoia mortality from these fires is unknown. Assuming lower mortality from extensive 2021 fires, an estimate of 20% mortality among all large sequoias over a span of seven years seems probable. 7 I use the term “conservation” as defined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature: “The protection, care, management and maintenance of ecosystems, habitats, wildlife species and populations, within or outside of their natural environments, in order to safeguard the natural conditions for their long-term permanence.” IUCN, “IUCN Glossary of Definitions” (International Union for Conservation of Nature, 3 May 2021).

John Muir, Deep Time, and the Hope of Ecoflourishing  109 https://www.iucn.org/sites/dev/files/iucn-glossary-of-definitions_en_2021.05.pdf. This differs from the utilitarian use of the term associated with American environmental history by those advocating “wise use” in Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, 3rd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982). 8 The understanding of hope as an energizing, active, engaged virtue is described in Steven Bouma-Prediger, Earthkeeping and Character: Exploring a Christian Ecological Virtue Ethic (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2020), 109–112. 9 Bjornerud attributes the apt phrase “deep time” to John McPhee in his excellent 1981 book on geology and human culture, Basin and Range. Marcia Bjornerud, Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018). 10 John Muir, The Story of My Boyhood and Youth (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1913), ch. 2. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid. 13 John Muir, A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf, ed. William Frederic Bade (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1916), ch. 6. 14 Histories of earth science such as those by Martin Rudwick, Earth’s Deep History: How It Was Discovered and Why It Matters (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014) and Bjornerud’s Timefulness, discuss its profound impact on previous worldviews. Cf. also Cohen’s excellent philosophical consideration of the role of time in Muir’s transition to a non-anthropocentric worldview. Michael Cohen, The Pathless Way: John Muir and American Wilderness (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984). 15 Michael Dowd, Thank God for Evolution (New York, NY: Penguin, 2009), 96–97. 16 Muir, John of the Mountains, 228. 17 In his biography of Muir, Frederick Turner quotes this 1875 journal entry from Muir’s trek as illustrative of how, for Muir, ancient sequoias served a role parallel to that of sacred groves in other cultures, including those of ancient Greece and Rome. This stands in contrast to the strictly utilitarian perspectives of Muir’s contemporaries. Frederick Turner, John Muir: Rediscovering America (Cambridge, MA: Perseus, 1985), 233. 18 John Muir, “God’s First Temples: How Shall We Preserve Our Forests?” (1876), in John Muir: Nature Writings, 629–623. 19 Michael Cohen, The Pathless Way, 193–201. 20 John Muir, Our National Parks (Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1901), ch. 3. 21 The origin of the term “ecosystem” is attributed to a 1935 article by British ecologist Arthur Tansley, “The use and abuse of vegetational terms and concepts,” Ecology 16 (1935): 284–307. 22 John Muir, Steep Trails (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1918). 23 John Muir, The Mountains of California (New York, NY: Century Company, 1894). 24 Donald Worster, A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2008), 206–207. Worster is quoting Muir’s correspondence. 25 Ibid., 202–208. 26 David Depew & Bruce H Weber, Darwinism Evolving: Systems Dynamics and the Genealogy of Natural Selection (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995). 27 Cohen provides good consideration of Muir’s approach to Darwinism and its implications for nature and the role of humanity. Cohen, The Pathless Way, 153–181. 28 Regis Ferriere, Ulf Dieckmann and Denis Couvet, eds. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 29 John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1917). 30 M. D. James Hutton, Theory of the Earth (1788) (New York: Classic Books International, 2010), 90. 31 Stephen J. Gould, Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle: Myth and Metaphor in the Discovery of Geological Time (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1987). 32 Stephen J. Gould, Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1989), 323.

110  Michael Kunz 33 Ibid. 34 Peter Bowler discusses the post-Darwinian history of evolutionary thought and notes that while Darwin’s evidence convinced many of the truth of evolution per se, the non-teleological mechanism of natural selection was not widely accepted until the 20thcentury. Peter J. Bowler, Evolution: The History of an Idea, 3rd ed. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003). 35 John Haught, God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2000). 36 Thomas Berry, The Great Work: Our Way into the Future (New York: Bell Tower, 1999). 37 Simon Conway Morris, The Crucible of Evolution: The Burgess Shale and the Rise of Animals (Oxford University Press, 1988). See also Simon Conway Morris, Life’s Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003). In this latter work, Morris considers repeated similarities of evolutionary solutions to common problems a refutation of the thesis that the arc of evolutionary history is a series of improbable and unrepeatable occurrences. 38 This is the conclusion Darwin makes on the final page of Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (London: John Murray, 1859). 39 Ilia Delio, The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution, and the Power of Love (New York: Orbis, 2013), is an example of an evolutionary theologian who presents this perspective. 40 Significant representative works include: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (New York: Harper & Row, 1959); Thomas Berry, The Great Work: Our Way into the Future (New York: Bell Tower, 1999); Ilia Delio, The Unbearable Wholeness of Being; and John Haught, Resting on the Future: Catholic Theology for an Unfinished Universe (New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). 41 Haught, Resting on the Future: 1. 42 Worster, A Passion for Nature, 451. 43 Worster ends his biography of Muir with the epilogue entitled “Slight Progress Heavenward” that gives attention to this final book project. Ibid., 454–466. 44 Ibid., 462. 45 John Muir, Travels in Alaska (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1915), ch. 5.

References Berry, Thomas. The Great Work: Our Way into the Future. New York: Bell Tower, 1999. Bjornerud, Marcia. Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018. Bouma-Prediger, Steven. Earthkeeping and Character: Exploring a Christian Ecological Virtue Ethic. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2020. Bowler, Peter J. Evolution: The History of an Idea. 3rd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Cohen, Michael P. The Pathless Way: John Muir and American Wilderness. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984. Conway Morris, Simon. Life’s Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003. ———. The Crucible of Evolution: The Burgess Shale and the Rise of Animals. Oxford University Press, 1988. Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. London: John Murray, 1859. de Chardin, Pierre Teilhard. The Phenomenon of Man. New York: Harper & Row, 1959. Delio, Ilia. The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution, and the Power of Love. New York: Orbis, 2013.

John Muir, Deep Time, and the Hope of Ecoflourishing  111 Depew, David J., and Bruce H. Weber. Darwinism Evolving: Systems Dynamics and the Genealogy of Natural Selection. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995. Dowd, Michael. Thank God for Evolution. New York: Penguin, 2009. Ferriere, Regis, Ulf Dieckmann, and Denis Couvet, eds. Evolutionary Conservation Biology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Gould, Stephen J. Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle: Myth and Metaphor in the Discovery of Geological Time. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1987. ———. Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History. New York: W. W. Norton, 1989. Haught, John. God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2000. ———. Resting on the Future: Catholic Theology for an Unfinished Universe. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015. Hutton, M. D. James. Theory of the Earth (1788). New York: Classic Books International, 2010. IUCN. “IUCN Glossary of Definitions.” 3 May 2021. International Union for Conservation of Nature. https://www.iucn.org/sites/dev/files/iucn-glossary-of-definitions_en_2021.05. pdf Muir, John. A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf, edited by William Frederic Bade. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1916. ———. John Muir Nature Writings. New York: Penguin Literary Classics, 1997. ———. John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir, edited by Linnie Marsh Wolfe. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1979. ———. My First Summer in the Sierra. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1917. ———. Our National Parks. Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1901. ———. Steep Trails. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1918. ———. The Mountains of California. New York: Century Company, 1894. ———. The Story of My Boyhood and Youth. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1913. ———. Travels in Alaska. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1915. Nash, Roderick. Wilderness and the American Mind. 3rd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982. Rudwick, M. S. Earth’s Deep History: How It Was Discovered and Why It Matters. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014. Stephenson, Nathan, and Christy Brigham. “Preliminary Estimates of Sequoia Mortality in the 2020 Castle Fire (Draft).” 25 June 2021. National Park Service - Articles. https:// www.nps.gov/articles/000/preliminary-estimates-of-sequoia-mortality-in-the-2020-­ castle-fire.htm Tansley, A. “The use and abuse of vegetational terms and concepts.” Ecology 16 (1935): 284–307. Turner, Frederick. John Muir: Rediscovering America. Cambridge, MA: Perseus, 1985. Tweed, William. King Sequoia. Berkeley, CA: Heyday, 2016. Willard, Dwight. A Guide to the Sequoia Groves of California. Yosemite National Park: Yosemite Association, 2000. Worster, Donald. A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Homes for Prayer Laura Kathryn Dvořák First, church was learning of how the strongest healers of the “old world” were burned and erased for knowing too much. Knowing how to heal, how to sing to the land, how to care for the children. They who could have been our great great great great grandmothers from countless villages across a plagued, transformed continent and its sentinel isles. Or their aunties, their daughters, the midwives that helped them birth their babies. Or anyone who spoke up, spoke out, didn’t bend the knee to pious, murderous fanatics. This first sermon was awakening to the ache of the nameless, ceaseless hunger beneath what it is to be white in America, still waiting for all the witches to rise from their slumber and reclaim the holy grail of truth through the old ways. Soon, church was dancing in rows to honor Hawaii’s royalty who would not give in to foreign tongues. Our bowed arms hollowing out rivers, fingers becoming flame and flower, our wrists the rising of earth, our hips a voyage of flowing silk that could slake even the thirst of fire. Then, church was a wooden building perched atop a bountiful stream adorned with a crucifix, where a multitude of hymns poured forth in Māori, ʻŌlelo, English, and Japanese, while termites circled the warm lights in joined pairs before losing their wings and plummeting, earthbound to mahogany pews.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-17

Next, church was a breathing temple that emerged from deep within the earth, cloaked in iron-streaked cinder skirts. Worship was a storied landscape frozen in time and the rise of sand carved by foamy soliloquies feeding promises back to the horizon. Sanctuary was holding the hands of the one who birthed me and soaking in the blurred confluence of liquid salt and spring, lit up by ancient photons and contemplating the existence of my creator. Afterwards, church was in a movie theater, this time brimming with gospel choir and lacy teardrops shimmering upon smooth brown skin like jewels to crown a queen. The folded bodies of grown men weeping with joy and surrender. The sway of raised palms and the nods of absolution. Finally, church was a holy well tucked into soft western hills, a cemetery with the names of my familial dead, a sulky sky opening up to cast heavenly light on fallow farmland embracing the banks of the Sullane. A pastoral green temple home to sheep, fairies, moss covered boulders, and the beloved ghosts of our family tree smiling upon the bonds that defy and define us, oh children of Éire.

III

Biblical and Theological Soundings: Ecological Ruin, Restoration, and Community Virtues

Humphrey’s Basin Paul Willis There are words scattered like rocks on the land, small ones upheaved and shattered by frost and stout erratics left by the ice to lilt and lean against the wind. So many of them, freckled and durable. Crossing talus, I learn their shapes with palm and sole the way I feel new sounds in my throat, the way Demosthenes held and tasted pebbles in his mouth as he spoke. Late and dark, after rain, downbasin in rags of moonlight, the unread sweep is charged by the eye of a single fire. I see it by chance, a living presence there in the vast, a logos among all these words.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-19

10 Subverting Metaphor, Transforming Identity: An Eco-Anthropological Analysis of Job’s Shift from Ruler to Member of the Creation Community Alexander W. Breitkopf That humans are small within the Creation is an ancient perception, represented often enough in art that it must be supposed to have an elemental importance … The message seems essentially that of the voice out of the whirlwind in the book of Job: the Creation is bounteous and mysterious, and humanity is only a part of it—not its equal, much less its master.1 Perhaps such a shift of values can be achieved by reappraising things unnatural, tame, and confined in terms of things natural, wild, and free.2

Introduction The book of Job, in its essence, is not merely an account of a certain individual’s life from a long time ago and a faraway place, but fundamentally it is a story of human identity and the formation of that identity in relationship to the creator and the broader creation.3 It is a question of wisdom, and wisdom’s call is a call to “live in harmony with God, creation, and human society.”4 Thus, in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible (OT/HB) wisdom’s call is neither anthropocentric nor individualistic, but rather it is a call to live in such a way that all might benefit.5 As such, there is hope that the book of Job might provide some answer to Magnason’s question: how can we “tame these desires of ours, this consumption and materialism that, by any and every measurement, promise to overpower Earth’s fundamental life systems?”6 Can we find an answer to this most pressing and current-day question in the book of Job? Undoubtedly, there is a clear shift in the book of Job and within its namesake character in such a way that suggests an answer to Magnason’s question; and yet despite this observation, there remains the challenge of how to understand this apparent shift in human identity in such a way that it makes sense of the book’s ubiquitous creation language. As Doak remarks, “plant and animal metaphors constitute the primary terms of debate” within the book, and so we are left to puzzle how the book’s creation language connects to human identity as well as the broader call to live in harmony with creation.7 A way forward comes through the critical framework of eco-­ anthropology, the study of how human identity is formed within the broader creation. An analysis of the metaphors in the book of Job using this framework demonstrates DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-20

118  Alexander W. Breitkopf the connection between Job’s shifting self-understanding to the broader creation. Using eco-anthropological analysis, I will argue that the anthropocentrism of the character Job seen in the early chapters of the book, is challenged by the divine voice through creation language in such a way that it leads Job to reconsider his identity. Fundamentally, Job’s shift is one of character. It is a shift where those virtues necessary to belong to the broader creation community ultimately replace the destructive anthropocentric vices found in Job at the beginning of the story. To make this argument I will begin with an introduction to the framework of eco-anthropology, a relatively new approach within the field of biblical studies. This introduction will then be followed by an eco-anthropological analysis of the book of Job that pays particular attention to the expression of human identity by Job and his friends, the divine challenge to this identity, and Job’s reconsideration of his identity at the end of the book. Finally, in the conclusion I will highlight the lessons of the preceding analysis and seek to connect these to the broader conversation of this current volume. A Framework of Eco-Anthropology To begin, it should be noted that relatively little has been done to study anthropology, broadly understood as the study of self and self-identity, in the OT/HB and even less has been done with these texts to specifically examine how human identity has been shaped by the broader environment.8 However, given that studies have shown the deep connection of human cultures to their ecological environments, and given also the prevalence of creation language in the book of Job, the importance of this connection cannot be overstated.9 It is the application of eco-anthropology to the field of biblical studies that gives us a way to study the connection of human identity within the broader creation; and yet, while the designation “ecological anthropology” has been in use for some time in the field of anthropology it is relatively unknown in biblical studies.10 Because the field of eco-anthropology varies it is important to establish its application in this chapter, and central to this application are three key ideas. The first idea adapts Ricœur’s definition of the self, which argues that identity is formed in the interaction between “self and the other than self.”11 To put it plainly, human identity is not formed in the Cartesian motto cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am), but rather through our relationship with that which is other than our-self. The second key idea comes from the work of Simkins who notes that in the ancient Israelite worldview, some of the “others” mentioned by Ricœur were plants, animals, and the broader creation.12 While Simkins’ work is significant in many ways, it is his observation that ancient Israel did not draw a strict separation between human and non-human creation that is especially significant for this study.13 In short, if culture and human identity is built with that which is “other than self,” then according to Simkins non-human creation was one of the “others” by which ancient Israel understood herself. 14 Finally, Simkins’s work gives us the third key idea, namely, that the ancient Israelite worldview recognized the “intrinsic” worth of non-human creation.15

Subverting Metaphor, Transforming Identity  119 According to Simkins there was not in Israel a “dichotomy” between nature and Heilsgeschichte (salvation history) as Von Rad had argued, but rather non-human creation was integral to the life and faith of ancient Israel.16 Thus, Brown argues that the creation language of the divine speeches is more than an expression of “divine omnipotence” but “profoundly existential,” dealing with “human identity and vocation” (emphasis mine).17 Creation was not just a background upon which Israel’s story played out, but rather it played an integral role in the formation of the nation’s identity and theology. It is this fundamental idea that forms the core ecoanthropological framework of this study. To reiterate, the framework of eco-anthropology as it used in this study emphasizes three ideas. First, human identity is formed in relationship to the other—that which is not the self. Second, non-human creation is one of the “others” by which human identity is formed. Finally, creation is not a secondary theme in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible as some have argued but rather it plays a significant role in the formation of human identity.18 In terms of analysis, the primary means of applying this eco-anthropological framework in the book of Job is through the study of figurative language and especially in the categories of metaphor and imagery.19 The choice is significant, because, as Doak asserts, “[t]o compare a suffering human to a fading flower…is not simply to use ornamental language that inherently privileges the human and offers the image of a flower as a side-model, but rather [it is] to draw plant and human into interpretive conversation” (emphasis mine).20 It is precisely this intersection of humanity and non-human creation, this “interpretive conversation,” which reveals human identity and the character that undergirds it. A Study of the Book of Job The opening chapters of the “folktale” of Job are well known to those with even a passing acquaintance with the book.21 They introduce the character Job to us as someone who was tam yashar (“blameless and upright”), an individual who “feared God” and “turned from evil.” As further evidence of his moral status, the opening verses describe Job’s abundant progeny, seven sons and three daughters (1:2), and his “possessions,” a large number of animals and people (1:3). Given the immediate context of the passage, it seems that creation (both human and animal) serve little more than to mark the righteousness of Job.22 However, in short order, we are confronted with a heavenly wager (in 1:6–12 and again in 2:1–6), and the subsequent consequence that Job loses all the markers of his greatness and morality: his possessions (1:14–17), his progeny (1:18–19), and ultimately his personal health (2:1–8). In this moment of crisis, silence follows mourning, and Job, having been stripped of the markers of his greatness and morality, sits naked and exposed. Speaking of Human Identity

Besides the prologue, there are two sections of the book of Job that reveal a particular, human self-understanding that is later subverted by the divine speeches.

120  Alexander W. Breitkopf These sections are Job’s initial curse and lament in chapter 3 and the wisdom dialogue with the friends that follows in chapters 4–27. Turning to chapter 3, Job’s curse and lament reflect his “anguished” state, and “a world of utter desolation and despair.”23 Job’s world, his ordered creation that had been protected by God’s “hedge,” was upended and he responds in the language of creation, a language that reflects a particular anthropology. 24 Inherent in the lament in Job 3 is a metaphor that Perdue calls “the cursing of existence,” which pointedly draws in the broader creation.25 Spoken curses counter the imagery of the divine word and its themes of blessing and abundant pro-creation. Thus, un-creational elements such as “darkness,” “death’s shadow,” “the blackened day,” “thick darkness,” and others in Job 3:4–9 counter themes of abundant creation that are connected to creational fecundity found in the opening chapters of Genesis and some psalms.26 Moreover, themes of birth and the birthing process are subverted by Job (chapter 3), when he sets forth the theme of death at birth as a counter to traditional birth imagery.27 Surely, most disturbing in Job’s cursing of existence in chapter 3 is his invocation of the chaos-monster Leviathan in Job 3:8. As Habel notes, by “rousing Leviathan…Job is calling up the powers of chaos to destroy the created order and return the night of his creation to the domain of primordial absence.”28 In short, Job’s experience of the created order had been disrupted, and so he responds in kind by invoking the end of all creation.29 Significantly, this destructive metaphor, the cursing of existence, is bound with an associated image, that of the human as ruler.30 While Perdue argues certain aspects of the ruler and royal imagery are overturned in Job 3, the image of human rule and dominion over creation is still invoked.31 To be ruler in the ancient conception was to have an authoritarian “dominion” over creation, and so Job raises this imagery in chapter 3 when he asserts his own destructive dominion over creation.32 Doing so, Job reveals a particular anthropocentric self-understanding that places himself at the center of the created order. Inherent in this imagery of human as ruler and Job’s anthropocentrism in chapter 3 are several character vices. First, there is the vice of autonomy.33 While his reaction is understandable, Job’s curse in chapter 3 belies an understanding of himself as an independent creature, one who in a god-like way can call an end to the whole of the created order. Rather than seeking understanding from elsewhere and outside of himself, Job himself becomes the measure by which he understands the world and his tragedy.34 Second, in cursing the creation Job also displays the vice of conceit.35 Thus, rather than maintaining respect for the broader creation Job subsumes the rest of creation in the curse on “his day,” and in doing so displays a conspicuous amount of “disdain” for it.36 Rather than invoking a rule based on respect, one that shows “regard for the integrity and well-being of [creation],” Job’s invocation of the human as ruler was destructive. It was an autonomous call for the end of all life that was marked by a conceit for the well-being of the creation of which he was a part.37 To summarize, two elements of figurative language related to creation are invoked in Job chapter 3. First, there is the metaphor of the cursing of existence, where un-creation is invoked to revoke the blessings of birth and life. Second,

Subverting Metaphor, Transforming Identity  121 bound to this metaphor is the imagery of the human as ruler. However, rather than seeking the good of the broader creation, Job enacts his rule and dominion by invoking forces destructive to the created order. This figurative language reveals a particular anthropology—an anthropocentric human identity grounded in the vices of autonomy and conceit. It is anthropology that ultimately has at its center the vice of hubris, an overevaluation and primacy of the human self and the destructive tendencies that inevitably follow.38 Turning to the second relevant section, chapters 4-27, it must be said at the outset that the anthropology reflected in the wisdom dialogues, though it expands the anthropology of chapter 3, remains consistent with the anthropocentrism expressed in Job 3. In the voices of the three friends, especially Eliphaz and Bildad, negative creation imagery abounds. Starving lions (4:10–11), dying plants (15:32–33), ensnared creation (18:7–10), and others are used as metaphors for moral failure. On the other hand, Job uses negative creation imagery, such as hunted (16:12–13) and suffering (24:5–12), to describe his own state. Though the imagery and its application vary, it is human identity, whether moral failing (as with the friends) or suffering (as with Job), that becomes the measure of creation. Thus, in the wisdom dialogue, creation is only understood in negative terms. The metaphor of cursing of creation in Job 3 becomes ubiquitous metaphors of cursed creation in the wisdom dialogue. A final emblematic example of humanity’s negative view of creation in the book of Job can be seen in the use of “beasts” as a slur of ignorance between Job and the friends in Job 12:7 and 18:3. Here, non-human creation, the beasts, are clearly understood as things that have no wisdom to offer human beings, but also as things of a lower order than the humans who are elevated above them. Thus, not only do Job and his friends see creation in inherently negative terms in the wisdom dialogue, but they also reveal a self-understanding that explicitly places the human creature above the created order. Throughout the wisdom dialogue the vices of autonomy, conceit, and hubris are revealed as Job and his three friends continually see the broader creation as having nothing to add to the conversation. In concluding this section, it is important to note this anthropocentric pattern is broken somewhat with the wisdom poem in chapter 28, which offers an external perspective to the preceding dialogue. However, though the voice of chapter 28 seems to affirm creation’s intrinsic value, the interjection seems to have little impact on Job.39 Job continues his complaint, and use of negative creation imagery, in chapters 29–31 while the Elihu speeches (Job 32–37) offer little to affirm or deny the anthropology expressed in the previous sections. The Divine Subversion

A different perspective comes in Job 38:1, when a “dangerous wind” arrives and with it the force and power of the divine presence.40 YHWH speaks in Job 38:2 and offers the challenge that will set the tone for the speeches that follow: “who is this that darkens my design by words without knowledge?” (emphasis mine).41 With words that echo and subvert what has been said before by Job and his friends the creator now picks up the defense of his creation in two speeches.

122  Alexander W. Breitkopf The first divine speech is roughly divided into two main parts: a meteorological description in 38:2–38 and a description of wild fauna in 38:39–39:30. In the section on meteorology, images of birth and darkness, brought up by Job in chapter 3, are revisited. However, rather than using these images to curse creation as Job did, the divine voice invokes these images of darkness and birth both as a challenge to Job’s anthropocentrism and in an unabashed celebration of creation. Similarly, wild animal imagery subverts metaphors raised by Job and his friends. For example, Eliphaz’s description of starving and scattered lions in Job 4:10–11, which he employs as a metaphor for moral failure, is subverted by the divine description in Job 38:39–40, which envisions lions as successful hunters able to provide for themselves and their young. Second, the wild-ass, which Job described as suffering in Job 24:5–12, is presented as thriving in 39:5–8, exulted in its wild state and (notably) free from human control. The cursed creation imagery and metaphor that dominated the human speeches is now profoundly undone in the divine celebration of this wild fauna. The imagery of flourishing and free creation subverts the anthropocentric imagery and metaphor of the human speeches, which had bound the understanding of creation to human suffering and morality. The message is clear: creation flourishes quite independent of humanity, and is valued quite apart from humanity’s hubris. However, although Job acknowledges the first divine speech in 40:3–5, he offers little by way of response, and most certainly does not change his mind. Undeterred, the divine voice continues, and in the second speech focuses on two creatures, Behemoth and Leviathan.42 First, Behemoth, whose name is the plural “beasts,” is described as something co-created with Job,43 and is raised as a challenge for Job to reconsider his relationship with all creatures. As Clines quips, “Job had…better ponder not just his co-createdness with Behemoth, but with animals in general.”44 This point is sharpened, when Behemoth is later described as the embodiment of God’s wisdom in Job 40:19, the “first of the works of God,” a phrase only reserved for the embodiment of Wisdom in Prov 8:22. While this clearly challenges the use of the “beasts” as a slur of ignorance between Job and his friends, it pointedly also brings a challenge to their anthropology. As Clines notes, Behemoth’s “sheer existence…puts Job in his place. Behemoth is part of the divine design for the universe, and not an accidental or ludicrous member of the menagerie. As YHWH’s masterpiece…it represents the whole non-human creation in its challenge to anthropocentrism.”45 More comes, and with the description of Leviathan the divine voice continues to subvert Job’s anthropology and the vices that undergird it. Thus, using Job’s own words against him, God notes in 41:10 that no human being is able to “rouse” the creature.46 If in Behemoth Job encounters Wisdom, then in Leviathan he encounters Majesty, a creature who has “no likeness” on the earth, one who is “without fear,” and ultimately one who is “king over all the sons of pride” (41:33–34). While the first speech subverts the metaphor of cursing and cursed creation, so prevalent in the human speeches, the second divine speech absolutely and finally subverts the image of the human as ruler. With both creatures, Behemoth and Leviathan, the point is made that humanity is neither above

Subverting Metaphor, Transforming Identity  123 creation nor its ultimate ruler. Job’s anthropocentrism with all its inherent vices is laid bare, and, notably, it is this second divine speech that elicits a response of repentance from Job. A Reconsideration

The opening verses of Job’s final response, found in Job 42:1–5, are easy enough to understand as a confession that contains both positive and negative elements.47 Positively, Job affirms divine sovereignty and wisdom in creation.48 While negatively, Job admits in 42:3b that he had spoken about things which he “did not understand” and “did not know” (42:3b). What is less clear, however, is what Job means when he concludes his confession with the words “therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6). While we can readily dismiss the idea that the phrase somehow refers to a penitential rite involving “dust and ash,” the question remains as to what is meant by the phrase in Job 42:6.49 Rare in the OT/HB, the phrase “dust and ash” occurs once in Gen. 18:27 and twice in the book of Job (30:19 and 42:6). What is interesting is that the two occurrences, outside of Job 42:6, only refer to human identity. If the “dust and ash” of Job’s confession in 42:6 relates to the understanding of the other two passages, and there is good reason to think it does, then the question is raised: is there something in the divine focus on creation that changes Job’s understanding regarding his own human identity? The idea is entirely reasonable, and here it is important to remember what has come before. As noted in the preceding analysis, the creation imagery and metaphors set forth by the human characters in the wisdom dialogue reveal an anthropocentric anthropology. Emblematic of this is Job’s invocation of Leviathan in chapter 3, which binds the metaphor of the cursing of existence with the imagery of human as ruler. In this chapter, metaphor and imagery work together to present an anthropocentric image of a human who, as ruler of creation (undergirded by the vices of autonomy, conceit, and ultimately hubris), employs chaotic elements (notably Leviathan) to destroy creation and with it his own miserable existence. However, through ecological language the divine speeches subvert this anthropocentrism. According to YHWH, creation is not cursed, humanity is not creation’s ruler, and humanity is not creation’s measure. By pointedly challenging Job’s anthropocentrism, and the vices that undergird it, YHWH changes Job’s self-understanding—evidenced by Job’s final confession in Job 42:1–6. Simply put, in the divine speeches God sets before Job the community of creation, and it is in the true exposure to this community that Job’s understanding changes. As Kang observes, “Job has to acknowledge that God is not only for man, but also for other creatures,” and with this new found “non-anthropocentrism, Job can better understand God, his creation, and humanity…” (emphasis mine).50 The change in self-understanding brings with it a new anthropology, a reconsideration of oneself as mere “dust and ash,” and an understanding of oneself as a small part within the broader creation community.

124  Alexander W. Breitkopf Conclusion As we begin to consider our own identity in the broader creation community, Job returns to his story, and while the narrative frame seems reminiscent of the beginning of the story, the details suggest that there has been a shift in Job’s character. While the evidence is limited, at the very least we can see that the vices expressed in the earlier chapters have abated by the end of the story and been replaced by some virtues necessary for life in community. Autonomy is replaced by a receptivity, which allows the community to restore Job’s fortunes, and the conceit that was inherent in discussions of “possessions” in the opening chapter is replaced by a respect for those creatures that share the closest proximity to human culture, who are now referred to in the same manner as Job’s human family. Ultimately, it seems that Job’s hubris is replaced by a newly found humility of belonging to the community. Aldo Leopold reminds us that all ethics rests on a single premise: “that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts.” And along with others Leopold reminds us that this community encompasses all of creation, the “soils, waters, plants, and animals… collectively: the land.”51 However, to live in this community requires a different anthropology, a self-understanding that moves us away from seeing ourselves as “conqueror[s] of the land” to viewing ourselves as “plain member[s] and citizen[s]” of the earth community.52 Such a self-understanding implicitly carries with it particular virtues of character, and primary among these is humility, a recognition that we are but “dust and ash” and equal members of a larger whole. This is precisely the transformation that is at the heart of the book of Job. In the context of his suffering, Job reveals a self-understanding as one who was ruler over creation. However, when confronted by the community of creation through the divine speeches, Job’s understanding of himself changes and he comes to recognize himself as a member of that community. It is here, in the recognition that we are but fellow creatures of the community of creation, with all its implied virtues, that a biblical ethics of the land begins. Notes 1 Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1996), 97–98. 2 Aldo Leopold, “Foreword,” in A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), xxiii. 3 Brian Doak, Consider Leviathan: Narratives of Nature and the Self in Job (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2014), 31. 4 Leo Perdue, Wisdom and Creation: The Theology of Wisdom Literature (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), 46. 5 Ibid., 46. 6 Andri Snær Magnason, On Time and Water, trans. Lytton Smith (Windsor: Biblioasis, 2021), 9. 7 Doak, Consider Leviathan, xviii. 8 A notable exception is Carol Newsom, “Models of the Moral Self: Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism,” Journal of Biblical Literature 131 (2012), 5–6.

Subverting Metaphor, Transforming Identity  125 9 For one example of this, see Lauren H. Henson et al., “Convergent geographic patterns between grizzly bear population genetic structure and Indigenous language groups in coastal British Columbia, Canada,” Ecology and Society 26 (2021), article 7. 10 The primary exception to this, and the work I am indebted to, is Doak, Consider Leviathan. 11 Paul Ricœur, Oneself as Another (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 3. 12 Ronald Simkins, Creator and Creation: Nature in the Worldview of Ancient Israel (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994), 26–30. 13 Doak, Consider Leviathan, 22. 14 Simkins, Creator and Creation, 30. 15 See Simkins, Creator and Creation, 30 and 260. See also Doak, Consider Leviathan, 55–101. 16 Doak, Consider Leviathan, 19–20. See Gerhard Von Rad, “The Theological Problem of the Old Testament Doctrine of Creation,” in Creation in the Old Testament, ed. Bernhard Anderson (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 131–143. 17 William Brown, The Seven Pillars of Creation the Bible, Science, and the Ecology of Wonder (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 124. 18 For as Perdue argues, the HB/OT wisdom texts, “find [their] theological center in creation” (emphasis mine). Perdue, Wisdom and Creation, 340. 19 Perdue, Wisdom and Creation, 339. For imagery, see Leland Ryken, “Introduction,” in Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, eds. Leland Ryken et alia (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 30–31. Cf. also Doak, Consider Leviathan, 40. 20 Doak, Consider Leviathan, 39. 21 See Carol Newsom, The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 41. See also Doak, Consider Leviathan, 39. 22 Doak, Consider Leviathan, 112. 23 Norman Habel, Finding Wisdom in Nature: An Eco-Wisdom Reading of the Book of Job (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2014), 35. 24 The reference to God’s “hedge” of protection around Job is an agricultural image also used as a metaphor for human morality. See Doak, Consider Leviathan, 111–112. 25 Leo Perdue, “Metaphorical Theology in the Book of Job: Theological Anthropology in the First Cycle of Job’s Speeches (Job 3:6–7; 9–10)”, in The Book of Job, ed. W. A. M. Beuken (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1994), 144. 26 See Michael Fishbane, “Jeremiah VI 23–6 and Job III 3–13: A Recovered Use of the Creation Pattern,” Vestus Testamentum 21 (1971), 151–67, and Leo Perdue, Wisdom in Revolt: Metaphorical Theology in the Book of Job (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991). 27 See Perdue, “Metaphorical Theology,” 146. 28 Norman Habel, The Book of Job (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985), 108–109. 29 While David Clines argues that Job only references “his day” in Job 3, the use of Leviathan suggests the broader creation is affected, something that Clines himself tacitly admits. See Job 1–20, Word Bible Commentary vol. 17 (Dallas: Word Books, 1989), 79–81 30 Perdue, Wisdom in Revolt, 106–108. 31 Ibid. 32 See Othmar Keel, Jahwes Entgegnung an Ijob: Eine Deutung von Ijob 38–41 vor dem Hintergrund der zeitgenössischen Bildkunst (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1978), 86–101. 33 Bouma-Prediger notes that autonomy reflects the “disposition that one does not need others” and is the deficiency of the virtue of receptivity, which acknowledges our “interdependence with other creatures.” Steven Bouma-Prediger, For the Beauty of the Earth: A Christian Vision for Creation Care (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010), 137. 34 Although the character Job focuses on “his day” (3:1), his cursing of existence quite apparently invokes and demands the reversal of the whole of creation, not just an individual birthday.

126  Alexander W. Breitkopf 35 Conceit is the corresponding vice for the virtue of respect which regards “the integrity and well-being” of other creatures. See Bouma-Prediger, For the Beauty, 136–137. 36 Ibid., 137. 37 Ibid., 136. 38 Ibid., 141. 39 See Habel, Finding Wisdom in Nature, 19–27. 40 August Konkel, Job (Carol Stream: Tyndale House, 2006), 219. 41 For “design” as the better translation of ‘etsah (over “counsel”), see David Clines, Job 38–42 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2011), 1048, 1052 n. 2.c., and 1095–96. 42 While various theories have been put forth, the exact identity of the creatures are not as important as the message that their descriptions are meant to convey. See Raymond van Leeuwen, “The Quest for the Historical Leviathan: Truth and Method in Biblical Studies,” Journal of Theology and Interpretation 5 (2011), 157. 43 See David Clines, “The Worth of Animals in the Divine Speeches of the Book of Job,” in Where the Wild Ox Roams: Biblical Essays in Honour of Norman C. Habel, eds. Peter L. Trudinger and Alan H. Cadwallader (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2013), 111. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid., 112. 46 The divine challenge is directed to Job’s call for those who could “rouse” Leviathan in chapter 3. This challenge is all the more pointed because the call for Leviathan is arguably the centre point of the metaphor of the cursing of creation and the related imagery of human as ruler. 47 See Pieter M. Venter, “Canon, Intertextuality and History in Nehemiah 7:72b–10:40,” HTS Theological Studies 65 (2009), 6. 48 In this instance, the theme of wisdom is derived from “Yahweh’s principles for running the creation.” See Clines, Job 38–42, 1096. 49 See Clines Job 38–42, 1209–10 n. 6.e, and Mark Boda, A Severe Mercy: Sin and Its Remedy in the Old Testament (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2009), 392. 50 Chol-Gu Kang, Behemot und Leviathan: Studien zur Komposition und Theologie von Hiob 38, 1–42, 6 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 2017), 309. 51 Aldo Leopold, “The Land Ethic,” in A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), 190–212. 52 Ibid., 190.

References Berry, Wendell. The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1996. Boda, Mark. A Severe Mercy: Sin and Its Remedy in the Old Testament. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2009. Bouma-Prediger, Steven. For the Beauty of the Earth: A Christian Vision for Creation Care. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010. Brown, William. The Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science, and the Ecology of Wonder. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Clines, David. Job 1–20. Word Bible Commentary, Vol. 17. Dallas: Word Books, 1989. ———. Job 38–42. Word Bible Commentary, Vol. 18B. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2011. ———. “The Worth of Animals in the Divine Speeches of the Book of Job.” In Where the Wild Ox Roams: Biblical Essays in Honour of Norman C. Habel, edited by Trudinger, Peter L., and Alan H. Cadwallader, 101–113. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2013. Doak, Brian. Consider Leviathan: Narratives of Nature and the Self in Job. Minneapolis: Augsburg–Fortress, 2014.

Subverting Metaphor, Transforming Identity  127 Fishbane, Michael. “Jeremiah VI 23-6 and Job III 3-13: A Recovered Use of the Creation Pattern.” Vetus Testamentum 21 (1971): 151–167. Habel, Norman. Finding Wisdom in Nature: An Eco-Wisdom Reading of the Book of Job. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2014. Henson, Lauren H., et al. “Convergent Geographic Patterns between Grizzly Bear Population Genetic Structure and Indigenous Language Groups in Coastal British Columbia, Canada.” Ecology and Society 26, no. 3 (2021): 7. Kang, Chol-Gu. Behemot Und Leviathan: Studien Zur Komposition Und Theologie Von Hiob 38,1–42,6. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 2017. Keel, Othmar. Jahwes Entgegnung an Ijob: Eine Deutung Von Ijob 38–41 Vor Dem Hintergrund Der Zeitgenössischen Bildkunst. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1978. Kim, Uichol, and John Berry, eds. Indigenous Psychologies: Research and Experience in Cultural Context. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1993. Konkel, August. Job. Cornerstone Biblical Commentary 6. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2006. Leland, Ryken. “Introduction.” In Dictionary of Biblical Imagery. Edited by Leland Ryken et al., 27–48. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1998. Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. Magnason, Andri Snær. On Time and Water. Translated by Lytton Smith. Windsor: Biblioasis, 2021. Newsom, Carol. “Models of the Moral Self: Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism.” Journal of Biblical Literature 131 (2012): 5–25. ———. The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Perdue, Leo G. “Metaphorical Theology in the Book of Job: Theological Anthropology in the First Cycle of Job’s Speeches (Job 3:6–7; 9–10).” In The Book of Job, edited by W. A. M. Beuken, 129–156. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1994. ———. Wisdom and Creation: The Theology of Wisdom Literature. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994. ———. Wisdom in Revolt: Metaphorical Theology in the Book of Job. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991. Ricœur, Paul. Oneself as Another. Translated by Kathleen Blamey. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Simkins, Ronald. Creator and Creation: Nature in the Worldview of Ancient Israel. Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994. van Leeuwen, Raymond. “The Quest for the Historical Leviathan: Truth and Method in Biblical Studies.” Journal of Theological Interpretation 5 (2011): 145–157. Venter, Pieter M. “Canon, Intertextuality and History in Nehemiah 7:72b–10:40.” HTS Theological Studies 65, no. 1 (2009): Article #135. Von Rad, Gerhard. “The Theological Problem of the Old Testament Doctrine of Creation.” In Creation in the Old Testament, edited by Bernhard W. Anderson, 131–143. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984.

11 Paul, Generosity, and Ecological Flourishing Julien C. H. Smith

Paul: The Root of the Problem? “Christians just don’t care about the environment,” my friend lamented, explaining why he found it increasingly difficult to call himself a Christian. Many of our Christian friends not only seemed unconcerned about the existential threat facing the planet, but some felt that such a cavalier attitude was supported—perhaps even required— by their Christian faith. For them, authentic Christian hope was eschatological—focused on God’s final judgment and the blessed reward of the faithful. To care about our earthly home betrayed a lack of understanding, or worse, faith. Perhaps you also lament the church’s complicity in the wanton exploitation of the planet. Indeed, you may well suspect, as I once did, that the church’s earliest and most influential theologian, the Apostle Paul, is the root of the problem, the source of Christian neglect for God’s creation. For many years, I read Paul as though he were the purveyor of what Wendell Berry calls a “strictly spiritual religion.”1 On this reading, those who put their faith in Christ’s saving death will be rescued from the consequences of sin to enjoy eternal communion with God and all the saints in heaven. Whatever the perils of the planet, they are not the concern of the faithful who have been evacuated to heaven, but rather of those unfortunates who have been “left behind.” While I now find this reading widely misses the mark of Paul’s intent, I recognize its ongoing influence in enabling, and even encouraging, the numerous ways in which many of us in the church have been complicit in wantonly disregarding our sacred vocation to care for our shared home—not least of which is the way this reading has formed our understanding of wealth and generosity. My goal in this chapter is threefold: first, to demonstrate how my earlier misreading of Paul thwarts the cultivation of ecological virtues within the church; second, to correct this misreading by arguing that Paul’s ultimate hope is animated by the unfolding “new creation” inaugurated by Jesus’ resurrection; and third, to present Paul’s christologically re-oriented understanding of generosity, a virtue essential to our flourishing in harmony with God’s beloved creation. Paul as Boomer To help us see the connection between Paul’s theology and the virtue of generosity, I turn to the contrast Berry draws between two different sorts of people: DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-21

Paul, Generosity, and Ecological Flourishing  129 “boomers” and “stickers.” The former denotes a person motivated by greed and ambition, looking to make a killing and move on, leaving in his wake ruined places and people. The latter describes an individual rooted in a place and community by bonds of affection, mutual need and usefulness, motivated by the desire to preserve a place in order to remain there for generations.2 From these two character types emerge two contrasting concepts of generosity. The boomer, typified for Berry by the tobacco tycoon James B. Duke, gives magnificently out of the vast sums he has gained through the exploitation of land and people. By contrast, the generosity of the sticker, exemplified by Berry’s own grandfather, manifests itself by a costly, lifelong commitment to preserve the health of the land, which is the true source of wealth. To which type does the Apostle Paul conform? Paul’s theology is complex, and the scholarly debates over it even more so.3 For simplicity’s sake I shall lay out what I regard as a widespread, although flawed, understanding of the Apostle’s thought under three headings: eschatology (the nature of Paul’s ultimate hope), community (the shared life of the people devoted to that hope), and economy (the interactions of that community with the rest of the world). The importance of eschatology is on display in one of Paul’s earliest letters to the church in Thessalonica. Evidently concerned because some in the congregation had died before the eagerly expected return of Christ, this church had written to Paul inquiring whether such persons would simply miss out on the blessed age to come. By no means, Paul insists: “For the Lord himself … will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever” (1 Thess 4:16–17 NRSV). The future hope of those who have trusted in Christ, one plausibly infers, is to dwell with him forever in heaven. Although Paul is reticent to speculate on what heaven is like (see 2 Cor 12:1–4), its location “in the air” suggests some place other than the earth. The immaterial nature of this future existence is further suggested by Paul’s insistence elsewhere that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable” (1 Cor 15:50). Indeed, Paul’s hope for a future disembodied existence in heaven leads him to hold the present embodied existence in low regard (Rom 8:13). This eschatological hope amounts to salvation from the world, which is destined for destruction as the object of God’s wrath (Rom 5:9; 9:22). What, then, of the community of those who believe Paul’s gospel? How does this eschatological vision shape the character of the church? Two imperatives can be discerned throughout Paul’s letters: evangelism (proclaiming the euangelion, or gospel) and discipleship (living in conformity to the gospel). Membership in the church entails a commitment to proclaim the gospel to the end that others will believe the message, receive baptism, and join the church. The path to salvation is simple: “if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom 10:9). The community of the saved—the church—must live pious and upright lives, set apart from their

130  Julien C. H. Smith former pagan neighbors (Eph 5:6–7), as they “wait for [God’s] Son from heaven … Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming” (1 Thess 1:10). Given the church’s eschatological outlook and sectarian character, it comes as little surprise that on the subject of the economy—the domain within which much of our daily activity occurs—Paul seemingly has little to say. His exhortations to generosity on behalf of the poor (Gal 2:10; 1 Cor 16:1–3) seem tangential to Paul’s central burden to “proclaim Christ crucified” (1 Cor 1:23). Indeed, the Apostle does not seem keen to work out the economic implications of the gospel. For example, he appears content to leave unchallenged one of the primary economic institutions of the ancient Mediterranean economy, namely slavery.4 Paul’s tacit approval of slavery suggests that his eschatological hope to be rescued from the coming wrath did not lead him to think critically and systemically about the economic practices of his day. It should now be clear why, at least in the way he is often popularly perceived, Paul displays little interest for the project animating this book. Earth is not our home; we are destined for heaven. Therefore, we ought to rescue as many souls as we can, for “the night is far gone, the day is near” (Rom 13:12). How we earn our bread in the meantime—our economic activity which affects nearly every aspect of human relationships with each other and the land—is a matter of little consequence. If Paul in fact bears any resemblance to the quintessential boomer I have just described, we would do well to pay him little heed if we seek guidance for flourishing in this time and place. However, a closer perusal of his letters suggests that Paul ought not to be so summarily dismissed. Paul as Sticker Careful students of the Bible have no doubt been reading the previous section of this chapter with raised eyebrows. In an effort to sketch what I regard as a popular misreading of Paul, I have deliberately ignored context in at least three ways—the context of the arguments of Paul’s individual letters; the socio-historical context of the first-century Mediterranean basin in which he lived; and the narrative context of Israel’s covenant relationship with YHWH, which Paul inhabited. My willful ignorance of these matters intends to bring into the open a problem lurking in the shadows: by disregarding the contexts in which Paul wrote, we unconsciously set Paul within other contexts, which distort the message his intended audience would likely have heard. The popular caricature of Paul presented earlier results from placing him in the context of a medieval debate concerning the means by which one “goes to heaven” after death—by divine grace, human effort, or some combination of the two. The very parameters of this debate assume that heaven is some place other than earth and thus prejudice us to see Paul as a boomer looking to escape earth for a celestial paradise. When we remove the medieval garb with which we have clothed Paul, we see a first-century Jew animated not by a Platonic vision of a disembodied celestial existence, but rather by Israel’s hope for the creation of a new heaven and a new earth (Isa 65:17). God’s eschatological intention, in Paul’s thought, is to restore

Paul, Generosity, and Ecological Flourishing  131 humankind to our original vocation to be, in N. T. Wright’s apt phrase, “lookingafter creatures.”5 The “new creation,” inaugurated by the death and resurrection of Jesus, Israel’s Messiah, envisions not the abandonment and destruction of the earth, but rather God’s restoration of creation’s original goodness. While this restoration will not be fully consummated until Jesus’ parousia (return, or more properly, presence), followers of Jesus are to eagerly anticipate this hoped-for event by living as though the expected reality were already present. Living in this way is enabled by the gift of God’s Spirit to the church. Thus, “spiritual” is not the opposite of “physical” but rather denotes the embodied lives of Jesus’ disciples empowered by the Spirit to follow a new vocation in God’s new creation. In sum, Paul’s eschatological vision is not to be evacuated to another world, but to “live into” the present-andcoming restoration of this world. Heaven is not a distant realm to be entered after death, but the in-breaking of God’s rule on earth. It is likely that Paul had prayed, as Jesus taught, for God’s will to be done “on earth as in heaven,” thereby expressing the fervent hope that through the Spirit-enabled life of the church, God was establishing his creation-restoring reign through Jesus the king. Given his radical this-worldly eschatological vision, how did Paul shape the communities of those who sought to live in this unfolding new creation? Let us reconsider the twin tasks of evangelism and discipleship. To proclaim the good news is to announce to the world that a new emperor—Jesus, not Caesar—has arrived. This message calls for the response of faith—not merely cognitive assent to a set of propositions but rather embodied allegiance to Jesus’ present reign. To see the nature of Paul’s gospel proclamation this way is to grasp the fundamental problem addressed in his letters—how to foster communities in which this costly countercultural allegiance to Jesus as king could be tangibly realized. Here we might well reflect upon what Paul’s letters tell us about Paul’s character and his relationship to these fledgling kingdom-outposts he founded and nurtured. When we read his letters attentive to tone, we discern the bonds of affection tying Paul to the communities he founded and nurtured. To the church in Thessalonica he likens himself to “a nurse tenderly caring for her own children” (1 Thess 2:7). Even in the midst of a sharply worded letter to the churches in Galatia, Paul recalls how they cared for him when he was afflicted by some physical infirmity (Gal 4:13–14). But the clearest evidence that Paul was a sticker is his correspondence with the Corinthian church. After having labored with and lived among the believers in Corinth for some eighteen months (Acts 18:11; a length of time which in itself casts doubt on Paul’s supposed boomer ways), Paul departed to visit other churches he had established, eventually settling in Ephesus, where he stayed for perhaps three years (Acts 19:8, 10, 22; again, longer than we might expect for a boomer). From there, in the midst of calamitous circumstances including imprisonment, Paul endeavored to repair a relationship with the Corinthian church that had festered nearly to the point of rupture. A boomer experiencing such emphatic rejection as Paul did from Corinth would surely have cut his losses and moved on. But not Paul. Gripped by the conviction that God was at work building a commonwealth one community at a time, Paul stuck with them. His tortured second (extant) letter reveals not a huckster looking for a

132  Julien C. H. Smith quick sale but rather a parent agonizing over a beloved child, with a commitment that defies the logic of short-term investment. “Everything we do beloved,” he writes toward the end of an anguished epistle, “is for the sake of building you up” (2 Cor 12:19). Establishing Paul thus as a sticker rather than a boomer is essential for correctly grasping the tasks of evangelism and discipleship. A midwife and husband of churches, Paul brought to life and nurtured communities he hoped would last. In proclaiming the good news of God’s present-and-coming kingdom, he intended that the church which formed in response would itself become the gospel. Such communities, by the public evidence of their counter-cultural shared life, would become the “hermeneutic of the gospel.”6 Evangelism and discipleship are thus integrally related: as people respond to the gospel proclamation (evangelism), they are invited into a community that is learning together how to symbolize and realize Jesus’ reign in their common life (discipleship). The church is not idly waiting for the trumpet call announcing the evacuation to heaven; it is learning how to live as citizens of a heavenly commonwealth on earth.7 While Paul understood the church to be global and even cosmic in scope, his focus was always local. The scope of his letters encompasses the lives of particular communities in particular times and places. This is important to recognize because a proper land ethic requires that we know a place and use it well, a task that, in Berry’s words, “takes a long time and a lengthy practice of observation, forbearance, temperance, caution, and affection.”8 Although we do not have direct evidence of Paul’s knowledge and use of a place in the way Berry describes, we have abundant evidence in his letters of his treatment of people in a manner consistent with such knowledge and use. Put differently, a land ethic guides one to act only in ways that foster the health of land and people together.9 Paul’s concern for the health of particular, local, emplaced communities recommends him to our consideration as a potential resource for thinking about the health of people and land together. With this in mind, let us revisit Paul’s thoughts on the economy. Earlier in my mischaracterization of Paul I suggested that his concern for the poor was tangential to his gospel mission and that he lent tacit approval to the institution of slavery. Both of these assumptions must be challenged in light of Paul’s well-known “Christ hymn,” in which he urges the church in Philippi to let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. (Phil 2:5–8) This passage is centrally important, not just to the argument of this letter but for Paul’s entire understanding of what it means to be Jesus’ disciple. It is no exaggeration to call it Paul’s “master story.”10 In Philippians, Christ’s descent from divine

Paul, Generosity, and Ecological Flourishing  133 status to the suffering of a slave provides the paradigm for Paul’s own discipleship, a pattern the Philippian believers are to imitate (Phil 4:9). True, the Christ hymn does not articulate an economic philosophy, but it does put forward a guiding principle: in order to follow in the way of Jesus, one may not exploit one’s status (and the wealth that accompanies it) but must rather be willing to follow Jesus in the way of suffering that leads to death. Such a pattern of daily living obviously has tremendous economic implications. Paul’s “master story” surfaces again in 2 Corinthians, this time in a way that draws such implications to a fine point. Earlier in the letter, Paul has had to defend the legitimacy of his apostleship in response to the views of some in the church who felt Paul’s lack of the conventional trappings of status made him unfit to be the ambassador of king Jesus. But poverty, Paul insists, is not a blemish on an apostle’s credentials. Quite the opposite: “For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ,” he reminds them, “that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9). Notice the similarity with the Christ hymn in Philippians 2: Christ renounces status/wealth and embraces enslavement/poverty. Yet observe what is new here—the purpose of Christ’s actions: “so that … you might become rich.” Paul is clearly referring to Christ’s atoning death on the cross, which he characterizes as a “generous act,” literally charis, often translated as “grace.” He has used the same term several sentences earlier to denote the “generous undertaking” (charis) of the Corinthian church, namely the collection of funds to alleviate the suffering of the poor in Jerusalem (2 Cor 8:7). While the two actions are clearly different, it is also clear that the Corinthians are to see their generous act as motivated and enabled by Christ’s own generosity on their behalf. The collection for the poor in Jerusalem was not merely a conventional gesture of charity peripheral to Paul’s gospel mission, but a powerfully tangible symbol of the sort of counter-cultural generosity enabled through the Spirit in the church, one of the ways that citizens of God’s “heavenly commonwealth” were to “live into” the unfolding new creation. What, then, of my earlier assertion that Paul tacitly approved of slavery? A thorough answer to this question would take me beyond the scope of this chapter. Here I can only point toward the illuminating work of Sylvia C. Keesmaat and Brian J. Walsh, who attend to the “hidden transcripts” in Paul’s letters, the ways in which Paul covertly critiques Roman imperial practices of violence, domination, and oppression. Paul can neither safely nor practically confront the ubiquitous institution of enslaved labor, for to do so would endanger these small, vulnerable communities, making them the target of suspicion and repression by their neighbors and the state. Therefore, they argue, Paul must covertly urge the churches to secede from the domicidal (home-wrecking) ways of empire and create alternative communities marked by God’s liberating love.11 The picture of Paul emerging from Keesmaat and Walsh’s careful study is not of a boomer indifferent to the exploitation of the vulnerable. Rather, we perceive a sticker, keenly aware of the human and ecological devastation wrought by slavery, and persuaded that God’s intent in the new creation is to rectify these injustices through the Messiah’s reign. And this should come as no surprise—for Paul believes, as we have seen, that Jesus himself became

134  Julien C. H. Smith a slave to liberate us from slavery. What then does this generous act of Jesus mean for our own understanding and practice of generosity? Paul and Generosity Even if, in the United States, we have not yet honestly reckoned with the unjust legacy of slavery in our nation’s history, we at least reject it in the present day as an odious institution. Nevertheless, we largely consent to an exploitative industrial economy that has the same corrosive effect upon the land and our relationship to it as the practice of enslaved labor has had in the past. Proper knowledge and use of land calls for, as noted earlier, “a lengthy practice of observation, forbearance, temperance, caution, and affection.”12 Such virtues, required and fostered for much of human history within agrarian communities, have been diminished to the vanishing point in an industrialized society that has left farming to fewer and fewer people, who of necessity have had to rely upon harsher and more destructive techniques to extract sustenance from the earth. Yet, agribusiness experts triumphantly assure us, this is no cause for dismay: our estrangement from the land has resulted in cheap and abundant food, liberation from the “drudgery” of agricultural labor, and a phenomenal rise in the standard of living. But such alleged wealth is a bewilderment, resulting as it does from the steady diminution of the true source of wealth, namely the land itself. How can we be growing richer as the land becomes poorer? Such a puzzle requires us to reconsider how we understand wealth and the virtue concerned with its disposal, namely generosity. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, whose Nicomachean Ethics remains a touchstone for considering the role of virtues in the life of human flourishing, believed that the “good life” required at least a modicum of wealth. Yet more important than the amount of wealth one possessed was how one used it: one must learn how to be generous to the right person, in the right manner, for the right reasons, neither giving too much nor too little.13 When determining how much to give, there is no absolute guide; as with all the virtues, one’s tutors are experience, virtuous exemplars, and practical wisdom. But it is safe to assume that, for Aristotle, the practice of generosity should not diminish one’s core wealth. One should not, as Paul says of Christ, become poor so that others might become rich. Generosity proceeds, it is clear, out of the excess of one’s wealth, and in a manner that enhances one’s status and prestige. While Aristotle has much to say about the disposal of wealth, he has little to say about its acquisition. Nevertheless, one assumes, given his explicit acceptance of slavery, that exploitation as a means of acquiring wealth did not constitute for Aristotle a fundamental injustice. It is thus entirely consistent with Aristotle’s view of generosity that one may give away with the right hand some small portion of what one has already taken with the left. Aristotle’s generous man describes Berry’s quintessential boomer philanthropist, James Duke. Aristotle’s views of wealth and generosity, I would wager, largely inform our own thinking on the topic today. But we can only hold together this picture, as Berry tirelessly reminds us, through an incomplete, and hence false, accounting.14

Paul, Generosity, and Ecological Flourishing  135 It is as though one only accounted for the credits, but not the debits, to one’s bank account. What Aristotle failed to see is that the polis can be considered neither wealthy nor healthy while its most vulnerable inhabitants are exploited, impoverished, and in ill health. It is precisely this false accounting that allows us to imagine that any of us are genuinely wealthy when our riches are gained through the impoverishment of our most basic source of wealth—the land and the communities of people who cultivate it—as is currently the case in modern industrial farming. It is precisely at this point that the Apostle Paul’s christologically reconfigured virtue of generosity can help us chart a different path. To become poor in order that others might become rich would seem to Aristotle—as it would to most of us, I suspect—sheer absurdity. And yet there appears to be a logic to Paul’s Christ hymn. The second half of the hymn continues thus: Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil 2:9–11) In response to Christ’s refusal to exploit his divine status, God restored him to the position that he had voluntarily renounced. If we read Phil 2:5–11 and 2 Cor 8:9 in light of each other we arrive at the following insight: Christ is able to impoverish himself in order to make others wealthy because he understands that God is the true source of wealth. For Christ to have refused to empty/impoverish himself, we must assume, would have constituted exploitation, a false grasping after that which may only be held lightly. We can perhaps grasp the principle of Christ’s generosity by considering the mysterious life-giving property of soil. As any good gardener will tell you, soil is the true source of the garden’s—and hence the gardener’s—wealth. Although we have learned much about the humus from which we humans were fashioned through God’s breath (in Hebrew, God forms adam from adamah; Gen 2:7), a full accounting of soil’s ability to make life out of death still eludes us. Soil is beyond us, not only in the sense that we do not fully understand its mysterious workings, but also because it is a gift that comes to us from beyond ourselves. Like God, the ultimate source of life, soil’s capacity to give life is, when properly used, virtually without limit. Put differently, the regenerative capacity of soil implies certain limits on its use by humans. We must learn, as did the first humans, “to work and serve … to preserve and observe” the soil of our garden home (Gen 2:15).15 The limits implied by this sacred vocation are profoundly at odds with the prevailing ethos of our age, in which we are assured that all of the ecological debts incurred by our limitless exploitation of the earth will be paid in the future with the help of technology, and without any loss of material comfort.16 Yet soil is a gift which must be used without exploitation: the pattern we must follow is that of Christ himself, who chose not to exploit divine status, emptying himself in an act of self-giving love.17

136  Julien C. H. Smith And, just as Christ’s self-giving generosity became the pattern for the cruciform discipleship in the churches of Corinth and Philippi, so the soil’s generosity instructs us how to live in Christ-like reciprocal generosity with the land. What, then, do the soil and Christian discipleship require of us? Berry argues that, beyond the superficial revolutions of governments, whereby power changes hands and policies are imposed, rejected, or revised, what is needed is a “rectification of the heart.” He continues: “men can only know and come to care for one another by meeting face to face, arduously, and by the willing loss of comfort.”18 I would add—and Berry, I believe, would agree—that the land itself must also be the object of our knowledge and care, a task which similarly will require of us the willing loss of our comfort. Following in the way of Jesus is to be tutored in a way of generosity in which we do not exploit, but rather empty ourselves of our status and comfort so that the land community may be rich. This is not to reduce Christian discipleship to soil conservation; rather, it is to insist that following Jesus cannot be something less than a wholehearted commitment to caring for the gift of soil, what others have called “watershed discipleship.”19 I conclude with a trenchant observation Berry makes at the end of The Hidden Wound: We must be aware too of the certainty that the present way of things will eventually fail. If it fails quickly, by any of several predicted causes, then we will have no need, being absent, to worry about what to do next. If it fails slowly, and if we have been careful to preserve the most necessary and valuable things, then it may fail into a restoration of community life—that is, into understanding of our need to help and comfort each other.20 Although the “slow failure” envisioned by Berry would indeed be an odd way to characterize Paul’s ebullient eschatological hope, I think that the tension between Berry and the Apostle Paul is more imagined than real. Paul is realistic about the suffering involved in following the way of the Messiah Jesus, who suffered and died for our sake. When he reminds the church in Philippi that they are members of a “heavenly commonwealth” (Phil 3:20) and that they must therefore “conduct themselves worthily as citizens” (Phil 1:27), he is not instructing them to wait piously for the final trumpet signaling their evacuation from earth to heaven.21 Rather, he intends them to live in a manner that proclaims to the world that Christ’s creation-restoring heavenly rule is even now unfolding on earth. Living under the rule of this utterly unconventional king entails a radical re-imagining of the virtues required for genuine human flourishing. To follow Jesus in the way of profound, self-giving generosity will almost certainly result, as it did for Paul, in the “loss of all things” (Phil 2:8). Indeed, Paul himself well knows the “slow failure” of a life spent in pursuit of all the wrong things, a life he has, like Christ, voluntarily renounced, “becoming like him in his death” (Phil 3:10). Paul’s vision is not the naive optimism of progress; it is the reasoned hope in the resurrection from the dead.

Paul, Generosity, and Ecological Flourishing  137 Notes 1 Wendell Berry, “Starting from Loss,” in It All Turns on Affection (Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2012), 70. 2 Wendell Berry, “It All Turns on Affection,” in It All Turns on Affection (Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2012), 10–11. 3 See N. T. Wright, The Paul Debate: Critical Questions for Understanding the Apostle (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2015). 4 Some qualifiers must be noted: he did urge a fellow believer, Philemon, to receive an escaped slave, Onesimus, “as a brother,” presumably implying that he should be emancipated (Philemon 10–16); and he urged masters to treat slaves “justly and fairly, for you know you also have a Master in heaven” (Col 4:1; cf. Eph 5:9). 5 N. T. Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2006), 37. 6 Leslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), 222–233. 7 Julien C. H. Smith, Paul and the Good Life: Transformation and Citizenship in the Commonwealth of God (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2020), 27–61. 8 Berry, “Starting,” 68. 9 Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There, reprint, 1968 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1949), 201–226. 10 Michael J. Gorman, Becoming the Gospel: Paul, Participation, and Mission, The Gospel and Our Culture Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015), 115–125. 11 Sylvia C. Keesmaat and Brian J. Walsh, Romans Disarmed: Resisting Empire/Demanding Justice (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2019). 12 Berry, “Starting,” 68. 13 Aristotle’s treatment of generosity can be found in Nicomachean Ethics IV.1 (1119b.25–1122a.15). 14 Wendell Berry, “Two Economies,” in The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry, ed. and intro. Norman Wirzba (Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2002), 224, 233. 15 The Hebrew verbs in Gen 2:15 are typically translated, as in the NRSV, as though the first humans were simply given a mundane task: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.” However, Ellen F. Davis demonstrates that the verbs’ wider usage implies at once an act of service and the keeping of God’s holy commandment. See Ellen F. Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 29–30. 16 Elsewhere I compare the capitalistic faith in limitless economic growth to first-century Roman imperial propaganda noisily boasting of a return to a “golden age” of prosperity won through the divinely bestowed victory of Rome’s emperors. In the face of such a “theology of victory,” Paul developed what I call a “theology of suffering” (Paul and the Good Life, 43–61, 183–187). 17 Berry sees in the soil’s generous capacity to make life out of death a quality that is truly Christ-like. See “A Native Hill,” in The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry, ed. and intro. Norman Wirzba (Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2002), 25. 18 Wendell Berry, The Hidden Wound (Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 1989), 104; emphasis mine. 19 Keesmaat and Walsh, Romans Disarmed, 197–205. 20 Berry, Hidden Wound, 137. 21 Here I offer my own translation of these two phrases; see my discussion in Paul and the Good Life, 46–50, 55–59.

138  Julien C. H. Smith References Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. 2nd ed. Translated by Terence Irwin. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1999. Berry, Wendell. The Hidden Wound. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 1989. ———. It All Turns on Affection. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2012. ———. The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry, edited and introduced by Norman Wirzba. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2002. Davis, Ellen F. Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Gorman, Michael J. Becoming the Gospel: Paul, Participation, and Mission. The Gospel and Our Culture Series. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015. Keesmaat, Sylvia C., and Brian J. Walsh. Romans Disarmed: Resisting Empire/Demanding Justice. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2019. Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There. 1968. New York: Oxford University Press, 1949. Newbigin, Lesslie. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989. Smith, Julien C. H. Paul and the Good Life: Transformation and Citizenship in the Commonwealth of God. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2020. Wright, N. T. The Paul Debate: Critical Questions for Understanding the Apostle. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2015. ———. Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense. San Francisco: HarperOne, 2006.

12 Ecoflourishing: Life, Death and Natural Disasters Robert S. White

Introduction It is a truism that biological life on this planet depends on the death of other organisms. This is true both of individuals, which almost always eat other organisms in order to stay alive, and also of communities and species, which depend on the death of older members of the species in order to make way for their offspring; and indeed of entire species, in order to keep a sustainable balance within and between different species in the midst of changing environments. There can be no ecoflourishing without physical death. And death on a massive scale. Why, then, are we so exorcized by death? It is perhaps understandable in the death of humans, which the Apostle Paul says is the last enemy to be defeated (1 Corinthians 15:26). But we also recoil from the many billions of individual deaths that have accompanied the evolution of life on earth. Maybe we feel less strongly about the death of plants, but are more concerned with the death of sentient creatures, particularly when they appear to be closer relatives of humans. For some, it is the suffering that may precede death that is the most worrying.1 As a result, people have endeavoured to create theodicies that in some way “justify the ways of God to men.”2 In a similar way, we worry that the so-called natural disasters which kill many innocent animals and humans reflect badly on a God who is supposed to be perfectly just, loving, and sovereign over his creation. In this chapter, I explore how we might view life, death and natural disasters from a Christian perspective in a world which God proclaimed to be “very good” (Genesis 1:31), and ways in which the practice of virtuous actions may assist in developing ecoflourishing on earth. Creation, Fall and Redemption The arc of the story the Bible tells is that God created a very good world where humans lived in harmony both with God and with his creation; that humans then rebelled against him in their sin; that Christ Jesus by his incarnation, death and resurrection has redeemed the world; and that in the fullness of time after Christ returns the new creation will usher in a place where righteousness will dwell eternally (2 Peter 3:13). Though this is an orthodox view of Christianity, there are DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-22

140  Robert S. White many subtle theological assumptions and nuances made along the way which may collide with our twenty-first century experience and understanding of the world. It is worth exploring some of these. A Perfect Creation?

The first common assumption is that the creation as God made it was perfect, or at least perfect to our own sensibilities. That, as Milton’s Paradise Lost assumes, it was a paradise which has now been lost by Adam’s sin.3 That leads some Christian authors to suggest that physical processes on earth changed in a major way after humans rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden, writing that “earthquakes, volcanoes, floods and hurricanes were unknown before sin entered the world.”4 Another author wrote: “The paradise which God had created on earth had no sin, suffering, sickness, sadness or death. There was no struggle for existence, no cruelty, no pollution, no physical calamities such as floods, earthquakes, hurricanes or tsunamis.”5 Yet science sheds a different light on this. Geology shows that there was predation and sickness, floods, tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions since long before humans were present. The very richness and fertility of this world is dependent on those same natural processes and there is no discontinuity in the physical processes themselves at the (geologically very recent) time when humans first existed on earth (though we should note that humans themselves rapidly affected the earth in major ways, so much so that geologists have now coined the term Anthropocene to mark the ongoing period of human impact). Indeed, as Jonathan Moo observes, in addition to there being no scientific evidence of a discontinuity, there is also no sense in Scripture of a radical rupture in the non-human creation between a pre-fall state before humans were present and what exists now.6 The fundamentalist James Orr likewise wrote that “there is not a word in the Bible to indicate that in its view death entered the animal world as a consequence of the sin of man.”7 Moreover, the Bible does not support the notion that there will be a “return to Eden” when Christ returns: that we will return to some kind of pre-Adamic perfection. Rather it points to a fulfilment of creation that includes all that is best of human endeavours: “The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it” (Revelation 21:26).8 A Good Creation?

The biblical view of creation is that God made the world exactly the way he meant it to be. Six times in the first chapter of the Bible, God pronounced that what he had made was “good.” Then after making humans, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). The “goodness” of creation as described in Genesis denotes a fitness for purpose rather than perfection according to human standards. The created order fulfills, or begins to fulfill, God’s intentions.9 Those intentions were to bring the cosmos to its telos, through creation and redemption, to its fulfilment in Christ Jesus in the new creation.10 The rebellion of humans against God in what is often termed the fall (though the Bible never uses that word) doesn’t

Ecoflourishing: Life, Death and Natural Disasters  141 change that original purpose of creation, nor its goodness, though it does mean that the life, death and resurrection of the incarnate Jesus became a necessary part of the redemption of a broken world. The world God made wasn’t some kind of pleasure park where people could sit back and do nothing. There were jobs to do: to have dominion over all living things (Genesis 1:28); to till the ground and take care of it (Genesis 2:15). God entrusted responsibility for care of the earth to humans, who were made in his image. It is this mandated responsibility that is so often ignored or not fully recognized in many discussions of human care for creation. The way we ought to rule over creation was modeled by Jesus: as a pastor-king, a shepherd who is in charge of and cares for his flock, his rule is devoted to the good of others and the glorification of God the Father. There is an obvious application of virtue ethics here. For humankind, this rule pre-echoes the new creation, where redeemed people will reign with Christ (2 Timothy 2:12; Revelation 5:9–10; 22:5). That is also why, although all of creation is presently groaning “as if in the pangs of childbirth,” it is waiting “with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God,” when it will be “set free from its bondage to decay” (Romans 8:19, 21). Alongside responsibility to rule over creation, God also gave us the capability to understand the world through science and the orderliness and consistency of physical laws. This is an immense gift and part of his common grace to humanity. But there is a dark side: we can (mis-) use that understanding to hurt and not heal people; to enslave rather than to set free; to shorten life rather than to prolong and enrich it. At root, this remains a good creation, though humans have too often despoiled and abused it for their own selfish purposes rather than using it for the sake of others and the glorification of God the creator. Consequences of Humankind’s Rebellion against God The Bible writers maintain that humankind’s rebellion against God, portrayed as Adam and Eve’s original sin, has continued throughout human history and in every person. What went wrong, the Bible says, was that humans were not content to rule the world on behalf of God, as Genesis 1:28 mandated. Instead, they wanted to rule the world, whether their tiny patch, or with bigger ambitions, for their own selfish ends. The irony is that Adam and Eve already had access to everything necessary for fulfilled lives, for wisdom of how to live in harmony with both God and the rest of creation. Instead, all the relationships between God, humankind and the non-human creation were affected. Humans lost their immediate access to God, and the rightness and orderliness of life in the Garden of Eden. Their interactions with other people were broken, soon resulting in murder (Genesis 4:8) and fear of others, and spoiling relationships between men and women (Genesis 3:16). Failure of the proper relationship between the creator God and ourselves also resulted in the breakdown of the relationships between ourselves and the rest of God’s creation. Growing food became a struggle (Genesis 3:17–19), and there was an increase in pain during childbirth (Genesis 3:16). And the rest of creation was “subjected to frustration” (Romans 8:20). Although God is ultimately sovereign

142  Robert S. White over his creation, humans are the proximal reason for the groaning of creation, since they have failed in their God-given task of caring for it on his behalf.11 Human selfishness prevents the non-human creation playing its proper role of giving glory to God. Death

There are many different ways in which the term “death” is used, of which four are relevant here. One usage refers to inorganic objects, such as stars. It is common to refer to the life cycle of stars, from their first development in large clouds of dust and gas, through a stage of nuclear fusion, expansion to a red giant and possibly a supernova explosion, then contraction to a more inert black dwarf, black hole or neutron star. The other three types of death are those mentioned in the Bible: physical death of biological entities, spiritual death in the present, and eternal spiritual death. A much-debated aspect of Adam’s sin was that God told him he “would surely die” when he ate the forbidden fruit (Genesis 2:17). Yet we know that Adam didn’t immediately die physically. He went on to have children, though of course he did eventually die (Genesis 5:5). A possible answer to this conundrum is that Adam endured spiritual death on that day, cutting himself off from the close relationship with God that he had hitherto enjoyed. That also had physical consequences, such as making it tough to grow food: “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread” (Genesis 3:19). I suggest that it was the breakdown of Adam’s relationship with God and with God’s creation that meant Adam no longer had that close understanding of his environment that caused him, and subsequently caused all of us, to struggle to live in harmony with it. The Bible frequently talks of both physical and spiritual death. Jesus tells the Pharisee Nicodemus that “no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again” (John 3:3–15). This confused Nicodemus, who was thinking of physical birth, until Jesus explained that he was talking about spiritual life. Paul amplified this point, writing that “if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness” (Romans 8:10). Although humans are physically animals, connected through evolution with all the rest of life on Earth and sharing the same mechanisms of carbon-based life and DNA, we are also in one respect different from everything else in creation. We are the only creatures made in God’s image. At the very least this means that we share some of God’s characteristics, and are able to enter into relationship with him. Concerns with justice, creativity, imagination and the ability to conceptualise mathematical and scientific understandings of the world are likely to be some of the abilities that come from being in the image of God, and which make us different from animals. Perhaps we can best be described as “animals-plus.” It is reasonable therefore to assume that the spiritual death of image-bearing humans is in a different category than the physical death of other animals and living creatures, even though God cares deeply for everything he has created, animate and inanimate alike. Jesus hints at this when he tells his disciples that God cares about

Ecoflourishing: Life, Death and Natural Disasters  143 every sparrow who dies, “and not one of them is forgotten before God,” and yet they “are of more value than many sparrows” (Luke 12:6–7; Matthew 6:26). More explicitly, Psalm 8 pronounces that God made humans just “a little lower than God” and has given humankind dominion over all of God’s creation.12 If this is right, then we can still accept that the physical death of organisms involved in the evolutionary story, or even in daily living in this world, can be part of a very good creation. Indeed, God explicitly approves of predation by lions: “The lions roar for their prey and seek their food from God” (Psalm 14:21). Similar views are stated elsewhere in the Bible, both referring to lions (Job 38:39–40; Isaiah 5:29) and to ravens and birds of prey (Job 38:41, 39:26–30; Isaiah 46:11). This does not contradict the point the Apostle Paul made that for humans “the last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26). Death is also built into the very fabric of the physical cosmos. Most of the atoms of which our bodies are made were created by thermo-nuclear processes in generations of stars, which then by their death in supernovae explosions seeded those atoms throughout the universe.13 We are truly children of the stars. And even within our bodies, those atoms are continually exchanged during our lives so that 98% of the atoms in our bodies are changed every year. Because the atoms that are exchanged are dominantly hydrogen, carbon and oxygen, they circulate rapidly around the whole globe as carbon dioxide and water in the atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere. Therefore those atoms are continually recycled, with the consequence that we physically share our atoms with all other living organisms on earth.14 It is likely that we carry atoms in our bodies from every other human who has ever lived, as well as from now-extinct dinosaurs and dodos. Translated to the body of the incarnate Christ, it is a striking thought that when he died on the cross he likely carried a physical manifestation of every single person for whom he died. On a biological level, the cells of our bodies are pre-programmed to be deleted as they age or become stressed or damaged: this is called apoptosis, or programmed cell death and is what protects us against malfunctions that develop in cells over time.15 So at many different levels, physical death at the right time is not necessarily a bad thing, and indeed may well be a good thing. “Natural” Disasters If we accept that we live in what God himself declared to be a very good world, and that the consequences of human rebellion against God are to break the proper relationships between ourselves and both God and his creation, how should we view “natural” disasters? A common answer is that they are caused by “natural evil” as distinct from “moral evil” perpetrated by humans. However, the Bible is suffused with descriptions of God not only as creator, but also as sustainer of the entire cosmos, of both inanimate and living things: planets, stars and galaxies as well as quarks and photons; plants and animals as well as humans. We cannot say “nature caused that disaster” as if neither God nor humans had any part in it.16 To talk of “natural evil” could be considered a contradiction of the goodness of God and of his very nature.17

144  Robert S. White Natural processes, which may indeed be hazardous to humans and other creatures, are nevertheless essential to maintaining the fruitfulness and flourishing of this world. In Psalm 104:32, earthquakes and volcanoes are listed as part of the works of the Lord in which he rejoices. But these generally beneficial (though often hazardous) natural processes may be turned into disasters by the actions, or inactions of humans. Indeed, some authors assert that without people there are no disasters.18 Scientists now commonly assume that human agency plays a huge part in producing disasters. Thus, we might term them “unnatural disasters” rather than “natural disasters.” It is not difficult to find examples of selfishness, or vices, in the way humans often use creation for their own purposes, and the disconnection between people and the natural environment which allow natural processes to turn into disasters. For example, naturally occurring wildfires are crucial for some ecosystems to thrive, including both plants and animals, and are often beneficial to humans.19 Yet some 85–90% of wildfires today are a direct result of human carelessness or deliberate acts like arson, and are increasingly common as a result of anthropogenic climate change. More shockingly, the likelihood of dying in an earthquake depends primarily on your poverty level or that of your country. The 2010 magnitude 7 earthquake in low-income Haiti killed over 230,000 people, despite having a thousand times less energy than the 2011 magnitude 9 Japanese Tohoku earthquake which killed only a few thousand people.20 The deaths in Haiti were caused primarily by poorly built buildings collapsing. It wasn’t that Haitians didn’t know how to build earthquakeresistant buildings. This was vividly demonstrated by the survival of a 13-story plate-glass skyscraper in Port-au-Prince—which survived the quake without a single window breaking—while the newly built, adjacent four-story Turgeau hospital collapsed on top of many patients and medical workers.21 A clear example of the way humans cause so-called natural disasters is global climate change resulting from burning fossil fuels, cutting down forests and changes in agricultural practices. Climate change amplifies risk and makes hitherto rare and extreme events more common. It exacerbates many natural hazards we face: floods and droughts; high-temperature extremes that cause sickness and even death for the very young and elderly; rising sea levels as glaciers and ice caps melt, causing increased likelihood of flooding in coastal areas and low-lying islands; declining and uncertain crop yields as weather patterns change and become more volatile; increased intensity of storms and hurricanes as the water vapour in the atmosphere increases and as ocean temperatures increase. The influential IPCC 6th Assessment Report revealed that “it is unequivocal [my emphasis] that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.”22 There is an obvious problem of ecojustice here: people in high-income countries have largely caused climate changes by their burning of hydrocarbons as a source of cheap energy, while those in lowincome countries disproportionately suffer the consequences. Finally, to take a biological example, pandemics such as Covid-19 are spread by human contact, with a global reach at the speed of a passenger airline. It is likely that the Covid-19 pandemic started when the SARS-Cov-2 virus jumped from a

Ecoflourishing: Life, Death and Natural Disasters  145 wild animal population, where it was tolerated by the hosts, to humans where it had disastrous consequences. The proximity of wild animals to people results from humans squeezing animals into ever smaller areas and sometimes into wild meat markets, bringing species together which would never normally be in close proximity.23 Yet even viruses have their uses in their natural place: some animals use them to help prevent bacterial infections, and retroviral inserts in mammals, including humans, are essential to the development and functioning of placentas.24 The failure of humans to care for creation properly despite our scientific and technological understanding means that we must carry responsibility for disasters we cause or exacerbate. As Jesus said “from everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded” (Luke 12:48). Evil We are desperate to understand why bad things happen—“how long, O Lord,” we cry with the writers in the Bible (Psalm 35:17, 80:4, and 90:13; Habakkuk 1:2). Throughout most of history, so-called natural evil has been seen as an outworking of moral evil resulting from humanity’s disobedience to God.25 Nevertheless, we long to know why God allows disasters to happen. The first thing to say is that maybe our desire to explain why God acts as he does is itself a doomed enterprise. Our ways are not God’s ways, and our thoughts are not God’s thoughts (Isaiah 55:9; also Job 37:5 and 42:3; Romans 11:33; 1 Corinthians 13:12). Humans, as created beings, cannot second-guess the motives of their creator. Isaiah 29:16 comments, for instance, that we turn things “upside down” by drawing an analogy with the ridiculous notion of a pot attempting to tell the potter that “he knows nothing.” The Apostle Paul similarly wrote: “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” (Romans 9:20). Perhaps the clearest example of why it may not be sensible to try to explain all God’s actions is the example of Job. He lost everything he owned. “Natural” disasters such as lightning or maybe a volcanic eruption killed his sheep and servants, and a storm demolished his eldest son’s house, killing all ten of his children. Neighbouring tribes stole or killed all his oxen, donkeys, camels and servants (Job 1:13–19). His friends suggested that he was suffering because he must have done something terribly wrong against God and hadn’t repented of it, an attitude which God roundly condemned, saying that they “had not spoken of him what is right” (Job 42:7). However, we know something that Job didn’t, which is that God allowed the Satan to test the righteous Job to the limit. Job retained his trust in God, but like most of us when terrible things happen, all he wanted was an explanation from God for why he was suffering. After 36 chapters of failed suggestions by Job’s friends, God finally answered Job “out of the whirlwind.” But God didn’t give some tidy explanation of why disasters happen or why he made the universe the way he did. Instead, he gave a magnificent review of his creation and of his majesty and care over the whole cosmos: from bringing into being the universe itself with its multitude of stars (Job 38:31–33), through the physical structure of the earth (Job 38:4–18), its weather

146  Robert S. White (Job 38:22–30, 34–38), and the animals and birds (Job 38:39–39.30), right down to concern for what individual creatures eat (Job 38:39–41). God is sovereign over the most scary, untameable parts of his creation, and over evil itself. Job finally understood both that God’s purposes cannot be thwarted and that God’s knowledge and wisdom is far beyond anything to which he could aspire. The lesson for us is that we cannot, and should not, expect to understand all of God’s dealings this side of heaven. But we can, and should, hold on to God’s faithfulness and goodness as Job did, however dire our circumstances, and have the humility along with Job to say to God, that “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” (Job 42:2–3). Second, what about those times when God appears to bring suffering on his people (e.g., Ezekiel 6:10), frequently caused by the actions of foreigners inimical to Israel? For example, God’s response to the prophet Habakkuk’s complaint that his own people are violent and ignore justice (Habakkuk 1:2–4) is that he will bring judgement on them through the Chaldeans/Babylonians (Habakkuk 1:5–11).26 God may use ungodly people to chasten and discipline his own people. From a human perspective we might see the actions of others as understandable outcomes of the prevailing political and social circumstances in a world populated by people who have rebelled against God. But the Bible maintains God’s sovereignty over all those actions, even by those who are inimical to God, as God may use them for his own purposes. An example of this is the life of the patriarch Joseph. His brothers had wanted to get rid of him, even considered killing him, and eventually sold him to traders who took him to Egypt. Joseph endured 13 years of trials and setbacks including unjust imprisonment, but eventually rose to become second only to the Pharaoh and oversaw the laying up of grain which enabled the country and surrounding areas to survive a 7-year famine. When his brothers eventually came begging for food, he told them three times over that they shouldn’t blame themselves because “God sent me before you to preserve life” (Genesis 45:4–8). As if that wasn’t enough emphasis, after their father had died he said a fourth time that “you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive” (Genesis 50:20). God uses even the evil deeds of other people and nations to bring about his purposes. Often the Bible explains the suffering of God’s people as being a natural consequence of their own actions. For example, God proclaims to his people that “I have returned your deeds upon your head” (Ezekiel 16:43), and that “Since you have forgotten me and turned your back on me, you must bear the consequences of your lewdness and prostitution” (Ezekiel 23:35). God allows people the freedom to turn their backs on him, but as part of that freedom they also suffer the consequences of their actions. For example, Paul writes that “although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Romans 1:21). The result of that choice was that “they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done” (Romans 1:28). Paul follows that up with a list of the vices they embrace, even inventing

Ecoflourishing: Life, Death and Natural Disasters  147 “ways of doing evil” (Romans 1:30). We can hardly blame God for giving humans the freedom to choose such a path of rebellion and then respecting their choices. Ethical Responses In the light of the preceding discussion, how then should we respond? I suggest at least the following. It behoves us to practise the virtue of humility. Scientific and technological achievements have been so striking that it is easy to get carried away with hubristic ideas both that science will get all the answers and that we can fix any problem that arises. But occurrences such as the Covid-19 pandemic—which killed many millions of people worldwide and hit rich, technologically advanced nations as hard, or harder than anywhere, and against which all we could do initially was to isolate ourselves—should be a reminder that however clever we are, there is still plenty we don’t know and can’t control.27 In any case, science can only begin to address the 4% of the known universe that is accessible to us: the other 96% is dark energy or dark matter about which we know almost nothing. But humility is also an appropriate response spiritually, as Job discovered when all he wanted was for God to explain himself, but then ended up repenting “in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6) after he had seen God’s magnificence in all of creation. We need to take seriously our responsibility to care for the earth on God’s behalf in the way he wants us to, for the sake of his glory and for the benefit of other people and the rest of creation. That is also part of our worship of God. It is particularly clear in the case of global climate change that this may mean individuals and communities foregoing some of the things that they could otherwise do, for the sake of others alive today and for the yet unborn. It is also appropriate that people in high-income countries with wealth generated through profligate burning of fossil fuels, should sacrificially help those in low-income countries who suffer the consequences of climate change. Virtues such as self-control and accountability should lead directly to actions such as providing funding, and transferring know-how for mitigation of, and adaptation to, the challenging alterations climate change has caused. This is a case of simple justice as we recognise the consequences on others of our own actions. The things that are awry in this world are also a reminder that lament to God is a proper response to suffering and to a deep sense that the world is not how it ought to be. Lament forces us back to reliance on God and paradoxically can give a sense of hope.28 Lament also develops in us the virtues of compassion and honesty about the part we play in the world. It reminds us at a deep level that we should not be comfortable in the brokenness of this present world. It also points us to the truth of the certain hope for the new creation, where this cosmos and everyone in it will be fulfilled in the way God intends, and has always intended for it to be. Notes 1 See Christopher Southgate, The Groaning of Creation: God, Evolution and the Problem of Evil (Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox, 2008). 2 This phrase comes from John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667). The term theodicy was coined by Gottfried Leibniz in his book Théodicée (1710).

148  Robert S. White 3 John Milton, Paradise Lost, ed. Gordon Teskey, 2nd ed. (New York: W. W. Norton & Co. Inc, 2004). 4 John Blanchard, Where was God on September 11? (Darlington: Evangelical Press, 2002), 17. 5 Roger Carswell, Where is God in a Messed-up World? (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 2006), 37. 6 Jonathan Moo, “Disasters, injustice and the goodness of creation,” in What Good is God?: Crises, Faith, and Resilience, eds. Roger Abbott and Robert White, 36–54 (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2020). 7 James Orr, A Christian View of God and the World (New York: Anson, Randolph & Co., 1893). 8 Richard Mouw, When the Kings Come Marching In: Isaiah and the New Jerusalem Eerdmans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002). 9 Jonathan Moo and Robert White, Hope in an Age of Despair: The Gospel and the Future of Life on Earth, Leicester (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 2013). 10 Jonathan Wilson, God’s Good World: Reclaiming the Doctrine of Creation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013). 11 Douglas Moo and Jonathan Moo, Creation Care: A Biblical Theology of the Natural World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2018); Richard Bauckham, The Bible and Ecology: Rediscovering the Community of Creation (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2010). 12 Other translations: “‘than the heavenly beings” (ESV) and “than the angels” (Septuagint). 13 Hydrogen, helium and lithium were created in the Big Bang. The classic paper explaining heavier elements is Burbidge, E. Margaret, G. R. Burbidge, William A. Fowler and F. Hoyle, “Synthesis of the Elements in Stars,” Reviews of Modern Physics 29, no. 4 (1957): 547–650. 14 Ethan Siegel, “How Many Atoms Do We Have In Common With One Another?” (May, 2020). https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/how-many-atoms-do-we-have-incommon-with-one-another-f20bcac794f1. Accessed August 9, 2022. 15 J. F. R. Kerr, A. H. Wyllie, and A. R. Currie, “Apoptosis: A basic biological phenomenon with wide ranging implications in tissue kinetics,” British Journal of Cancer 26, no. 4 (1972): 239–257. 16 In his 1755 book, “Serious Thoughts Occasioned by the Late Earthquake in Lisbon” (1755), John Wesley wrote: “What is nature itself, but the art of God, or God’s method of acting in the material world?” Thomas Jackson, ed., The Works of John Wesley, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1958–1959, reprint edition), vol. 11, 6–7. Thirteen centuries earlier Augustine of Hippo wrote in De Genesi ad Litteram that “nature is what God has made.” Augustine, On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis: An Unfinished Book, in The Fathers of the Church, A New Translation: St. Augustine on Genesis, Vol. 84, transl. Roland J. Teske S. J. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1991), 77. 17 The Bible is clear that disasters can occur under God’s righteous rule: “I [God] bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things” (Isaiah 4:7). 18 P. O’Keefe, K. Westgate, and B. Wisner, “Taking the naturalness out of natural disasters,” Nature 260 (1976): 566–567. 19 Juli G. Pausas and Jon E. Keeley, “Wildfires as an ecosystem service,” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 17, no. 5 (2019): 289–295. 20 Most of the 19,000 Japanese deaths were caused by tsunamis, whereas there was only a small tsunami in Haiti. On a like-for-like basis, building collapses in Japan killed less than 1% of those in Haiti. 21 Reginald DesRoches et alia, “Overview of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake,” Earthquake Spectra 27, no. 1, suppl. 1 (2011): 1–21. 22 Valérie Masson-Delmotte and Panmao Zhai, eds., IPCC, 2021: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), A. 1, p. 4.

Ecoflourishing: Life, Death and Natural Disasters  149 23 Roger Abbott and Robert White, What Good is God? Crises, Faith, and Resilience (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2020). 24 Edward B. Chuong, “The placenta goes viral: retroviruses control gene expression in pregnancy,” PLoS Biol 16, no. 10 (2018): https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000028. 25 For a concise summary of Christian thinking about evil, see the essay on evil by H. A. G. Blocher in New Dictionary of Christian Apologetics, eds. W. C. Campbell-Jack and Gavin. J. McGrath (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 2006), 249–252. 26 Habakkuk then complained that God shouldn’t use an ungodly nation to discipline his own people, even though they were wayward. God responds that the Chaldeans/Babylonians would reap their own destruction as a result of their wanton violence (Habakkuk 2:6–20), as happened only 80 years later. In the midst of this oracle of woe, God’s sovereignty over everything is asserted again with the famous phrase that “the Earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.” 27 By December 2021, Covid-19 had caused over 5 million officially reported deaths, though the likely number was between double and quadruple that number. Cf. David Adam, “The effort to count the pandemic’s global death toll,” Nature 601 (2022): 312–315. 28 Cathy Ross, “Hope is tough: reflections in a time of COVID-19,” Practical Theology 14, nos. 1–2 (2021): 86–97.

References Abbott, Roger, and Robert White. What Good Is God? Crises, Faith, and Resilience. Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2020. Adam, David. “The Effort to Count the Pandemic’s Global Death Toll.” Nature 601 (2022): 312–315. Augustine. On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis: An Unfinished Book. In The Fathers of the Church, A New Translation: St. Augustine on Genesis, Vol. 84. Translated by Roland J., Teske S. J. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1991. Bauckham, Richard. The Bible and Ecology: Rediscovering the Community of Creation. London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2010. Blanchard, John. Where was God on September 11? Darlington Evangelical Press, 2002. Blocher, H. A. G. “Evil.” In New Dictionary of Christian Apologetics, edited by W. C. Campbell-Jack and Gavin J. McGrath, 249–252. Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 2006. Burbidge, E. M., G. R. Burbidge, William A. Fowler, and F. Hoyle. “Synthesis of the Elements in Stars.” Reviews of Modern Physics 29, no. 4 (1957): 547–650. Carswell, Roger. Where is God in a Messed-up World? Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 2006. Chuong, Edward B. “The Placenta Goes Viral: Retroviruses Control Gene Expression in Pregnancy.” PLoS Biol 16, no. 10 (2018): https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000028. DesRoches, Reginald, Mary Comerio, Marc Eberhard, Walter Mooney, and Glenn J. Rix. “Overview of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake.” Earthquake Spectra 27, no. 1, suppl. 1 (2011): 1–21. Kerr, J. F. R., A. H. Wyllie, and A. R. Currie. “Apoptosis: A Basic Biological Phenomenon With Wide Ranging Implications in Tissue Kinetics.” British Journal of Cancer 26, no. 4 (1972): 239–257. Masson-Delmotte, Valérie, Panmao Zhai, et al., eds. IPCC, 2021: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157896 Milton, John. Paradise Lost, edited by Gordon Teskey, 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. Inc, 2004.

150  Robert S. White Moo, Jonathan. “Disasters, Injustice and the Goodness of Creation.” In What Good Is God? Crises, Faith, and Resilience, edited by Roger Abbott and Robert White, 36–54. Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2020. Moo, Douglas J., and Jonathan A. Moo. Creation Care: A Biblical Theology of the Natural World. Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 2018. Moo, Jonathan, and Robert White. Hope in an Age of Despair: The Gospel and the Future of Life on Earth. Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 2013. Mouw, Richard J. When the Kings Come Marching In: Isaiah and the New Jerusalem. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002. O’Keefe, P., K. Westgate, and B. Wisner. “Taking the Naturalness Out of Natural Disasters.” Nature 260 (1976): 566–567. Orr, James. A Christian View of God and the World. New York: Anson, Randolph & Co, 1893. Pausas, Juli G., and Jon E. Keeley. “Wildfires as an Ecosystem Service.” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 17, no. 5 (2019): 289–295. Ross, Cathy. “Hope Is Tough: Reflections in a Time of COVID-19.” Practical Theology 14, no. 1–2 (2021): 86–97. Siegel, Ethan. “How Many Atoms Do We Have In Common With One Another?” (May, 2020). https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/how-many-atoms-do-we-have-in-common-­withone-another-f20bcac794f1. Accessed August 9, 2022. Southgate, Christopher. The Groaning of Creation: God, Evolution and the Problem of Evil. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008. Wesley, John. “Serious Thoughts Occasioned by the Late Earthquake in Lisbon” (1755). In The Works of John Wesley, 3rd ed, edited by Thomas Jackson. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1958–1959, reprint edition. Wilson, Jonathan R. God’s Good World: Reclaiming the Doctrine of Creation. Michigan: Baker Academic, 2013.

San Rafael Mountain Paul Willis It takes awhile for the country to settle into our eyes. A weekend, a lifetime is not enough. The ridges rise from the distant wall of the blue Sierra to the beaten folds of the Santa Ynez. On the horizon, last and lost, Santa Cruz and the sun-bright islands. River of ocean wheels the prow of Point Conception to Morro Bay and the first dark jut of the Big Sur coast. We see all these from the mountaintop in a moment of time. But we cannot lay claim to these kingdoms. As much as we ache to join our souls to the slopes of grace we must wait for them. We must wait for the land. We must wait for the condor who spirals again in the winter sun above Sisquoc, above Hurricane Deck, above San Rafael, who sees the earth spread out below as it has not been seen for years, who sees us here no bigger than bespectacled mice, peering through our tinted glass until we know as we are known.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-23

IV

Global Ecoflourishing: Biospheric, Intercultural, and Interreligious

A Common Sight Pattiann Rogers There is at least one eye for everything here this afternoon. The algae and the yeasts, invisible to some, for instance, are seen by the protozoa; and the black-tailed seeds of tadpoles are recognized on sight by the giant, egg-carrying water beetle. Brook trout have eyes for caddisfly larvae, pickerel for dragonfly nymphs; redfin shiners bear witness to the presence of flocks of water fleas. The grains of the goldenrod are valued, sought out, found by the red-legged grasshopper who is, in turn, noticed immediately by the short-tailed shrew whose least flitter alarms and attracts the rodent-scoped eye of the white-winged hawk. There is an eye for everything. The two-lined salamander watches for the horsehair worm, as the stilt spider pays sharp attention to midge fly, crane fly. The cricket frog will not pass unnoticed, being spied specifically by the ringed raccoon, and, despite the night beneath the field, the earthworm, the grub and the leafhopper larva are perceived by the star-nosed mole.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-25

So odd, that nothing goes unnoticed. Even time has its testimony, each copepod in the colony possessing a red eyespot sensitive to the hour, the entire congregation rising as one body at dusk to touch the dark where it exists above the pond. And I have an eye myself for this particular vision, this continuous validation-by-sight that’s given and taken over and over by clam shrimp, marsh treader, bob cat, the clover-coveting honeybee, by diving teal, the thousand-eyed bot fly, the wild and vigilant, shadow-seeking mollusk mya. Watch now, for my sake, how I stalk. Watch how I secure this vision. Watch how long and lovingly, watch how I feed.

13 Interdisciplinary Voices of the Ecoflourishing ‘Glocal’ Dialogue from Non-Western Cultural and Literary Perspectives Graciela Susana Boruszko Introduction The ‘global’ goal of ecoflourishing, whose effects are present in each ‘local’ community, represents a combination of the ‘global’ and the ‘local’ that can be described as ‘glocal.’ If division would be allowed to replace connectedness, the rhythmic flow of global and local would be interrupted. Similar to the biblical creational narrative models, this rhythmic flow simultaneously seeks ecological well-being and the flourishing of each and all individuals and their communities. In what follows I will probe into different cultural and literary approaches to the transmission and praxis of ecoflourishing. I will use the literary model of the transmission of ‘local’ mythological narratives that by successive migrations throughout the Western world morphed into ‘glocal’ narratives. Traditional and indigenous cultures offer successful models of ecoflourishing nested in cultural practices connecting one generation to the next. Storytelling and traditions act as the prevalent chosen media to transfer ecoflourishing approaches from one generation to the next. Honing in on interdisciplinary voices, I will explore the multilayered ecocritical narratives from indigenous traditions and non-Western communities as well as exchanges between the Western world and the migratory voices from the ‘peripheries.’ For example, the Kuna Indians have a successful model of ethnocultural and linguistic transference to new generations via oral traditions and praxis related to ecoflourishing. I will also analyze the Slavic transfer of traditions that indirectly convey a nexus between the environment and individuals in a critical time of environmental nuclear catastrophe. How do traditions, beliefs, and non-Western views of the environment integrate in the testimonial narrative of Nikolai—a scientist, a father, and a victim of Chernobyl? In this testimony the non-Western point of view, the scientific voice, and the traditional voice merge in a personal response to an environmental catastrophic event. I argue that all voices should share on equal footing in ‘glocal’ discussions since each one offers a contribution to the multilayered approaches to our global ecoflourishing project.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-26

156  Graciela Susana Boruszko Narratives of Initiations From the very beginning humanity has been intimately linked to our habitat, our ‘home.’ In the book of Genesis we find a global biblical narrative of the creation of the human race along with their habitat. The first humans were created from the ‘humus,’ perpetually and intimately linked to their ‘home, sweet home,’ as well as to the surrounding universe with which they commune.1 A harmonious, self-fulfilling dialogue between the creature, the environment, and the Creator was established from the beginning. If a house (a building, a body) constitutes a physical need, a home (where and with whom I belong) exists for emotional, mental, and spiritual human fulfillment. The emanating flow of creation is a constant becoming and fulfilling as an infinite folding and unfolding. The biblical creation narrative proceeds into a dramatic chapter when the first inhabitants of this planet were expelled from their ‘home.’ This first home had been custom made, prepared with humanity in mind. It was an open place that offered all that they needed. They had dominion over their habitat that is described as a good and resourceful paradise. Once they lost this ‘home’ humans have searched for a place to call home. The perfect conditions that defined the natural cooperation between inhabitants and habitat were broken, so the dominion over the habitat was reframed in an adverse relationship. The ambition of all literatures is to bring us closer to this lost home. As the American novelist Thomas Wolfe proclaimed, You can’t go home again.2 The human habitat is commonly described as ‘home,’ ‘nature,’ and ‘environment.’ Home is an intimate, private, personal space, while ‘nature’ and ‘environment’ refer to communal, global spaces. In literary texts, the pendulum is constantly moved between ‘global’ and ‘local,’ having the notion of ‘connectedness’ as a link between the two, thereby creating maximum tension while avoiding fusion. Union of the global and local settings is usually challenged by division and fragmentation between the two. This tension generates a dialectic engagement that should be resolved in the ‘union of union’ and not in the ‘union of division.’ Division creates a catastrophic loss that deprives us of a rhythmic flow that seeks simultaneously ecological well-being and the flourishing of each and all individuals and their communities. The world in its own fragmentation has always been a space of free exchanges using different languages. These exchanges emanate from the common experience between individuals who belong to different cultures. An example can be found in the ancient Mediterranean cultures that shared a rich mythological world and suffered transformations and adaptations as people migrated from one place or culture to another creating a “mythography of the foreigner.”3 Isidore of Sevilla “identifies them as what is possible to access by the spirit to something that is known, familiar and well defined.”4 Ancient people exercised a consistent capacity to accept the foreigner thanks to the previous mythological familiarization with the presence of ‘the monster.’ The mythological monster was a global symbol while the local objectivation of it was subject to ‘local’ conceptualizations in space and time. The narratives of these myths are in essence ethnographic, given the constant implication of forms of otherness, negotiated in the culture of the author. This produces

Interdisciplinary Voices of the Ecoflourishing “Glocal” Dialogue  157 an inherent dialogue between history, poetry, and philosophy. The local narrative reveals the foreign nature of the foreign divinities, accentuating the strange and similar aspects that could be recognized in words, images, and gestures.5 These mythological variations denote the impossibility of reducing the symbolic functions to simple, unequivocal interpretations because they are the result of multiple interdisciplinary interrogations. In this comparative approach, history, philology, cultural anthropology, and literature engage a chaotic sedimentary corpus of interpretations that connect the past and the present, nature and culture, sciences and arts, poetry and politics.6 In the mythological migratory process, the consciousness of some kind of otherness links a community to its own history and to ancient wisdom and also seeks to renew it in a brand new manifestation. The ‘beyond’ is neither a new horizon nor a leaving behind of the past, but the moment when space and time cross to produce complex figures of difference and identity, past and present, inside and outside, inclusion and exclusion.7 This multilayered process produces a model that could be used in the ecoflourishing project between the local and the global that merge into the ‘glocal.’ Urban Transcultural Narrative Space, Local and Global The borderline work of culture demands an encounter with ‘newness’ that is not part of the continuum of past and present. It creates a sense of the new as an insurgent act of cultural translation.8 Crossing limits and borderline spaces challenges our notions of identity. One way to escape the perpetual challenge of the identity of the individual is to insert oneself into a new space through the creation of a new literary frontier in a narrative space. This constitutes another kind of border trespass, the space of transgression. The writer rejects the limits of the narrative, thereby creating a new space beyond the boundaries where the writer can exercise a new identity. The flourishing of the literary field is based on the frustration of the migratory process when the individual mobilizes between borders, sometimes into transitory spaces, sometimes into more stable places, thus allowing the individual the opportunity to leave a mark of such a journey between the locales of the socalled ‘no man’s land’—the ambiguous spaces, the indeterminate spaces, indeed, the places of transit. The lonely wandering of the modern individual exacerbates the need to preserve personal identity in a work of art that allows these transgressions but also serves as a channel to connect the personal experience with the narrative. In this way, the only space in which the traveler can find a certain kind of unity is, at the end, in his or her own spirit, a private space that favors the return to self.9 In the literary act several universes coincide: the universes of the writer, the narrator, and the reader. In this transcultural intersection, a temporary unique exchange takes place creating a new space outside of the boundaries where individuals experience literary and personal flourishing. This transcultural narrative space undergoes successive transformations during each new reading where the reader lets personal life experience participate in the dialogue, modifying the narrative one more time. Due to the rich nature of these fusions, literary ecological narrative offers a multidimensional,

158  Graciela Susana Boruszko transcultural human perspective, essential to presenting the ecological dialogue in contexts. In the words of Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul: “There is no need to classify (my works). They are part of my continuing looking at the world in which I live…. I also think that forms are dynamic.”10 The city has been described since its origin as a pluralistic, articulated space that accepts all kinds of diversity.11 In the Western world, a good portion of these exchanges are located in the urban spaces where migrants from many different places coincide. This causes the theatricalization of the public urban space where the migrant-artist faces the crowds. The voice of the migrant coming from a ‘peripheric culture’ captures the attention of the transient urban crowd that questions the presence and voice of the migrant. In this moment the global intercepts the local by injecting a disturbing message that breaks the previously unified personal vision of the ‘other’ or ‘others.’ An unexpected, sometimes incomprehensible and even unwanted message is delivered in a single scene rather than in a full-length theatrical performance. The paradoxical ‘division’ challenges the notions of ‘unity’ even if those notions represent a deliberate configuration of an illusory union. Sabine Chaouche describes the word ‘theatrical’ in three ways: what is related to the theater; what is searching for a certain effect; what is exaggerated or artificial.12 These concepts emphasize the notion of ‘performance’ which detaches the migrant from the authenticity of his existence thus lowering his status from an equal of the urban transient to a pretender who is trying to create an effect using an artifice. This is a clear example of when unity should be accomplished through an underlying union that includes the acceptance of diverse perspectives rather than a homogenous view. If the voice and presence of foreign ‘locals’ is marginalized, the perception and appreciation of the message of the non-Western cultures is partial at best and not seen from a position of equal footing in the global ecological dialogue. Non-Western Voices: Kuna Ecoflourishing Narratives The Kuna Indians of Panama exhibit a very rich oral literature where the concepts of home, nature, and environment are fused and infused in their stories. The Kuna Indians are one of the largest indigenous groups in the South American tropics, with about 70,000 Kuna inhabiting Kuna Yala, a string of island and mainland villages stretching along the Caribbean coast. Kuna oral tradition is intimately linked to the social and cultural contexts in which it is performed. These performances are of course held at the gathering house, where myths are chanted, counsel is given, political speeches are made, humorous and moralistic stories are told, and where people congregate at leisure times to talk and joke. But they are held in other places as well: at the chicha house —where fermented drinks for young girls’ puberty rites are made and consumed and where ritual chants for these rites are performed—and in private homes where curing chants are performed for sick individuals, and lullabies, for babies.13 At the center of Kuna life are buildings where people congregate for multiple events that comprise the totality of the community life of the Kuna Indians. This differs from the typical American urban

Interdisciplinary Voices of the Ecoflourishing “Glocal” Dialogue  159 scenario where inauthentic performances are consummated by an individual in a singular event. It is curious that the art of storytelling was partially borrowed from Europeans and even the Kuna word kwento comes from the Spanish cuento. These stories describe the Kuna environment, behavior, philosophy, and morality.14 The importance that the ecological themes carry is indicated by their prominence within the Kuna oral literary space. The presentation of the eco-literary is coupled with instructions on how to approach the environment, and the narrative is articulated within the moral compass of the community. The oral narrative is communicated in a private environment or ‘house’ that speaks of the ‘bigger home’ of the natural environment, where all generations repeat the same stories and live in the same environment. The concept of continuity is evident in the centrality of the natural environment in the oral story that is transferred in multiple repetitions. The stories also make room for magical and semi-magical chants welcoming the spiritual world to shape the behaviors of everyday life of the community. Like most indigenous groups, the Kuna see the repetition of stories as a way to assure community preservation, thus creating a seamless transition between the instruction and the practice of it. It seems that ‘the urban theater’ distanced us from our home, so when the citizen thinks about nature or the environment there is a feeble connection that is mostly intellectual rather than practical. We can see that when the topic of ecoflourishing is discussed in urban areas, the perspectives of each group will be diametrically different. What becomes evident is that the urban population has become detached from their natural habitat and thus more apt to exploit than preserve the environment. The Kuna oral stories are not merely entertainment since at the same time they display their knowledge of nature, placing the human, the spiritual, the animal, and the botanical worlds in parallel harmony while enhancing the concept that the humans have a responsibility to maintain it. The practice of telling stories that connect them to their environment in a close way helped the Kuna Indians to instinctively protect their land when others came for it. All aspects of their lives are represented in the oral stories, so the community strengthens its relations and affirms its roots while unifying its life through language. As translator Joel Sherzer says: “Translation, in particular from an indigenous Latin American language like Kuna into a Western language like English, requires a combination of linguistic, anthropological, and literary perspectives. It involves grammar and words, knowledge of local ecology, and social and cultural concepts.”15 In this explanation it is evident that the presence of the environment contextualizes all elements of the culture in such an intense way that the equivalent linguistic translation is not enough. Another element that the translator highlights is that “these are poetic as well as incantatory units. They embellish performances and are essential to their rhythm.”16 The ecoflourishing message is generated and received well-packaged within cultural, traditional and communal life events where the individual and the community meet the ancestral voices in every repetition. It is pertinent to note that in the urban Western world we have lost a common rhythm. The migrant, the citizen, and

160  Graciela Susana Boruszko the foreigner all live side by side without a unifying rhythm, in a place where the rhythm of nature is visibly absent. In contrast, notes Sherzer: Kuna vocabulary is characterized by extreme variety and subtlety, reflecting and expressing the ideational, ecological, material, metaphorical, and sociolinguistic worlds of the Kuna…. While the Kuna are global citizens, as well as one of the best-known indigenous groups in Latin America, they speak a minority language and have an endangered oral tradition. Their stories, myths, chants, and songs invoke and express intimate knowledge of the world at multiple levels, and a remarkable aesthetics.17 Western languages have replaced the familiarity of the ecological vocabulary with technological and financial terminology. This is another indicator of the detachment of Western culture from nature, despite the recent efforts to bring back the dialogue to the discussion table. The presentation of The Turtle Story, as it is traditionally told, illustrates the Kuna oral tradition, and its divergence from Western perspectives. The Turtle Story—Told by Chief Nipakkinya18

The writer introduces the storyteller, his trajectory, the circumstances in which the story was told and who was the responder. This introduction indicates the importance of the event. Like other Kuna animal stories—and many Native American animal stories as well as animal stories found in other indigenous cultures globally—The Turtle Story has two protagonists, with different physical characteristics and personality traits, that oppose and trick one another. The protagonists in this story are Turtle, who gives the story its name, and Jaguar. Jaguar is powerful, wily, and feared, but also clumsy. He always wants to eat his opponents, in this case Turtle, while “Turtle is clever and wins out through trickery.”19 The Kuna humor contextualizes the story. In one instance, when Turtle says “we will not eat each other,” it is particularly humorous, because it is Jaguar who is intending to eat Turtle and not the other way around.20 There is a certain honesty that comes out of the sentence where nobody is tricked but all are concerned with the disparity of the options each character has. This situation is presented and understood by all participants. That is why in some versions Turtle wins and his opponent dies. In the Kuna version no one wins (they are tied), no one dies, and the two protagonists end up friends, no doubt to compete and trick each other again at a later date. Kuna ecology, beliefs, and practices are important in the story. Eating is a daily preoccupation and source of anxiety as well as humor.21 Hunting in the Kuna culture is a sign of prestige since the hunter is perceived as a provider who shares nourishment with the rest of the community. This is a clear image of ecoflourishing when hunting in the natural environment brings communal well-being in primeval act of eating. This story gestures toward the Kuna hunters’ daily task of procuring nourishment from their environment and making it available to the community. The natural vision of the environment is not that of a predator, but rather that of a

Interdisciplinary Voices of the Ecoflourishing “Glocal” Dialogue  161 conscientious administrator of the resources available and the resources needed. The richness is in the provision for daily needs rather than in the exploitation of nature. In the ecological dialogue between the Western world and the indigenous world there is a deep gap of perspectives regarding sustenance. In the indigenous world the environment allows ecoflourishing at basic multiple levels, while the Western world is constantly creating needs that generate more need even to the extent that nature cannot sustain such greed. In contrast to this disembedded and distanced perspective, this story unifies and harmonizes the human practices of communication and nutritional needs, with the natural world. As Sherzer notes, the “constant bantering between the two protagonists is a playful rendering of Kuna everyday verbal interactions,”22 and this communication is seamlessly presented alongside ecological, social, and community nutritional needs and concerns. It is an irreducibly integral performance. The result is a vision of the environment as an extension of the Kuna culture, as their home. The Western world, contrastingly, has distanced itself from nature and cultivated an artificial life that has brought us too far away from home. A ‘Glocal’ Testimony of an Environmental Tragedy: Voices from Chernobyl In a global dialogue, each participant representing a community should be able to advance the ‘local’ perspective in relation to the ecological ‘global’ challenges, and on equal footing find the best collective approach to achieve the ‘glocal’ flourishing. Indeed, non-Western cultural approaches should be included in the discussions related to the administration of the environment, and in the handling of its current challenges. In the book Voices of Chernobyl, we find a compilation of stories and testimonials from the victims of a great environmental accident.23 One of these stories is entitled “Monologue about a whole life written down on door.” In this story, a victim who self-identifies as ‘not a writer’ (in his signature, he self-identifies as ‘father’) says that he carried out a ‘normal life’ when the nuclear accident transpired.24 The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on April 26, 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in the Soviet Union. Nikolai Kalugin claims that “We didn’t just lose a town, we lost our whole lives.”25 Although Nikolai is conveying his personal testimony and story, when addressing the accident, he uses the collective pronoun ‘we.’ He neither approaches the testimony as an individual nor as a scientist, but rather as a member of a community, namely, his own community. He very briefly mentions that he held an academic degree but chooses to identify himself in his role as a ‘father’ which is the main role that he played in the aftermath of the nuclear tragedy. With respect to the polluted environment Nikolai acts as a family leader. He recalls that “We left on the third day”—perhaps an intertextual symbolic reference to the biblical account of the resurrection of Jesus on the third day. Nikolai indicates that “They turned Chernobyl into a house of horrors, although actually they just turned it into a cartoon. I’m only going to tell about what’s really mine.

162  Graciela Susana Boruszko My own truth.”26 The ecological accident was turned into a disfigured image, a parody of itself, a cartoon. Here, nature is definitely not ‘home’ anymore. Accidents are part of the human experience, and they normally provide lessons to learn in order to prevent facing the same situations again. At the personal level, Nikolai chooses to tell ‘his’ story as ‘his’ catastrophe within a wider ecological catastrophe. He is prompted into action as an individual facing an unexpected catastrophe who responds as a responsible family man. It is worth noting that he places ‘truth’ in his individual sphere rather than in a scientific approach to the accident. The story continues by describing the restrictive orders of what the citizens could or could not do. Animals cannot be taken out of Chernobyl, but he tries to take his cat, who refuses to be placed in a suitcase. Nikolai then narrows down his belongings to only one—the most valuable, meaningful, irreplaceable item. In typical Western culture the choice would be an object of great monetary value. Nikolai, however, chooses differently. I’ll take just one belonging. Just one! I need to take my door off the apartment and take it with me. I can’t leave the door. I’ll cover the entrance with some boards. Our door – it’s our talisman, it’s a family relic. My father lay on this door. I don’t know whose tradition this is, it’s not like everywhere, but my mother told me that the deceased must be placed on the door of his home. He lies there until they bring the coffin. I sat by my father all night, he lay on this door. The house was open. All night. And this door has little etch-marks on it. That’s me growing up. It’s marked there: first grade, second grade. Seventh. Before the army. And next to that: how my son grew. And my daughter. My whole life written down on this door. How am I supposed to leave it? 27 The object that Nikolai selected to keep seems to be replaceable, awkward, and ordinary, however, it was his family’s ancestral door. The door is his most valuable singular possession, and the boards are valueless temporary replacements, just as the polluted environment that cannot be replaced and will have to be ‘fixed’ with less-than-optimal options. Like the environment, this door is what connects the current generation with their ancestors, as well as with life, death, and life beyond this one. The origin of this tradition is lost, but that is irrelevant because its value resides in the constant input of virtue to it by successive generations. The door is used to symbolically usher the dead to a new life, in contrast with the etchings or growing marks of Nikolai on the same door that track the history of his life. The object ‘door’ mimics the Kuna stories being told and retold in the gathering house. The stories act as gateways to the ancestral knowledge and by repetition they testify of the etches that oral traditions leave on the narrative. This Russian resident of Chernobyl shares with the Kuna Indians a common vision of the natural world just as they share the same approach to life: we are part of a wider and larger community of those who preceded us and those who will come after us living in the same environment that needs to be preserved. Both the story of the door and the Kuna stories are highly valued and respected and strive toward ecoflourishing. The ‘door,’ as a metaphor of the environment, is an invitation to

Interdisciplinary Voices of the Ecoflourishing “Glocal” Dialogue  163 continue to mark on it their involvement according to the passing of time, knowing that other generations will benefit from the use of the same ‘door.’ The presence of a responder in the Kuna oral storytelling events mimics the natural approach to dialogue, just as Nikolai tried to share with his neighbors his need to preserve his door even if not all his interlocutors were able to understand his need. This is the reason why Nikolai introduced himself in his narrative as ‘the father’—the nexus in this chain of protagonists who care for what has been entrusted to them. In this frame of thought we can value the natural world that we receive as a loan in order to achieve ecoflourishing by sharing the same space or passing-along a wise administration for the benefit of all. It is not a restrictive concept but rather a liberating participation in the authenticity of who we are. I asked my neighbor; he had a car: ‘Help me.’ He gestured toward his head, like, You’re not quite right, are you? But I took it with me, that door. At night. On a motorcycle. Through the woods. It was two years later, when our apartment had already been looted and emptied. The police was chasing me. ‘We’ll shoot! We’ll shoot!’ They thought I was a thief. That’s how I stole the door from my own home.28 The irony of stealing his own door mirrors the irony of the abuse to which we subject our environment, as if we would be the last generation to depend on it. Nikolai’s family suffered the physical ailments that nuclear exposure caused. He notes that it did not hurt. In the same way, pollution and senseless exploitation at one point seem harmless, but the corruption and destruction are present. The results of the tests of Nikolai’s family are not handed to him because they are for the authorities. The policy of secrecy around the current catastrophe contrasts with the children’s deep knowledge of what is happening. They know they are dying. There is no deeper knowledge than that, even without the confirmation of a report. Nikolai’s daughter lay on the same door: “I want to bear witness: my daughter died from Chernobyl. And they want us to forget about it.”29 Nikolai knew what caused his daughter’s death. She died ‘from’ Chernobyl. The two levels of knowledge are diametrically different. Nikolai and his daughter knew that the environment turned against them; they didn’t need to receive the official reports. The main concept that the Kuna and the Slavic traditions equally channel in these two stories is the responsibility of each generation toward ecological preservation. ‘Glocal’ Communities and Ecoflourishing ‘Glocal’ communities play an active role in the global pursuit of ecoflourishing since they offer valid models that can be adapted in the urbanized and fragmented Western world. The human migrations of the 21st century disconnect individuals from their roots while preventing a meaningful and equitable connection with new communities. Lack of attention to global ecoflourishing and well-being extends to all areas of our ‘ecological life.’ As Paul Hawken puts it, “Areas of the world that are the most biologically diverse are also the most diverse in language,

164  Graciela Susana Boruszko yet the rate of language decline is greater even than that of species loss. Since the conquest half of the world’s languages have disappeared.”30 Rather than view this unmitigated tragedy for what it is, there are some who would welcome it. Kenan Malik, for example, states that “a language spoken by a few has no function... it is more of a conceit than a culture, closer to a secret code than a means of communication.” And Malik concludes that “people should switch to dominant languages to achieve a better way of life in the ‘modern mainstream to which the rest of us belong.’”31 Malik’s statements illuminate the prevailing, dismissive attitude toward indigenous and other marginalized cultures and peoples, in the name of pursuing a global universalism. Yet, the perspectives and stories offered here aptly illustrate our pressing need for these voices, for they are essential to our biodiversity, and our common human and ecological flourishing. In the words of Romaine and Nettle: “If languages are living things, inextricably intertwined with biological diversity, the loss of ‘verbal botanies’ is irreparable, and a monoglot globe is as unthinkable as a world with only one species of tree, flower, and bird.”32 Ecoflourishing could be the best starting point to change directions and take up our responsibility as a community and as individuals to care for our environment by working decisively in all areas of life for the equal participation of all ‘glocal’ communities. Notes 1 Psalm 19:1-2, 14: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech…. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight….” 2 Thomas Wolfe, You Can’t Go Home Again (New York: Scribner Classics, 2011). 3 Françoise Graziani, Mythographie de l’étranger dans la Méditerranée ancienne (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2018). 4 Isidore de Séville, Etymologies VIII, 11, in Fulgence, virgile dévoilé, eds. F. Graziani and E. Wolff, 92–111 (Villeneuve d’Ascq.: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2009). 5 Graziani, Mythographie, 10. 6 Marcel Detienne, Comparer l’incomparable (Paris: Le Seuil, 2000). Cf. also Claude Calame and Bruce Lincoln, eds., Comparer en histoires de réligion antiques (Liège: Presses universitaires de Liège, 2012). 7 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), 1–2. 8 Ibid, 10. 9 Elien Declercq, Walter Kusters, and Saartje Vanden Borre, eds., Migration, Identités Interculturelles et Espaces Frontaliers (XIX et XX siècles) (Bruxelles, Belgium: Peter Lang Verlag, 2012), 140. Le seul espace dans lequel il parvient á trouver une forme d’unité n’est finalement que son propre esprit, lieu clos qui favorise le retour sur soi. 10 Ahmed Rashid, “The Last Lion,” in Conversations with V.S. Naipaul, Feroza Jussawalla, ed., 166–67 (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1997). 11 Eugenia Popeanga Chelaru, “La ciudad disuelta: algunas representaciones literarias,” in La ciudad como espacio plural en la literatura: Convivencia y Hostilidad, Andrade Boué, Rodrigo Guijarro Lasheras, and Marta Iturmendi Coppel, eds. (Lausanne, Switzerland: Peter Lang, 2017), 267–68. 12 Sabine Chaouche, “La mise en scène de soi et du texte au miroir des anecdotes dramatiques: Théorie subreptice ou ‘théâtrale’ insolite’?”, in Anecdotes dramatiques de la Renaissance aux Lumières, François Lecercle, Sophie Marchand, and Zoé Schweitzer, eds. (Paris: Presses de l’université Paris-Sorbonne, 2012), 43–44.

Interdisciplinary Voices of the Ecoflourishing “Glocal” Dialogue  165 13 Joel Sherzer, Stories, myths, chants, and songs of the Kuna Indians (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004), 1–2. 14 Ibid., 2. 15 Ibid., 5. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid., 6–7. 18 Story recorded by the translator Joel Sherzer, Stories, myths, 59–69. 19 Ibid., 59. 20 Ibid., 60. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid., 61. 23 Svetlana Aleksievich, Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster, Keith Gessen, trans. (New York: Picador, 2006). 24 Ibid., 33. 25 Ibid., 32. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid., 33. 30 Paul Hawken, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World (New York: Penguin Books, 2008), 93. 31 Kenan Malik, “Let them die: Languages die because people don’t want them any more. So what’s all the fuss about?” This quotation is from the first version of this essay, which was originally published online at http://www.kenanmalik.com/essays/die.html, and has since been removed and replaced by a shorter, revised essay. The revised essay is similar to the original, with differences worth noting here: “A language spoken by one person, or even a few hundred, is not a language at all. It is like a child's secret code. It is, of course, enriching to learn other languages and delve into other cultures. But it is enriching not because different languages and cultures are unique, but because making contact across barriers of language and culture allows us to expand our own horizons and become more universal in outlook.” Kenan Malik, “Let them die: The preservation of dying languages and cultures is pointless and reactionary. People want to join modernity,” Prospect Magazine 57 (November 2000), 16–33. Published online at: https:// www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/opinions/56407/let-them-die. 32 Suzanne Romaine and Daniel Nettle, Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World's Languages (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 69.

References Aleksievich, Svetlana. Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster. Translated by Keith Gessen. New York: Picador, 2006. Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. London and New York: Routledge, 1994. Calame, Claude, and Bruce Lincoln, eds. Comparer en histoires de réligion antiques. Liège: Presses universitaires de Liège, 2012. Chelaru, Eugenia Popeanga. “La ciudad disuelta: algunas representaciones literarias.” In La ciudad como espacio plural en la literatura: Convivencia y Hostilidad, edited by Andrade Boué, Rodrigo Guijarro Lasheras and Marta Iturmendi Coppel, 267–281. Lausanne, Switzerland: Peter Lang Verlag, 2017. Chaouche, Sabine. “La mise en scène de soi et du texte au miroir des anecdotes dramatiques: Théorie subreptice ou ‘théâtrale’ insolite’?” In Anecdotes dramatiques de la Renaissance aux Lumières, edited by François Lecercle, Sophie Marchand and Zoé Schweitzer, 41–52. Paris: Presses de l’université Paris-Sorbonne, 2012.

166  Graciela Susana Boruszko Classic Comparative Parallel Bible: New International Version King James Version New American Standard Bible Amplified Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012. Declercq, Elien, Walter Kusters, and Saartje Vanden Borre, eds. Migration, Identités Interculturelles Et Espaces Frontaliers (XIX Et XX Siècles). Bruxelles, Belgium: Peter Lang Verlag, 2012. Detienne, Marcel. Comparer l’incomparable. Paris: Le Seuil, 2000. Graziani, Françoise. Mythographie de l’étranger dans la Méditerranée ancienne. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2018. Hawken, Paul. Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World. New York: Penguin Books, 2008. Malik, Kenan. “Let them die: The preservation of dying languages and cultures is pointless and reactionary. People want to join modernity.” Prospect Magazine 57 (2000), 16–33. https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/opinions/56407/let-them-die. Rashid, Ahmed. “The Last Lion.” In Conversations with V.S. Naipaul, edited by Feroza Jussawalla, 166–170. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1997. Romaine, Suzanne, and Daniel Nettle. Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World’s Languages. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000. Sherzer, Joel. Stories, myths, chants, and songs of the Kuna Indians. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004. Séville, Isidore de. “Etymologies VIII, 11.” In Fulgence, virgile dévoilé, edited by F. Graziani and E. Wolff, 92–111. Villeneuve d’Ascq.: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2009. Wolfe, Thomas. You Can’t Go Home Again. New York: Scribner Classics, 2011.

14 Becoming Citizens of the Biosphere: Character, Ecoflourishing, and Control in Our Newfound Common Home Calvin B. DeWitt Science has alerted us to the impact of humankind on the planet, each other, and all life. This dramatically confronts us with questions about who we are, our relations to nature, and what we are willing to sacrifice for various possible futures. We should confront this as a fundamental challenge to our values and not treat it as if it were simply another technical problem to be managed.1 The environmental crisis is an outward manifestation of a crisis of mind and spirit. There could be no greater misconception of its meaning than to believe it to be concerned only with endangered wildlife, human-made ugliness, and pollution. These are part of it, but more importantly, the crisis is concerned with the kind of creatures we are and what our species must become to survive.2

Introduction Discovery of the biosphere during the 20th century brought human society to understand that the earth is not merely a storehouse of resources. Neither is it an unruly subject whose behavior must be made subservient. Instead, it proves to be a self-sustaining life support system that for the last ten millennia has supported a flourishing civilization. The central thesis of this chapter is that widespread perception and treatment of Earth as Resources is destroying the biosphere’s architecture, including its self-control of a habitable climate. Put bluntly, “we are consuming our life-support system.” We are coming to know that: 1 the environment is not simply what surrounds us, but is a highly integrated biogeochemical life support system for all life. 2 regulation, of self and biospheric home, is a necessary condition for continued flourishing. 3 failure to recognize these facts is exhibited by floods, polar meltdown, glacial degradation, desertification, wildfires, and deforestation. 4 we must be people, in self and biospheric home, who act within this capacity to survive and flourish.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-27

168  Calvin B. DeWitt Such people can be inspired by examples and paradigms from our own lives and experiences—including legislative architecture that provides vital pathways—toward giving back, to ourselves and our biospheric home, the capacity for self-control. Discovery of the Biosphere The 20th was the century of discovery of the Biosphere. This discovery occurred, in part, by paired events such as: (1) atmospheric smog and respiratory diseases; (2) oil releases from ocean tankers and marine life degradation; (3) deforestation and rainfall alteration; (4) widespread biocide use and loss of nontargeted species; (5) releases of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) with atmospheric ozone loss and increased skin cancer; (6) continuing increase of atmospheric CO2 and destabilized weather and climate; (7) and industrial-scale processing of marine life and biogeographic and trophic restructuring of the sea.3 Attentive beholders of such events put two-and-two together, seeking truthful understanding of ourselves and our life-support system. At first, this system was called “the environment,” but soon came known to be a group of intermeshed systems we named “the biosphere.” The Russian biogeochemist, Vladimir Vernadsky, described this system of systems in his book Biosfera in 1926. Seven decades later, the distinguished legislative architect, Lynton Keith Caldwell, concluded, “A new, ecological view of the role of humans on earth has been emerging, one that departs from the traditional perception of human dominion over nature and moves toward a more realistic appreciation of humanity’s interrelationship with the biosphere.”4 Most recently, we have come to discover the biosphere’s unbroken provision for maintaining flourishing and abundant life, including human civilization, on Earth. In parallel, The Book of Scripture, with its high regard for God’s creation, is being rediscovered as a most elegant book. Uncanny Denial and Unique Status Our transition into the 21st century continued to prove the biosphere’s integrative beauty, grand biodiversity, and support for long-standing civilization. But by 2023 we are now also confronted by unusual and intense wildfires across the globe, torrential rains and floods, rising sea levels with drastic effects on coastal cities and estuaries, widespread loss of forests to fire and deforestation, rapid decline of many native tree species, dramatic reduction in bird populations, deadly global pandemics, inability to control rampant spread and mutation of viral pathogens, shortage of capacity to accommodate infected people and bury the dead, and large-scale related migrations of people as climate refugees. Reminded by Bible stories, we are hearing references to “plagues” even as these events approach and have even achieved “biblical proportions.” As we have discovered the human causes for these events, we have come to know ourselves as a

Becoming Citizens of the Biosphere  169 highly significant geological and biogeographical force. With this a new ominous truth has arrived: We are the only species that has the capacity to destroy the biosphere. The World Wide Web (WWW), created by British scientist Tim Berners-Lee at Europe’s multinational particle-physics lab, CERN, in 1989 for sharing scientists’ research on the structure of the universe, was in 1993 provided as a free service by CERN to anyone anywhere, making it possible to spread information and misinformation worldwide.5 Coupled with an apparent human propensity for denial, this now allows multiplication and spread of unedited and untruthful material that fosters cultures of denial. For scholars of the virtues, and everyone else, the virtue of self-control, described in Scripture as “fruit of the spirit,” needs now to operate in this unprecedented web of interconnectedness. And yet, there remains the hopeful realization: We are the only species that has the capacity to find a way not to destroy the biosphere. Moved by our eye-opening discovery of the biosphere, we find it necessary not only to understand its physical structure, as we might on a tourist stop at a cathedral, but also its dynamics, functions, operations, service, and worth to whomever or whatever it serves. We necessarily are seeking knowledge of the biosphere with exceptional and unwavering truth and accuracy. And we must do so at a scale and in a proportion sufficient to correct our disruptions of the hospitability of the biosphere—Our Common Home.6 Sought-Out Knowledge Above the entrance of the celebrated Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University is an inscription from the Bible. Since its construction in 1874, it declared “Magna opera Domini exquisita in omnes voluntates ejus.” A century later, in 1974 for their new building, it declared this in English: “The works of the Lord are great, sought out by all them that have pleasure therein,” from the Coverdale Bible. While appropriate for a lab where 29 of its scientists won the Nobel Prize, this second verse of Psalm 111 is appropriate for anyone and everyone.7 Every person can seek out the works of the Lord. Every one of us can seek to know how the world works. We experience this wonderful capacity as children—in our delight in discovering the wonderful world of beetles, butterflies, flowing water, refreshing breezes, and flying birds. And now with greater knowledge, we can express our delight in the beauty of the biosphere, including how it operates and how it regulates its beautiful and beneficent climate system. In his autobiography, In the Eye of the Storm, Sir John Houghton, head of the UK Meteorological Office during the Great Storm in 1987 and a founding member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, wrote, “I have always felt wonder at the beauty and complexity of the universe, and my life, from childhood, has involved a continuous quest for truths about it in both science and faith.” And “awe, wonder, and mystery have always been driving forces for me.” Sir John, who was a colleague of so many of us, presents a model of

170  Calvin B. DeWitt integrity as a devotee of sought-out knowledge, inspiring all of us to persist in the pursuit of truth in all things.8 The Necessary Condition for a Free Life In the 19th-century French physiologist, Claude Bernard, summed up the importance of the regulatory processes at work in people and animals with a famous dictum: “La fixité du milieu intérieur est la condition de la vie libre.” That is, “Regulation of the internal environment is the condition for a free life.” This is an important realization in physiology, and also for cybernetics and control systems in science, engineering, and society.9 It applies to regulation of body temperature, blood pressure, blood sugar, and other physiological processes. Some physiological control systems, like body temperature regulation, use a central control and others use a diffuse control that is broadly present within the system being controlled.10 Whether central or diffuse, “La fixité du milieu interieur” gives freedom, as explained concisely in an answer on an exam by one of my university students: For example, there are thousands of little processes going on inside my body right now that I am not conscious of, but which are doing their best to facilitate my continued existence. If I had to consciously think about every process and control them without the help of internal regulation, all my time and energy would be spent doing that and I effectively would be a prisoner to this system of control and change, unable to live a ‘free’ life.11 Atmospheric CO2: Principal Control Knob Governing Earth’s Temperature There is a significant parallel between the freedom given by physiological regulation with that given in the biosphere by climate regulation. The long-standing regularity of the earth’s climate is the consequence of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration being the biosphere’s principal climate “control knob,” identified as such by chemist Andrew Lacis, and colleagues at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, both in their 2010 paper in Science and in their 2013 paper in Tellus.12 Here is how they describe this phenomenon: Atmospheric CO2 is identified as the principal control knob of global climate change because CO2 is the strongest of the non-condensing GHGs [Green House Gases] that sustain the terrestrial greenhouse effect. Together, water vapor and clouds account for ~75% of the strength of Earth’s greenhouse effect, but they are the fast feedback effects that converge rapidly to the prevailing thermal environment, subject to Clausius-Clapeyron constraints [this relates to a 7% increase in atmospheric water-holding capacity for a 1 C deg rise in temperature]. Leveraged by solar radiation, the non-­condensing GHGs sustain the greenhouse effect of Earth at its equilibrium level. If these GHGs change, global climate will also change.

Becoming Citizens of the Biosphere  171 The basic physics on this point are clear and compelling, showing that CO2 is the causative factor in this cause-and-effect relationship, as was first shown by Svante Arrhenius in 1896.13 For ten millennia, the regularity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has given us what physiological body temperature has given each of us: the freedom not to have to think about it. The statement by my student about physiological regulation also applies to the external environment. Claude Bernard’s dictum, applied to the biosphere, can be rendered: regulation of Earth’s temperature is a necessary condition for the life of the biosphere. Earth’s Thermostat Control-Point of 280 ppm A significant indicator of the reliable, sustained, and predictable climate during the last ten millennia is the regularity of atmospheric carbon dioxide at or near 280 ppm (parts per million). From measurements of atmospheric carbon from ice cores, and continuous measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide since 1958 by chemist Charles David Keeling at the Mauna Loa Atmospheric Observatory in Hawaii, we learn that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration for this 10,000-year period has been maintained at or near the 280-ppm level, all but for its last couple of centuries. Data from the Law Dome, Antarctica ice core show remarkable regularity from 0 to 1600 years A.D., with its 43 records having an average concentration of 279.5 ppm (standard deviation: 2.05 ppm) and a range from 276 to 284 ppm. In earlier years, from 2342 to 10,123 years BP (before the present), for the seven records from the Vostok, Antarctica ice core, the median concentration is 262.2 and the range is from 254.6 and 284.7 ppm. Thus, atmospheric carbon dioxide has been controlled at or near 280 ppm during the last 10,000 years.14 For ten millennia, this regularity has given what physiological body temperature has given each of us: the freedom not to have to think about it. We can conclude: regulation of Earth’s temperature is a necessary condition of a free life. The data of chemist David Keeling from Mauna Loa and Antarctic ice cores show, however, that these remarkable regularities are now overwhelmed. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is rising exponentially, increasing from about 278 ppm in 1750 A.D. to 390.5 in 2011 and 417 in August 2022. Also underway is widespread acidification of the ocean, whose buffering capacity is being overwhelmed by increasing seawater absorption driven by increasing concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere. Ocean pH has decreased from 8.13 to 8.05 (nearly 0.1 pH unit, or about 28%) and is predicted to decrease further, by 0.4 pH units, by 2100.15 When atmospheric CO2 concentration reached 400 ppm in 2013, physical chemist Charles Miller wrote, Current CO2 values are more than 100 ppm higher than at any time in the last one million years…. This new record represents an increase of 85 ppm in the 55 years since chemist David Keeling began making measurements at Mauna Loa. Even more disturbing than the magnitude of this change is

172  Calvin B. DeWitt the fact that the rate of CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere has also been increasing over the last few decades, meaning that future increases will happen faster.16 And so too for ocean acidification. Disruption We now know that we must allow the biosphere to sustain global sequestrations at levels that are in accord with maintaining atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration at a control-point of 280 ppm within a couple ppm. In this context, we are masking fossil carbon by mis-naming its sequestered storage banks as fossil fuel.17 And we know that carbon dioxide discharged by tailpipes, chimneys, and fires is not “waste.” Instead its atmospheric concentration in the atmosphere serves as the principal control knob for maintaining earth’s temperature. By injection, we are putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than is being removed, steadily increasing its concentration. By the end of the last century we found that we were turning the biosphere’s thermostat up and up, and are continuing to do so. Burning forests, now common around the world, only adds to this atmospheric concentration, even as it reduces the forests that take carbon dioxide out of the air. It is vitally necessary, now, to recognize and highly regard the biosphere as Our Common Home. Its long-standing control-point for a hospitable biosphere is 280 ppm atmospheric CO2. At the heart of good housekeeping and good earthkeeping is keeping the thermostat at this control-point. Our ability to achieve and maintain this control-point has much to do with the kind of creatures we must be to survive, and to flourish. Climate control and the regulation of earth’s temperature are closely coupled with maintaining the freedom we enjoy in a flourishing biosphere. For our own bodies, we know that this freedom depends upon regulation of body temperature, blood pressure, blood sugar, and more. Regulation of our body’s “internal environment” is the necessary condition for a free life. We have begun to understand this for our own bodies, and for our houses. We have begun to understand this for Our Common Home, the biosphere, and that knowing the thermostat control knob is vital for our house and biosphere. Virtue Ethics and Community Flourishing in the Biosphere Becoming citizens of the biosphere requires more than individual action. While it is important to have every citizen informed on the meaning and practice of such citizenship, it is also necessary to act in concert on things such as maintaining the control knob of the biosphere’s climate system at a level proven to have supported the survival and flourishing of the biosphere and sustained all of life as our common home over the past ten millennia. My own experience in building such community accords well with essayist Wendell Berry as he describes community as having “an understood mutuality of interests”18 that lives and acts “by the common virtues of trust, goodwill,

Becoming Citizens of the Biosphere  173 forbearance, self-restraint, compassion, and forgiveness” and also strives to “encourage respect for all its members, human and natural” and respect and support each other “without litigation” and “not by coercion or violence.”19 It is from this personal experience that I identify the following five examples, or paradigms, of which I have direct knowledge. Matter, Energy, and Life

This is the title of an integrative course designed with natural science faculty at The University of Michigan-Dearborn. MEL has been taught every year since 1971 as a team-taught course. It employs a weekly teaching seminar by its faculty to prepare course content from across disciplines and create experiments and experiences in its weekly three-hour laboratory and field sessions. It is described in detail in the American Journal of Physics.20 The Town of Dunn

Dunn, Wisconsin is my home, just south of the capital city of Madison. Dunn is a rural town of 4000 people in 34.5 square miles, where we have practiced Earth stewardship in our lives and our landscapes for a half-century. It is well-described by Tim Stafford in an article “God’s Green Acres,” published in Christianity Today, and is written as a case study on the Town of Dunn website.21 Waubesa Wetlands

This is a thousand-acre treasure in the landscape with a diversity of wetland communities, e.g., a magnificent Deep Spring, many smaller springs, streams, and peatlands all of which provide flourishing life for its wildlife, fish nurseries, migratory birds, and vibrant wetland plants. It is my community’s “publication on the landscape” as a window of hope that extends our neighborliness to include this great marsh and its creatures.22 Au Sable Institute

The Institute serves more than 50 colleges and universities in North America by providing deeper understanding of and expertise in earthkeeping and caring for the biosphere. Faculty and students from these institutions learn together in the field across a wide array of courses and weekly day-long “integrative sessions” for mutual learning in northern Michigan, the Pacific Northwest, India, Costa Rica, and Africa.23 Climate Scientists and Evangelicals at Oxford

This was a meeting of about 70 leading climate scientists, policymakers and Christian leaders from across six continents who met for “Climate Forum 2002” in

174  Calvin B. DeWitt Oxford, England, to address the growing crisis of climate change. They focused on the reality and the urgency of the problem, and prepared a motivational Declaration on Global Warming for mobilizing the Church.24 The NEPA—EIA Paradigm Can these and similar paradigms be ramped up to embrace the whole biosphere and its climate system? For an answer, I have you consider the example of Lynton Caldwell, a professor at Indiana University, who, troubled by the environmental degradation he saw on an 11,000-mile trip he took by car across the American West in 1950, shifted his career in government and public administration to public planning, regulation, and protection of remaining resources. His seminal essay, “Environment: A New Focus for Public Policy?,” provided the architecture for the passage in 1969 of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).25 Noting that “fragmented action and policies affecting natural resources and human environment have brought waste and confusion in their train,” Caldwell sought to address the problem of fragmented decision-making by coming up with the idea of creating “action-forcing measures” that would later be called the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).26 Legislation that requires federal agencies to study the environmental impacts of proposed action, consider measures for mitigating any adverse environmental effects, and determine if any irreversible and irretrievable impacts were warranted by the need for the action, was signed into law on January 1, 1970.27 Recognizing Our Second Copernican Revolution A quarter-century after NEPA was enacted, Caldwell produced the third edition of his “comprehensive survey of the worldwide movement for protection of the human environment.”28 It included a record for continued understanding of the development of the environmental movement over the 20th century in relation to public policy. Noting that “even when future events displace current arrangements,” Caldwell saw that emerging environmental policy first reflects public attention and concern about immediate, comprehensible events. Later, however, if informed by increasing scientific understanding, it is seen by policymakers and the public in larger contexts as a part of deeper environmental disorders. Most importantly, he found an emerging and significant unifying concept. He opened his book as follows: The author does not bend the contents of the book to fit a theme, yet a unifying concept emerges from the historical evidence. It is the transformation of institutions through social learning in response to the findings of science and the perceived impacts of environmental change. The environmental movement exemplifies learning by large numbers of people from experience made explicit and understandable through science. The movement belongs to a larger transformation in human social thought, which may be likened to a second Copernican revolution. The first revolution removed the earth from

Becoming Citizens of the Biosphere  175 the center of the universe; the second removes humanity from the center of the biosphere.29 It had been some five centuries earlier, around 1510, that the ideas of Nicolaus Copernicus had removed Earth from the center of the universe. Based upon observations of the heavens, he had come to envision the orbital structure of the solar system—with our planet being one of many others, orbiting the sun. “But wait a minute!… Wasn’t the sun always in the middle of the planets?,” was the question asked and answered by Copernicus scholar, Harvard professor of astronomy and the history of science, Owen Gingerich. Not in the way people perceived it, says Prof. Gingerich: Farmers, professors, priests, and school children all assumed the earth was soundly fixed in the middle of the cosmos… Even after Copernicus wrote his epoch book Die revolutionibus orbium coelestrium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) in 1543, very few readers imagined that the newfangled cosmology was a physically real description of the universe.30 But we, nearly five centuries later, using 2020 vision, see that the 20th was the century of discovery of the biosphere. Like it was back then for the earth and sun, the discovery of the biosphere by farmers, professors, and all of us was only gradually made, and continues to be made. So what happens when we discover that this “bag of resources” is the biosphere, Our Common Home? Had Lynton Keith Caldwell discovered and implanted a means for moving the virtue of self-control from the level of individual human beings to the greater society? Did he plant an idea that prepares the way for ramping up our understanding of physiological regulatory systems to the level of the biosphere? Does it provide a context for building into our institutions the capacity for operating within the virtue of self-control? These are the important questions that we must ponder. And beyond pondering, can we provide the dynamic framework within which we implement and nurture paradigms that will support and serve the integrity of the biosphere? I propose that answering these questions brings us to re-discover that: The better part of the Physician’s art is to restore healing and selfcontrol. For Ourselves and for Our Common Home. We can now fruitfully return to the two epigraphs with which this chapter began. Both have to do with realizing that “we are they” and will be ready to act whenever we see something that needs doing. In my Town of Dunn, we have a T-shirt that proclaims, “We are they!” Being the ones who take responsibility is one half of getting things accomplished with integrity, and with full respect for the places we live—and for the biosphere. The other half has to do with the kind of people we are, as these epigraphs help us to understand. Here is my paraphrase for each: The impact of humankind on the planet, each other, and all life dramatically confronts us with questions about who we are, our relations to nature, and what we are willing to sacrifice for future generations. This fundamental

176  Calvin B. DeWitt challenge to our values must be confronted head on, and not treated as technical problems to be managed. (Paraphrase of Jamieson, 1992) The crisis facing us and the biosphere is an outward manifestation of a crisis of mind and spirit. It goes beyond being concerned with endangered wildlife, human-made ugliness, and pollution. Yes, these are important, but even more important is concern about the kind of creatures we are and what our species must become to survive. (Paraphrase of Caldwell, 1996) We are confronted with what kind of creatures we are, what our relationship is to the biosphere, and what we must become to survive and thrive, together with the biosphere—Our Common Home. From this, we learn that: We must become Citizens of the Biosphere. We must give back to the biosphere its self-control of heat balance and hospitality for flourishing life and civilization. Our continued habitation of the biosphere leaves us with no recourse except to set the control knob of Earth’s thermostat back to where it has been for the past ten millennia. We must learn the deep meaning of the Biosphere as Our Common Home. Notes 1 Dale Jamieson, “Ethics, Public Policy and Global Warming,” Science, Technology and Human Values 17 (1992), 151. 2 Lynton Caldwell, International Environmental Policy: From the Twentieth to the Twenty-first Century (Durham: Duke University Press, 1996), 10. 3 See Calvin DeWitt, “Biogeographic and Trophic Restructuring of the Biosphere: The State of the Earth Under Human Domination,” Christian Scholar’s Review 32 (2003): 347–364. 4 Caldwell, International Environmental Policy, 1. 5 See: http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/Proposal.html for a copy of Tim Berners-Lee’s proposal to CERN. The Higgs boson was discovered at CERN in 2012, the particle that gives all other fundamental particles mass. Accessed 8 September 2021: http://info.cern. ch/hypertext/WWW/Proposal.html 6 “Our Common Home” reflects Laudato Si’ – On Care for Our Common Home by Pope Francis. See Cal DeWitt, “Earth Stewardship and Laudato Si’,” Quarterly Review of Biology 91, no. 3 (2016): 271–284. http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/688096 [Free Access] 7 Among the Nobel Laureates who were members of The Cavendish were J.J. Thomson (1897) for discovery of the electron and James Watson and Francis Crick (1962) for discovery of the structure of DNA. 8 Sir John Houghton, In the Eye of the Storm (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2013), 83, 91. 9 Michael Khoo, Physiological Control Systems: Analysis, Simulation, and Estimation, 2nd ed. (Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley-IEE Press, 2018), 2–3. 10 See, for example, the regulation of calcium concentration in blood plasma by the parathyroid hormone, in John E. Hall, Guyton and Hall Textbook in Medical Physiology, 13th ed. (Philadelphia: Saunders, 2015): Figure 80–12 on p. 1012. 11 Ken Zakariasen, personal communication. 12 Andrew Lacis, Gavin A. Schmidt, David Rind, and Reto A. Ruedy, “Atmospheric CO2: principal control knob governing Earth's temperature,” Science 330 (Oct. 15, 2010): 356–359,

Becoming Citizens of the Biosphere  177 and Andrew Lacis, James E. Hansen, Gary Russell, Valdar Oinas, and Jeffrey Jonas, “The role of long-lived greenhouse gases as principal LW control knob that governs the global surface temperature for past and future climate change,” Tellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology, 65, no. 1 (2013). 13 Lacis et al., “The role of long-lived greenhouse gases,” 23–24. 14 Calvin DeWitt, “Carbon, Climate, & Earth Stewardship: Prophetic Teachings of the Biosphere,” The Chemist 91, no. 2 (2018), 14. 15 Peter Thor, Allison Bailey, Sam Dupont, Piero Calosi, Jann Søreide, Pierre De Wit, Ella Guscelli, Lea Loubet-Sartrou, Ida M. Deichmann, Martin M. Candee, Camilla Svensen, Andrew King, and Richard G. J. Bellerby, “Contrasting physiological responses to future ocean acidification among Arctic copepod populations,” Global Change Biology 24, no. 1 (2018), e355–e377. 16 “NASA Scientists react to 400 ppm carbon milestone, NASA Global Climate Change, Vital Signs of the Planet.” [last accessed September 1, 2021] http://climate.nasa. gov/400ppmquotes/. 17 Calvin DeWitt, “The Deadly Misnomer of ‘Fossil Fuels”– Just because you can set some things on fire doesn’t mean you should,” Sojourners 41, no. 9 (2012):10. 18 Wendell Berry, Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community (New York: Pantheon, 1993): 177, 120. 19 These characteristics of community are described by Berry in Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community, 120. 20 David Sokoloff and Walter Holloway, Jr., “Matter, energy and life – physics in an interdisciplinary general education science course,” American Journal of Physics 45 (1997): 716–722. 21 Tim Stafford, “God’s Green Acres: How Calvin DeWitt is helping Dunn, Wisconsin, reflect the Glory of God’s good creation,” Christianity Today (June 1998): 32–37. For the case study, see https://www.townofdunnwi.gov/historic-documents, click on News Articles, and then “Community Mobilization: A Case Study of the Town of Dunn” in the lower right column. Alternatively, google: Town of Dunn, Community Mobilization. 22 The book, Waubesa Wetlands: A New Look at an Old Gem, by Joy Zedler can be downloaded from the Town of Dunn website at: https://www.townofdunnwi.gov/ historic-documents. 23 See: https://www.ausable.org/. 24 Sir John Houghton, Calvin DeWitt, Robert Watson, et al., Oxford Declaration on Global Warming: Climate scientists and Christian leaders call for action (Gloucester: UK, 2002), and the John Ray Initiative and Mancelona, Michigan, USA: Au Sable Institute, https://jri.org.uk/events-2/forum-2002-statement/. 25 Lynton K. Caldwell, “Environment: A New Focus for Public Policy?,” Public Administration Review 23, no. 3 (1963): 132–139. 26 Ibid., 138. 27 Cf. Richard Weingroff, “Addressing the Quiet Crisis: Origins of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969.” https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/highwayhistory/nepa/03.cfm (Accessed March 16, 2019). 28 Caldwell, International Environmental Policy, 1. 29 Ibid., 3, italics added. 30 Owen Gingerich, Copernicus: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 1.

References Berry, Wendell. Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community. New York: Pantheon, 1993. Caldwell, Lynton K. “Environment: A New Focus for Public Policy?” Public Administration Review 23, no. 3 (1963): 132–139.

178  Calvin B. DeWitt ———. International Environmental Policy: From the Twentieth to the Twenty-first Century. 3rd ed. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996. ———. “An Interview with Lynton Caldwell.” Environmental Practice 5, no. 4 (2003): 285–286. DeWitt, Calvin. “Biogeographic and Trophic Restructuring of the Biosphere: The State of the Earth Under Human Domination.” Christian Scholar’s Review 32 (2003): 347–364. ———. “The Deadly Misnomer of ‘Fossil Fuels’–Just Because You can Set Some Things on Fire Doesn’t Mean You Should.” Sojourners 41, no. 9 (2012): 10. ———. “Carbon, Climate, and Earth Stewardship: Prophetic Teachings of the Biosphere.” The Chemist 91, no. 2 (2018): 1–12. Gingerich, Owen. Copernicus: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Houghton, Sir John T. et al. Oxford Declaration on Global Warming: Climate Scientists and Christian Leaders Call for Action. Gloucester, UK: John Ray Initiative and Mancelona, Michigan: Au Sable Institute, 2002. https://jri.org.uk/events-2/forum-2002-statement/ Houghton, Sir John. In the Eye of the Storm. Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2013. Khoo, Michael. Physiological Control Systems: Analysis, Simulation, and Estimation. 2nd ed., Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-IEEE Press, 2018. Lacis, Andrew A, Gavin A. Schmidt, David Rind, and Reto A. Ruedy. “Atmospheric CO2: principal control knob governing Earth’s temperature.” Science 330 (2010): 356–359. Lacis, Andrew A, James E. Hansen, Gary L. Russell, Valdar Oinas, and Jeffrey Jonas. “The role of long-lived greenhouse gases as principal LW control knob that governs the global surface temperature for past and future climate change.” Tellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology 65, no. 1 (2013). Stafford, Tim. “God’s Green Acres: How Calvin DeWitt is helping Dunn, Wisconsin, reflect the glory of God’s good creation.” Christianity Today (1998): 32–37. Thor, Peter, Allison Bailey, Sam Dupont, Piero Calosi, Janne Søreide, Pierre De Wit, Ella Guscelli, Lea Loubet-Sartrou, Ida Deichmann, Martin Candee, Camilla Svensen, Andrew King, and Richard Bellerby. “Contrasting physiological responses to future ocean acidification among Arctic copepod populations.” Global Change Biology 24, no. 1 (2018): e355–e377. Vernadsky, Vladimir Ivanovich. “The Biosphere and the Noösphere.” American Scientist 33, no. 1 (1945): 1–12. Weingroff, Richard. “Addressing the Quiet Crisis: Origins of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969.” https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/highwayhistory/nepa/03.cfm (accessed March 16, 2019).

15 Becoming Human, Intercultural, and Inter-creational: Movements toward Achieving Ecoflourishing Anthony Le Duc Introduction The deep dive by humanity into the digital age with its increasing preoccupation with digital technology and virtual spaces strongly calls for critical reflection on what it means to flourish as a species and exist as part of an interconnected network of beings within the vast cosmos. Indeed, ongoing efforts have yielded insights affirming that human flourishing can no longer be conceived independently of the well-being of other entities surrounding us. Neither can environmental flourishing be achieved without genuine spiritual and social transformation on the part of humanity. Pope Francis, for example, asserts that the natural ecology is inherently connected with the human ecology, which demands embracing an “integral ecology.” He says, “We are not faced with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather one complex crisis which is both social and environmental.”1 Thus, ecoflourishing where all entities – biotic and abiotic – achieve a state of balance and harmony can be attained only when the agency and contribution of all are recognized and accounted for. To this end, religious systems around the world have much to contribute in terms of instilling this consciousness into human beings, by and for whom religions have been created. Because religions tend to focus on the human condition and soteriological aspirations, discussions on promoting ecoflourishing from the religious perspective must necessarily give due consideration to the human role and agency in both being the cause and the solution to any ecological problems. Religious teachings, which aim for human spiritual progress, often do so within the framework of relationships with self, community, and the cosmos/the divine. In other words, the signs of progress or regress in one’s spiritual and moral state are in one way or another reflected in the quality of this constellation of relationships. This chapter proposes that religions can contribute to ecoflourishing by helping their adherents to carry out three separate but interconnected movements: (1) becoming human, (2) becoming intercultural, and (3) becoming inter-creational. These movements, as we will see, hold personal, social as well as ecological implications. While each movement can be considered on its own, ultimately each movement will be impacted by the others in a continuous cycle of spiritual reinforcement.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-28

180  Anthony Le Duc To make the case for these movements, this chapter utilizes insights from three major traditions – Abrahamic, Indian, and Chinese. Becoming Human Due to the tyrannical and selfish display of actions by human beings toward nature and each other, ‘being human’ is oftentimes interpreted as ‘imperfect’ and ‘prone to mistakes.’ As the poet Alexander Pope conceded, “To err is human.” Paradoxically, the major religious traditions aim to help human beings become what they were meant to be – truly human, that is, achieve authentic and fully realized personhood. This progression toward authentic personhood, in fact, is key in achieving ecoflourishing. The task that ecotheologian Thomas Berry called for – “to reinvent the human, at the species level, with critical reflection, within the community of life-systems, in a time-developmental context”2 – is in fact the ongoing work of major religions. This project is fundamentally grounded in religious anthropologies that consistently affirm the value and integrity of the human person and emphasize the need to assist the individual in the process of achieving full personhood. Theravada Buddhism, for example, teaches that transmigrating from the lower nonhuman realms such as the animal or hungry ghost to the human realm is an exceptionally rare event that requires the accumulation of a great amount of merit in past lives. This is an enormous challenge because those confined to the lower realms lack positive opportunities to be taught the Dhamma, practice right and wholesome actions, and perform merit. On the other hand, heavenly beings must undergo rebirth as a human before entering nibbāna, the Buddhist state of complete emancipation from suffering. The Abrahamic religions, likewise, give high status to human beings by depicting them as created in the image of God, endowed with qualities possessed by their Creator, such as free will, wisdom, consciousness. Although extremely limited compared to God, these attributes are nevertheless unique to human beings. Unfortunately, humans have oftentimes interpreted this religiously bestowed honor as a mandate to manipulate and exploit nature as their hearts desired. Much social and environmental degradation has been caused by this delusional sense of superiority and privilege. However, this self-understanding and subsequent display of hubris and tyranny was by no means the intention of the religious traditions being considered. In fact, an informed understanding of their teachings would reveal that such attitudes and actions represent a fundamental misinterpretation of these very teachings. Rather, the goal of religious affirmation of the human person is to help people recognize the dissonance between their potential and actual selves. Religious teachers over the ages have consistently underscored the correlation between the experience of suffering and lack of self-realization. Confucius pointed out that disharmony and conflict in the family and society resulted from the lack of self-cultivation of the virtues that constituted fully realized humanity. Confucian teachings present essential virtues such as ren (benevolence, humaneness, love) and li (ritual, propriety, decorum) as indispensable qualities of a junzi. Translated variously as “exemplary person” or “profound person,” a junzi is a well-cultivated

Becoming Human, Intercultural, and Inter-creational  181 individual embodying both the internal and external virtues in a unity of knowledge and action. One of the junzi’s greatest abilities is engaging in continuous critical self-examination that penetrates the inner self to realize the true nature of human-relatedness. The Buddha similarly attributed personal and collective suffering to the unwholesome roots of greed, hatred, and delusion plaguing humanity. These poisons can only be overcome through a rigorous process of self-cultivation involving the training to gain higher virtues, concentration, and wisdom. Thus, becoming authentically human in the Buddhist vision means casting off ways of thinking, speaking, and behaving that devalue human life and cause pain and suffering to self and others. These religious insights demonstrate that “becoming human,” in other words, achieving authentic personhood, has both personal and relational dimensions. While self-cultivation always aims for personal liberation from pain and suffering in the present and future life, there is a decidedly relational dimension. Authentic humanity in the Confucian understanding is never egotistical, narcissistic, or anthropocentric. According to Confucian scholar Tu Weiming, a well-cultivated person does not focus singularly on her own happiness but clearly sees herself as a center of ever-expanding concentric circles of relationships, beginning with self and progressively reaching out to family, community, Earth (nature), and Heaven. If nepotism is detrimental to the harmony in the family, and chauvinistic nationalism is contrary to patriotism, then anthropocentrism is detrimental to achieving ecoflourishing. The vision of harmony at the local and cosmic levels demands that human beings see themselves as both socialistic and naturalistic. Rather than being anthropocentric, humanity must take on an “anthropocosmic” vision which in the process of self-realization “enables us to embody the family, community, nation, world, and cosmos in our sensitivity.”3 Therefore, becoming truly human means overcoming egotistical and solipsistic tendencies that hinder enriching relationships with fellow human beings, other natural entities, and the transcendent. As envisioned by major religious traditions, the paradigmatic person is radically open to relationship with those things that make up the existential reality. Becoming human is essential to ecoflourishing because the disposition and virtues that characterize authentic humanity act to eliminate anthropocentric tendencies that lead to wanton exploitation of nonhuman nature, disregard for the well-being of individual species, and even disregard for one’s own human community. Becoming Intercultural The movement toward authentic humanhood facilitates the next movement – becoming intercultural. Whereas the previous movement emphasizes the individual in relationship with others, this movement directs attention toward human communities. Nonetheless, as we will see, interculturality is not purely aimed at promoting social harmony but also has a distinct ecological dimension, and thus constitutes an important constituent of ecoflourishing. Historically and still the case in numerous places around the world, human cultures are intimately

182  Anthony Le Duc connected to aspects of nature, shaped and defined by natural phenomena, and impacted by the well-being of nature. Thus, as a paradigm of cultural interaction, interculturality not only promotes greater appreciation for the need to preserve healthy human–­nature interactions in cultural systems, but also reintroduces the value of nature to cultures that have over the years become increasingly alienated from the natural environment, especially in the modern age with its emphasis on digital technology. Ultimately, the movement of becoming intercultural and becoming human will facilitate the last movement discussed in this chapter – the movement of becoming inter-creational. While cultural interaction has always existed – in the contemporary world characterized by globalization, transmigration, and digital interconnection – the need for positive and mutually enriching cultural interactions is increasingly important. Interculturality does not simply mean cultural co-existence or becoming acquainted with some cultural elements such as food and music. Rather, it entails meaningful engagement with other cultures, recognizing similarities and differences, in order to become transformed by these encounters.4 Interculturality rejects both the notion that “we are all the same” and the perception that “every culture is essentially different.” Instead, it perceives that while cultures have differences, there are also cultural overlaps (analogy) that make groups both different and the same. Interculturality emphasizes mutuality on both the personal as well as societal level. It avoids assimilation and ghettoization of peoples or cultures while aiming for appreciation and acceptance of similarities and differences.5 Interculturality contributes to human flourishing by countering the various negative proclivities that seek to benefit particular groups to the detriment of others. On the societal level, it leverages against inclinations toward ethnocentrism and narrow nationalism which usually give priority to the interests of one’s own race, ethnicity, or culture, oftentimes due to a sense of superiority or entitlement. In more dire manifestations these mentalities can result in creating conditions that cause certain groups to be deprived of basic rights, even facing ethnic genocide and loss of nationhood. The discourse on ecoflourishing cannot ignore these socio-cultural dynamics that would also significantly impact the entire ecology. It would be a mistake, therefore, to believe that interculturality is purely a social model of cultural interactions removed from the concerns of ecoflourishing. Similar to the first movement which directs the individual away from egoism and egocentrism toward becoming open for wholesome relationship with others, interculturality also has the potential to direct individuals and communities away from anthropocentric attitudes that justify careless treatment of nonhuman nature. The movement away from egoism, ethnocentrism, and narrow nationalism facilitates the rejection of forms of oppression that are opposed to ecoflourishing. These oppressive ideologies have been variously labeled as human supremacy, speciesism, human chauvinism, and objectionable or strong anthropocentrism. Ordered to the ecological dimension, interculturality can train one’s disposition to care for creation (nature). Human cultural and religious life is often integrally tied to the natural environment. Hundreds of millions of people around the world believe that certain natural features (mountains, rivers, forests, individual

Becoming Human, Intercultural, and Inter-creational  183 trees, etc.) are abodes of the spirits that must be respected. For people who live in the forests, all the creatures and vegetation that constitute the ecosystem play enormously important roles in their “socially shared design for living.”6 As Castro writes, “Interculturality in an ecological perspective recognizes that part of our knowledge emanates from nature, it is an expression of the creative intelligence of the cosmos.”7 The convergence of culture and nature can be seen in our values, religious beliefs, spirituality, language, traditions, and livelihoods. When one system is impacted, change is also observed in the other because there is mutual feedback between culture and the environment.8 Cultural understanding of the environment can help us to successfully navigate within the means available and avoid practices that contribute to environmental destruction. Therefore, interculturality can result in deeper appreciation of the historically profound embeddedness of culture in nature. It also presents opportunities to recognize the vital role of the natural environment in the formation and maintenance of cultural and religious identities of many peoples around the world. Interculturality can foster a greater sense of empathy and understanding toward nature-oriented cultures and motivate actions that contribute to the flourishing of both culture and nature. In other words, interculturality with a particular ecological emphasis, would help advance the formation of an ecological consciousness and “ecological culture” globally. While interculturality is essentially a model of cultural interaction, religion has a particularly significant role in promoting it. The inextricable intertwining between religion and culture is well-known. In many contexts around the world, what academics label as religion, the local people call their traditions or way of life. In Thailand, for example, one can speak equally as well of the existence of a Buddhist religion as one can of a Buddhist culture. While the Thai language has separate words for religion (sasana) and culture (wathanatham), pinpointing where one ends and the other begins is not easy when observing how Thai people conduct their everyday life. Thus, considered from a spiritual and religious lens, interculturality can be construed as a form of interreligious dialogue in which the participants aim to create conditions for greater social and spiritual enrichment. As in interculturality, the goal of interreligious dialogue is not to create global religious uniformity, but rather to promote religious harmony, build global justice and peace,9 and when aligned with ecological concerns, affirm the integrity of creation. Here, interculturality/interreligious dialogue can serve as a vehicle for peoples coming from more nature-based cultures and religions to positively affect groups whose ways of life have become increasingly estranged from the natural environment. Becoming Inter-Creational Promoting interculturality by means of interreligious dialogue opens up and prepares the way for individuals and groups to make the next movement – to become inter-creational. This implies consciousness of the existential reality of interrelatedness between human and nonhuman creation and the possibility of entering into relationships of mutuality and reciprocity. Inter-creationality represents a crucial

184  Anthony Le Duc step beyond interculturality because in the latter, creation (nature) is primarily considered for its role in catalyzing, informing, and sustaining human culture. Intercreationality, on the other hand, entails affirming the need for human beings to perceive creation not only in its instrumental role vis-à-vis humans but as having intrinsic value in the trifold relationship with self, others, and the cosmos. Among the three movements, this may be the most difficult one to carry out for it requires human beings to re-envision their relationship with nature in ways perhaps not previously conceived, and is especially challenging for societies heavily influenced by the Enlightenment mentality that perceives nonhuman entities as mere objects of scientific investigation. However, viewed through the religious lens, we will find numerous insights that support the movement toward intercreationality, which is characterized by empathy, solidarity, and affirmation of the intrinsic goodness of all creation. Moreover, religious cultivation that enables this movement allows for reciprocity reflected in mutual service and gratitude, thus bypassing the dichotomy between instrumental and intrinsic goods that so often becomes a conundrum in contemporary discourses on the human–nature relationship. At the outset, it is important to state that while the term ‘creation’ has a clear connection to the theologies of the Abrahamic traditions, in this chapter it is used to refer to biotic and abiotic entities that are not self-arising but rather dependent on a cause. Although this cause may be traced to the ultimate cause (God, Creator), it can also refer simply to a secondary cause. Even religions that teach the eternity of the world do not deny that individual creatures and features in this universe have their beginning and their end. Understood in this way, everything in the cosmos can be said to have been created and exist in relationship to each other, forming an intricate web of relations. It is within this framework of cosmic relationality that the concept of intercreationality is envisioned. The different spiritual traditions discussed in this chapter, despite their divergent worldviews, provide insights that support the notion of inter-creationality because in various ways they all depict a shared existential reality among all created beings. Buddhism, for example, holds that all sentient creatures in the universe exist on a cosmological continuum comprised of six realms. The hell realm is reserved for those who have lived immoral lives while the heavenly realm is the place of bliss for those who have led virtuous ones. Each realm is characterized by a different degree of suffering. Human beings reside in the fourth realm counting from below, just above the animal realm and below the demi-gods. Unlike Christian belief, those consigned to the hell realm do not face eternal damnation; nor do the residents of the heavenly realm enjoy eternal happiness. Because the inhabitants of these realms have not escaped the cycle of rebirth, they remain part of the mundane world along with those existing in the other four realms. In actuality, all six realms are interpenetrable, meaning that those living in the lower realms can eventually, over numerous lives, accrue enough merit to undergo rebirth in a higher realm. Conversely, those rewarded with life in the heavenly realm, once their good merits have been exhausted, must be reborn in the human realm before they can achieve permanent liberation.

Becoming Human, Intercultural, and Inter-creational  185 This Buddhist cosmogony reveals that human and non-human creatures are far from being isolated from one another. Rather, they all share the experience of being trapped in the cycle of birth, aging, death, and suffering. The inter-connection between the human realm and the animal realm is most apparent because they not only share similar fates but also occupy the same physical space in their mundane existence. Macroscopically, this worldview depicts all sentient beings as cosojourners striving to escape suffering and seeking eternal happiness. Seeing the totality of creation in this perspective engenders feelings of solidarity, mercy, and compassion toward one another. Indeed, the main aim of Buddhist moral training is to enable the individual to make the suffering of all sentient beings and not just personal suffering the foundation for ethical action. The fundamental premise for inter-creationality can also be found in Confucianism. Despite having a very different worldview from the Indian religions, Confucianism also holds that there is common ground between humans and the rest of creation. All entities in the universe, according to Confucian teachings, share the same life force of qi, which refers to yin and yang, and the five phases of wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. By the Chou Dynasty (1122 BCE–256 BCE), this belief was normative within the Chinese spiritual world. This holistic worldview establishes consanguinity between human beings and the rest of creation, with every entity in the cosmos engaged in a dynamic and continuous process of transformation. Thus, in the Western Inscriptions, Neo-Confucianist thinker Chang Tsai (1020–77) proclaims, “Heaven is my father and earth is my mother, and even such a small creature as I finds an intimate place in their midst. Therefore, that which extends throughout the universe I regard as my body and that which directs the universe I consider as my nature.”10 Because human beings share the same life force as nature, they can communicate with and observe happenings in nature to discern their own fate. Indeed, Chinese rulers were always keen on observing signs in nature to decipher the state of the Mandate of Heaven. This Confucian hermeneutical-communicative perspective toward nature applied more universally, implies that humanity can also discern its own future and ‘mandate’ by observing various natural phenomena. Inter-creationality in the Abrahamic religions begins with the tenet that all created things have their origin in God. According to Pope Francis, the Judeo-­Christian tradition opts for the word “creation” rather than “nature” to highlight “God’s loving plan in which every creature has its own value and significance.”11 Rather than something to be merely studied and controlled, “creation can only be understood as a gift from the outstretched hand of the Father of all, and as a reality illuminated by the love which calls us together into universal communion.”12 Francis warns that overemphasis on nature buttresses the “undifferentiated and one-dimensional” technocratic paradigm that perceives the natural world essentially as an object of scientific investigation and economic exploitation. It reinforces a dualistic human– nature relationship characterized by manipulation and domination instead of seeing humanity as part of a divinely created cosmic system. In this theocentric worldview, the human-versus-nature dichotomy is replaced by the depiction of all of God’s creation in intimate relationship with one another

186  Anthony Le Duc and with the Creator. This also suggests a sibling relationship among all of creation with God as the Father/Mother of all. It is this horizon of kinship that enabled St Francis of Assisi to look upon the sun, moon, water, and air as his brothers and sisters, all joined together in intimate relationships in praise of God. Francis and the Franciscan tradition he inspired have always held creation to be of moral, theological, and religious significance because creation not only reflects God and can help human beings to understand God but can also independently give praise to God.13 The Judeo-Christian tradition gives further support to the notion of inter-­ creationality by affirming that all of creation is imbued with divinely bestowed intrinsic goodness and value. This was affirmed by various Church Fathers when they reflected on God’s myriad creation. For example, Augustine of Hippo (354–430) declared that all that God created ex nihilo in the universe “both great and small, celestial and terrestrial, spiritual, and corporeal” is good.14 Inspired by the account of creation in Genesis, Augustine asserted that whether it be a human, an ape, a mountain, a farm, the air, or the heaven with its celestial bodies, each is good accordingly. John Chrysostom shared Augustine’s sentiments and argued that since God had already deemed every creature to be good, anyone who harbored a contradictory thought would be committing an “arrogant folly.”15 Admittedly, among God’s creation not everything is pleasant or beneficial to human life. Indeed, “Among the growth springing up from the earth it was not only plants that are useful but also those that are harmful, and not only trees that bear fruit but also those that bear none; and not only tame animals but also wild and unruly ones.”16 However, the goodness of a creature was not dependent upon human valuation. Thus, any condescending utterance about the creatures which God has created, said Chrysostom, demonstrates disrespect and ingratitude to their Creator. Thomas Aquinas emphasized the very source of the goodness of creatures is God who willed them into existence. Aquinas taught that each creature contained its own innate perfection as implanted by God. By its very existence and acting (in the case of animate beings) in accordance with its divinely endowed nature, it demonstrates its intrinsic value. Therefore, to criticize a creature for its nature or way of being amounts to insulting God himself.17 Having established the religious foundation for inter-creationality, we now turn to examining how this movement manifests itself in moral virtues that govern the relationship between human and nonhuman creation. In inter-creationality, the exercise of gentleness and empathy becomes a natural way of dealing with one another. The Indian religions all advocate gentleness through the principle of ahimsa (nonviolence) as an integral part of a morally cultivated individual. Ahimsa is to be practiced toward all living things big and small. Among the four Indian religions, Jainism is most radical in its interpretation and application of the principle. Because of the belief that all living creatures (and even non-living things like air and water) possess souls in various degrees of complexity, Jains are taught to exercise the greatest degree of nonviolence possible in their daily activities. This entails eating vegetables rather than meat in order to cause less harm to others. A noble way of dying when one feels that it is time is to cease consuming food and water – an act of complete nonviolence. Gentleness in actions demonstrates one’s interior desire

Becoming Human, Intercultural, and Inter-creational  187 that all sentient beings, without exception, be happy (loving kindness) and that the sufferings of others be alleviated (compassion). Implicit within the concept of inter-creationality and the subsequent dealings between human and nonhuman creation is the principle of mutuality and reciprocity. Indeed, religious systems around the world, in various ways, contain teachings that advocate this ethical norm. While the Confucian Golden Rule (“Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself”) is often cited, variations of this precept can be found in other regions in the world including India, Greece, and the Middle East. In the ancient Hindu epic Mahābhārata, for example, it is advised: “One should never do something to others that one would regard as an injury to one’s own self.”18 In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says, “In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.”19 Applying this principle to inter-creationality demands that the scope of the I-thou relationship must go beyond social exchanges to also include nonhuman beings. Our discussion of the various religious worldviews thus far should affirm that this is entirely possible, especially when reciprocity and mutuality begin with the desire to eliminate mutual suffering. As the Buddha teaches, “All tremble at violence; Life is dear for all. Putting oneself in the place of others, one should not kill nor cause another to kill.”20 Reciprocity and mutuality entail not only the avoidance of inflicting harm on each other but that both sides act to benefit each other in their respective ways. For example, human beings can choose to exercise restraint and moderation when it comes to using natural resources so as to minimize negative ecological impacts. As people endowed with mental wisdom, they can exercise prudence in the development of economic and social structures that would better ensure flourishing for all of creation. Nonhuman creation, of course, cannot carry out the same mode of reciprocation, but can respond in other ways that benefit human beings in their needs. Many religions see the natural environment as not only beneficial to human beings physically (as source of nutrition) and mentally (as source of relaxation and pleasure) but also spiritually. Buddhism, for example, recognizes that nature can help human beings to contemplate on the impermanence of reality. By observing and meditating on various natural processes, human beings can come to realize the futility of grasping onto an intrinsic self and the need to build, protect and adorn that illusory self with impermanent things such as material goods, wealth, and power. Inter-creationality, as a relationship of mutuality and reciprocity, sees service between human and nonhuman creation not in utilitarian terms but as mutual self-offering for the well-being and flourishing of one another. In inter-creationality, each entity is both intrinsically good and instrumentally valuable to the other in their own modes of being and giving. Thus, intrinsic and instrumental goods need not represent opposite sides of an impossible dichotomy, but rather should be viewed as complementary aspects of a relationship in which mutual service naturally stems from affirmation of mutual goodness. Inter-creationality understood as a relationship characterized by mutual service and self-giving fosters a sense of gratitude. The Buddhist doctrine of kataññukatavedi reminds one to be conscious of and sincerely desire to reciprocate the favor

188  Anthony Le Duc that one has received. This disposition of gratitude can be displayed not only toward other people but to any entity that acts on one’s behalf. The historical Buddha in his actions was the embodiment of gratitude. Having at last achieved enlightenment after six years of strenuous effort, the Buddha traveled to his homeland to pay gratitude to his father as well as to the surrounding environment. In addition, the sage expressed gratitude to the Bodhi tree under which he sat to meditate seven days and nights before achieving his ultimate goal of enlightenment.21 Indeed, the Buddha taught that one should never cut down the tree which provided the shade for one’s rest. In the deeply Confucian influenced Vietnamese culture, a proverb reminds people when they eat fruits not to forget those who have planted the tree. Another proverb admonishes one to remember the source when taking a sip of water. Gratitude then becomes an important virtue to buttress inter-creationality and promote ecoflourishing. In summary, the movement of becoming inter-creational is the culmination of individual and collective efforts to overcome egotistical, ethnocentric, and anthropocentric tendencies within the human community. Religious traditions considered in this chapter in various ways provide spiritual insights that support this movement both in the fundamental premise as well as in the practical actions that ensue. As in the other movements, religious transformation enables human beings to possess the moral virtues that drive and sustain inter-creationality in order to bring about an enduring ecological ethos. Conclusion Karl Rahner wrote over half a century ago: “There are many matters in which the Church could well be more modern than she is. But the time is beginning already in which having the courage to be old and human is going to be the most modern thing at all.”22 As the world accelerates further into the digital age – bringing with it old unsolved problems and creating new dilemmas, inspiring hope and enthusiasm as well as uncertainty, fear and trepidation toward the future – perhaps the most radical and essential thing for us to do is to take a moment and reflect on what it means to be truly human. While some technologists and futurists are setting their eyes on the prospect of becoming superhuman or transhuman, what the wisdom of our spiritual and religious traditions emphasizes has always been the need to cultivate authentic personhood. It is through this seemingly very familiar yet elusive state that we can best understand ourselves and enter into relationship with our neighbor, the rest of creation, and the divine. As I have tried to demonstrate in this chapter, this effort of achieving authentic personhood is both a starting point as well as the impetus that motivates individuals and communities to enter relationships of interculturality and inter-creationality. While interculturality seems to emphasize human social dynamics, when ordered to ecological concerns this paradigm of cultural interaction supported by interreligious dialogue can promote the formation of a global ecological culture and consciousness. Moreover, as humanity makes progress in the first two movements, the third movement of becoming inter-creational can also be undertaken. By becoming

Becoming Human, Intercultural, and Inter-creational  189 inter-creational, we manifest our authentic personhood not only at the personal and social level but also at the cosmic level, reinforcing a more sustainable ecological ethos. Indeed, ecoflourishing is none other than all of creation engaging in mutually enriching relationships, acting to benefit one another, and when necessary, making sacrifices for each other’s well-being. Indeed, this ecological ethos results from a fine balance of knowledge and action where the common good need not be opposed to individual interests but is, in fact, integrally connected with humanity’s most noble desires for ourselves and for the world. For this, we depend on the profound insights of our age-old spiritual traditions to help us make sense of the contemporary ecological contexts and provide the needed inspiration to strive toward achieving authentic ecoflourishing. Notes 1 Pope Francis, Laudato Si’: Encyclical on Climate Change and Inequality (Vatican City: Vatican Press, 2015), sec. 139. 2 Thomas Berry, The Great Work: Our Way into the Future (New York: Bell Tower, 1999), 159. 3 Tu Weiming, “Beyond the Enlightenment Mentality,” in Confucianism and Ecology, ed. Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Berthrong (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), 19. 4 Samuel Naceno Agcaracar, Interculturality in the Service of Communion: Exploring New Pathways of Mission (Manila: Logos Publications, 2019), 62. 5 Robert Kisala, “Formation for Intercultural Life and Mission,” Verbum SVD 50, no. 39 (2009): 335. 6 Definition of culture by Louis Luzbetak, Church and Cultures (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988), 155. 7 Ricardo Goncalves Castro, “Interculturality and Ecology,” in Becoming Intercultural: Perspectives on Mission, ed. Lazar T. Stanislaus and Christian Tauchner (India: Indian Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2021), 271. 8 Jules Pretty and Sarah Pilgrim, “Nature and Culture,” Resurgence and Ecologist (September/October 2008). See https://www.resurgence.org/magazine/article2629nature-and-culture.html#:~:text=NATURE%20AND%20CULTURE%20converge%20 in,a%20change%20in%20the%20other. 9 Peter C. Phan, “Interreligious and Ecumenical Dialogue at Vatican II Some Rethinking Required,” Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education 42, no. 1 (2012): 16. 10 William Theodore de Bary, Irene Bloom, and Joseph Adler, Sources of Chinese Tradition, volume 1 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), 524. 11 Francis, Laudato Si, sec. 76. 12 Ibid. 13 Keith Warner, “Franciscan Environmental Ethic: Imagining Creation as a Community of Care,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 31, no. 1 (2011): 154. 14 Jame Schaeffer, Theological Foundations for Environmental Ethics: Reconstructing Patristic and Medieval Concepts (Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2009), 18. 15 Schaeffer, Theological Foundations, 19. 16 Ibid. 17 Schaeffer, 19–20. 18 Mahābhārata, translated by Bibek Debroy (New York: Penguin, 2015): 13.114.8. 19 Matthew 7:12 (NIV) 20 Acharya Buddharakkhita, The Dhammapada: The Buddha’s Path of Wisdom (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1985), sec. 130.

190  Anthony Le Duc 21 Phra Dharmakosajarn, Dharma and Environmental Preservation (Bangkok: Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya Press, 2011), 16. 22 Felicia Wu Song, Restless Devices: Recovering Personhood, Presence, and Place in the Digital Age (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2021), 191.

References Agcaracar, Samuel Naceno. Interculturality in the Service of Communion: Exploring New Pathways of Mission. Manila: Logos Publications, 2019. Castro, Ricardo Goncalves. “Interculturality and Ecology.” In Becoming Intercultural: Perspectives on Mission, edited by Lazar T. Stanislaus and Christian Tauchner, 266–280. New Delhi: ISPCK, 2021. de Bary, William Theodore, Bloom Irene, and Adler Joseph. Sources of Chinese Tradition, volume 1. New York: Columbia University Press, 1960. Kisala, Robert. “Formation for Intercultural Life and Mission.” Verbum SVD 50, no. 39 (2009): 331–345. Luzbetak, Louis. Church and Cultures. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1988. Phan, Peter C. “Interreligious and Ecumenical Dialogue at Vatican II Some Rethinking Required.” Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education 42, no. 1 (2012): 12–17. Phra Dharmakosajarn. Dharma and Environmental Preservation. Bangkok: Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya Press, 2011. Pope Francis. Laudato Si: Encyclical on Climate Change and Inequality. Vatican City: Vatican Press, 2015. Pretty, Jules, and Sarah Pilgrim. “Nature and Culture.” Resurgence and Ecologist (September/October 2008). https://www.resurgence.org/magazine/article2629-natureand-culture.html#:~:text=NATURE%20AND%20CULTURE%20converge%20in,a%20 change%20in%20the%20other Schaeffer, Jame. Theological Foundations for Environmental Ethics: Reconstructing Patristic and Medieval Concepts. Washington D.C: Georgetown University Press, 2009. Song, Felicia Wu. Restless Devices: Recovering Personhood, Presence, and Place in the Digital Age. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2021. Tu, Weiming. “Beyond the Enlightenment Mentality.” In Confucianism and Ecology, edited by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Berthrong, 3–22. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998. Warner, Keith. “Franciscan Environmental Ethic: Imagining Creation as a Community of Care.” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 31, no. 1 (2011): 143–160.

The Family Is All There Is Pattiann Rogers Think of those old, enduring connections found in all flesh–the channeling wires and threads, vacuoles, granules, plasma and pods, purple veins, ascending boles and coral sapwood (sugarand light-filled), those common ligaments, filaments, fibers and canals. Seminal to all kin also is the open mouth–in heart urchin and octopus belly, in catfish, moonfish, forest lily, and rugosa rose, in thirsty magpie, wailing cat cub, barker, yodeler, yawning coati. And there is a pervasive clasping common to the clan–the hard nails of lichen and ivy sucker on the church wall, the bean tendril and the taproot, the bolted coupling of crane flies, the hold of the shearwater to cytosine, adenine to thymine, fingers around fingers, the grip of the voice on presence, the grasp of the self on place. Remember the same hair on pygmy dormouse and yellow-necked caterpillar, covering red baboon, thistle seed and willow herb? Remember the similar snorts of warthog, walrus, male moose and sumo wrestler? Remember the familiar whinny and shimmer found in river birches, bay mares and bullfrog tadpoles, in children playing at shoulder tag on a summer lawn? The family–weavers, reachers, winders and connivers, pumpers, runners, air and bubble riders, rock-sitters, wave-gliders, wire-wobblers, soothers, flagellators–all brothers, sisters, all there is. Name something else.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-29

V

Philosophical Remedies: Relationship, Work, Economy

Still Life George David Clark Peculiar how the olio of days and rain and sun inside a grape can taste so much like time itself, a liberal age distilled to what one swallow will erase; strange in apples that same mix seems mostly crisp, clear water in its wildest form, while peaches clench their sugar in a ghostly wattage, fossil brightness slightly warm. Summer’s ending and again I’m older. For several minutes it’s been faintly raining, though the blunt, blithe sunlight’s undiminished. Something weather-baked inside me smolders toward forever: one wet grape remaining in the bowl when this quick picnic’s finished.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-31

16 Primary Encounters: Relational Ontology and Ecoflourishing Amy E. Smallwood

Introduction Western ontologies tend to focus on substance, that is, what makes up the nature of a being or an object. Humans are physical beings—flesh and blood, dependent upon outside sources for sustenance, with a distinct beginning and end. We are also cognitive beings—capable of reflective analysis and multi-layered awareness of ourselves, the things around us, and our impact and influence on the things we encounter. In our attempts to explore the nature of existence, the ideas of the West have encouraged us to think of substance as primary. “I think therefore I am,” the motto of Cartesian dualism, is perhaps the clearest example of a substance-based ontology that reduces the nature of being down to the mental and physical realms. French philosopher René Descartes claimed that cognitive thought can exist outside of a physical body, and therefore the reality of cognition is the essence of being human. This ontological framework that perceives consciousness and identity as a priori leads to assumptions that humans possess inherent and predetermined identity and consciousness. In contrast with this are the ideas of existentialism, which claims, broadly, that “existence precedes essence.” This claim, famously made by French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, declares that humans must exist prior to developing any kind of identity or consciousness. The ideas of existentialism, while in opposition to Cartesian dualism, still perceive substance as primary.1 Both existentialism and Cartesian dualism see the relations between the body and the mind as derivative. In further contrast, relational ontology argues that “relations between entities are ontologically more fundamental than the entities themselves.”2 This chapter will not attempt to determine whether relations are ontologically primary or ontologically derivative. Rather, the intention is to discuss the role of relations in our ontological frameworks, and how a relationally oriented construction of our experiences with nature impacts our moral attitudes and resulting ethical considerations toward the natural world.3 Specifically, this chapter will consider the possibility of the primacy of relations in ontological frameworks, examining human relations with the more-than-human world through the lens of phenomenology and exploring how the resulting relations promote the development of an environmental virtue ethic that leads to ecoflourishing. I begin by exploring the phenomena of the sublime in DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-32

196  Amy E. Smallwood the more-than-human world, as described in the literature of the Romantic period and the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, arguing that human encounters with the more-than-human world are first and foremost primary experiences. North American constructions of wilderness are examined next, revealing underlying assumptions of humans as separate from the natural world which leads to an ethos of anthropocentrism. I then contrast these assumptions by exploring place-based and indigenous perspectives, which support and enhance primary encounters with the more-than-human world through notions of reciprocity, identity, and a gift economy. In conclusion, I argue for a relation-based construction of primary encounters that promotes environmental virtues, and enhances ecoflourishing. Sublime Encounters as Primary While some might claim that all of our experiences with the natural world are simply constructed phenomena based on culture and context (discussed at length later), an argument could be made that we have encounters with the more-thanhuman world that are primary—initially raw and authentic before eventually fitting into our paradigms of cultural construction. Some of my own experiences of this phenomenon include being awed into a sacred silence by the endless expanse of stars on a moonless night, the undulating green and white curtain of the northern lights, and the sense of human frailty in the presence of a raging river. These are examples of what we might call the “sublime.” Experiences of the sublime in nature is a common theme that runs throughout the literature of the Romantic period. Ralph Waldo Emerson discusses “the perpetual presence of the sublime” that is experienced from looking at the stars.4 However, it is not simply the act of looking up at the stars that evokes the sublime; for Emerson, it must be coupled with solitude. And not just solitude from other humans, but also solitude from society and the trappings of the self.5 Henry David Thoreau’s writings suggest a similar deep solitude that denies the presence of self. Ralph Black notes Thoreau’s criteria for sublime encounters: “Such a conflation, the vanishing or erasure of the self… is the province, if not the crux of the sublime.”6 Black suggests that throughout Thoreau’s writings there is a sense of dislocation—seeking a landscape that is so foreign and unfamiliar that experiencing it authentically requires a sort of disembodiment.7 For these Romantic authors, “wildness” is often used interchangeably with “sublime,” juxtaposed with the ordered beauty of a well-kept English garden. Their writings argue for the intrinsic value of wild, unordered nature which evokes feelings of the sublime and is different from (and often described in opposition to) the aesthetic experience of a cultivated landscape. The sublime encounter is primary, accosting our senses before we have an opportunity to make meaning of what is happening. But this requires being wholly given to the encounter, unencumbered by even our own self-consciousness. These Romantic thinkers challenge us to consider the nature of a sublime experience and the kind of human–nature relationship that results. Philosopher Robert R. Clewis, while acknowledging that the meaning of sublime is elusive, defines

Primary Encounters  197 it as “a complex feeling of intense satisfaction, uplift, or elevation, felt before an object or event that is considered awe-inspiring.”8 This definition focuses solely on the positive aspects of sublime, but for Kant, who wrote prolifically about the sublime, there also exists what he called “negative pleasure.” The pleasure comes from the expansion of our imagination and an awareness of our moral capacities (e.g. freedom, reason). The negative comes from frustration over our ability to understand or take in what we are exposed to (e.g. formlessness, mathematical impossibilities) and the recognition of our physical helplessness.9 Thus, for Kant, The sublime forces us to consider our own frailty, brevity, and insignificance in the vastness of wild and untamed nature. Phenomenologically then, Kant’s version of a sublime experience includes a recurrence of self that is temporally posterior to the initial disembodiment that Emerson and Thoreau describe. Disembodiment goes against human nature and can only ever be temporary as our minds rush in to make sense of what we are experiencing. This sense-making is the beginning of cultural construction and the collective meanings we attribute to our shared experiences. The initial experience of the sublime, including this temporary suspension of self-consciousness, allows us to enter into the space between entities—that of relation—as a primary experience. The implications of this will be discussed in more detail later. First, however, let us consider the cultural constructions that are prevalent in the Western world and the potential they have to impact our relationship with the more-than-human world. Natural Places as Culturally Constructed With help from these thinkers of the 19th and early 20th centuries, also including such influential voices as Rachel Carson and Aldo Leopold, conservation awareness earned the attention of public officials in the United States, leading to several policy changes.10 One of the first policy changes included the creation of the US Department of the Interior in 1849, which …conserves and manages the Nation’s natural resources and cultural heritage for the benefit and enjoyment of the American people, provides scientific and other information about natural resources and natural hazards to address societal challenges and create opportunities for the American people, and honors the Nation’s trust responsibilities or special commitments to American Indians, Alaska Natives, and affiliated island communities to help them prosper.11 Yellowstone became the world’s first national park in 1872, followed by Yosemite & Sequoia National Parks in 1890. The casual observer may note the seeming environmental significance of these events as evidence of a strong national sense of a mutualistic relationship between humans and the natural world. However, while it is true that these movements indicate a cultural shift in valuation of the natural world, what do they imply regarding humankind’s relationship to place? The notions of place depicted in these

198  Amy E. Smallwood policies offer descriptions of the natural world that imply a purity dependent upon minimal human interaction. The Wilderness Act of 1964 provides a stark example, defining wilderness as “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammelled by man [sic], where man himself [sic] is a visitor who does not remain.”12 Additionally, the Leave No Trace Center for Environmental Ethics encourages minimizing human impact as much as possible in an attempt to preserve the purity and integrity of the wilderness.13 Within these perspectives is an implicit assumption that human presence in the wilderness may serve to taint the natural beauty, purity, and integrity of these places. This seems problematic, as humans are physically and metaphysically unable to fully escape place. The natural world is, in fact, our home. How do we then make decisions about what natural places should be preserved? How do we determine what aspects of the natural world deserve moral consideration if preservation is only available to some places (those we do not inhabit)? In the United States, the two terms most commonly used to describe the outdoor environment are “wilderness” and “nature.” In contrast to simply saying “outdoors” or “out-of-doors,” these terms are meant to describe a type of outdoors—one that is “wild” and in its “natural” state. Many voices have endeavored to deconstruct our modern constructions of “wilderness” and “nature.”14 Well-known environmental historians Roderick Nash and Max Oelschlaeger both outline a history of how humans have understood nature, with Oelschlaeger going as far back as history will allow, and Nash focusing on the settling of the New World and the American frontier.15 Both recognize the role that social construction and human experience play on our understanding of and interaction with the more-than-human world. The anthropocentric perspective portrayed in these works is telling. With some exceptions, “wilderness” and “nature” are described through a lens of causal determinism with little acknowledgment of the agency and effect of the more-than-human world. Going further, William Cronon problematizes American constructions of wilderness in his essay “The Trouble with Wilderness.” Part of the problem for Cronon lies in the masculinity that undergirds American ideals of wilderness and “frontierism”: The mythic frontier individualist was almost always masculine in gender: here, in the wilderness, a man could be a real man, the rugged individual he was meant to be before civilization sapped his energy and threatened his masculinity…. [T]he comforts and seductions of civilized life were especially insidious for men, who all too easily became emasculated by the feminizing tendencies of civilization.16 Adding to these masculine ideals were also those of privilege: The dream of an unworked natural landscape is very much the fantasy of people who have never themselves had to work the land to make a living— urban folk for whom food comes from a supermarket or a restaurant instead

Primary Encounters  199 of a field, and for whom the wooden houses in which they live and work apparently have no meaningful connection to the forests in which trees grow and die. Only people whose relation to the land was already alienated could hold up wilderness as a model for human life in nature, for the romantic ideology of wilderness leaves precisely nowhere for human beings to actually make their living from the land.17 Nash also acknowledges the role of privilege woven through the ideal of Romantic wilderness: “Appreciation of wilderness began in the cities. The literary gentleman wielding a pen, not the pioneer with his axe, made the first gestures of resistance against the strong currents of antipathy.”18 Further criticized by Nash is the effect of American colonialism as European pioneers sought to tame the “hideous and desolate wilderness” they encountered in the New World. These early frontiersmen were tasked with the responsibility of civilizing this new world, which meant subjugating both wild human and wild nature. Cronon concludes his argument with the claim that American constructions of wilderness (rooted in masculinity, colonialism, and privilege) have created a dangerous reductionism and false dichotomy of humans outside-of nature, which does more harm than good when it comes to responsibility to the natural world. This, then, is the central paradox: wilderness embodies a dualistic vision in which the human is entirely outside the natural. If we allow ourselves to believe that nature, to be true, must also be wild, then our very presence in nature represents its fall. The place where we are is the place where nature is not. If this is so—if by definition wilderness leaves no place for human beings, save perhaps as contemplative sojourners enjoying their leisurely reverie in God’s natural cathedral—then also by definition it can offer no solution to the environmental and other problems that confront us.19 Setting aside “wild” land in the name of preservation might help to acknowledge its intrinsic value and right to exist apart from human influence, but it also sets up the assumption “that nature, to be natural, must also be pristine—remote from humanity and untouched by our common past.”20 This assumption sets humans apart from the natural world and threatens to disregard the effects (positive and negative) that humans have on the more-than-human, which we are experiencing quite poignantly through the current climate change crisis (despite our attempts to preserve pristine nature).21 Rather than defining value in terms of specific places or definitions of a type of place (wilderness, park, etc.), perhaps what is needed is a conceptual framework that defines value based on a primacy of relationship. If we can begin to recognize that our existence as humans is dependent upon relationships—with other humans as well as with the non-human world—and that relationships are essential to own flourishing as well as to the flourishing of our home planet, how might this impact our decisions regarding what warrants our respect and care? How do we understand “relationship”? These questions will guide the explorations that follow.

200  Amy E. Smallwood A Sense of Place and Place-Relations Geographers have been discussing the terms “space” and “place” for decades. YiFu Tuan, one of the founders of human geography, discusses “place” in contrast to what is understood as “space.” “Place is not only a fact to be explained in the broader frame of space, but it is also a reality to be clarified and understood from the perspectives of the people who have given it meaning.”22 Tuan describes place as a concept that is both material and socially constructed. While we might understand a particular space as an area made up of specific features both natural and human made, a place, by contrast, is inextricably linked to human and non-human relationships, interactions, and understandings in the context of a particular location. While spaces can be objectified and distant, a place is intimate and full of subjective meaning. A sense of place is riddled with ontological questions. If a sense of place infers a certain kind of relationship, what is the nature of this relationship from the perspective of humans, and how does this relationship contribute to the well-being and flourishing of both humans and the more-than-human world? When we consider the idea of a relationship with place, we must necessarily discern what is meant by relationship, and how relationship directed toward nonhumans might be conceived and understood. One approach to place-relations that is evident in modern culture is the instrumental-causal relationship model. In this context, a relationship with the more-than-human world is based on its perceived instrumental value. A natural entity would have value for us due to its contribution to our own well-being. For example, we may choose to value a particular piece of land because of the abundance of food that can be cultivated in its rich soil. We care for the land knowing that if we do so, we will be able to sustain our own health and well-being through the produce that results. Many philosophers contend that instrumental value infers causation; that is, a particular place or element in a place may have instrumental value for humans as a result of our causal relations with it. For example, environmental philosopher Simon James states: “To have instrumental value is to make a causal contribution to bringing about a valuable state of affairs. The notion of a causal contribution is to be understood broadly. Both proximate causes and causally relevant background conditions can ground instrumental value.”23 James takes issue with this mode of relating to the more-than-human world, arguing that if this is the case, then it would follow that we could conceivably replace one entity with another having the same causal relation, thus resulting in the same contribution to human well-being. For instance, a tree that provides shade to my house could be removed and replaced by a human-built shade structure with no ill effects (i.e. no relational damage). But, questions James, is this consistent with our experience? Can we not see evidence of emotional distress over the destruction or loss of natural habitat despite a seeming disconnect from instrumentality? What is to be said of the cultural and spiritual value of natural entities, and how do we describe numinous relationships from an instrumental-causality model? James provides a possible response through the way we define human wellbeing. A hedonic model defines human well-being as that which gives us pleasure

Primary Encounters  201 and satisfies desire. This approach recognizes an affective component (the presence of positive emotions) and a cognitive component (articulating something as satisfying). A contrasting approach to human well-being is the eudaimonic model, which defines well-being as that which connects to our values and helps us realize our full potential. The eudaimonic model is often described as an approach based on human flourishing. With some clarity regarding human well-being, we could conclude that aspects of the natural world have instrumental value by contributing to human pleasure (hedonistic model) or to human flourishing (eudaimonic model). However, argues James, this again fails to acknowledge the intimacy of certain human–nature relationships. James provides an example of Katherine Smith, a 1970’s Navajo activist who refused to leave her land even if she were relocated to one that provided her with more amenities and an easier life. For her, there was no substitute for the land of her dwelling. We see similar examples with Native Americans, such as the Wintu of northern California. Their connection to the salmon runs far deeper than any contribution to human well-being, regardless of how that is defined. Their relationship is deeply intimate, spiritual, and intrinsically tied to the identity of the Wintu people. To destroy salmon habitat is to destroy the very soul of the Wintu, even if the government were to provide for their every need and desire.24 Canadian explorer and geographer James Raffan has also been interested in human attachments to place that extend beyond an instrumental model. In his research regarding “Land as Teacher,” Raffan explores the types of connections that people establish with certain places over a long period of time.25 Specifically, locating his research in the Thelon Game Sanctuary of the Northwest Territories of Canada, Raffan discusses land conflicts in this particular area. He asserts that the conflicts aren’t necessarily fights about land use, but are ultimately disagreements about what land means. He distinguishes between our perceptions of land as commodity, recreation, peaceful haven, energy potential, and part of a God-given (i.e. transcendent) universe. Through his ethnographic research, he identified four different types of a “sense of place” based in meanings: toponymic, narrative, experiential, and numinous. Toponymic connections have to do with things like place names, indicating both knowledge and attachment to a certain place. Narrative connections were evident through the stories embedded in the culture regarding how the land came to be, the history of the land, and even gossip about events that occurred over the years. An experiential connection is different than toponymic or narrative in that it is a firsthand encounter with a particular place. Within the experiential connection, Raffan notes a distinct difference between the experiences of those who were dependent upon the land for survival (hunters, trappers, and the like) and those who experienced the land for more leisurely reasons (a canoe trip). Those who were dependent upon the land were able to recall attributes of the land in much more detail (wind direction, flow of water, etc.). The last connection identified by Raffan’s research is that of the numinous. “Numinous connections to place are all that is awe-inspiring, all that transcends the rational, all that touches the heart more than the mind, all that goes beyond names, stories, and experience and yet still plays a significant role in

202  Amy E. Smallwood the bond that links people and place.”26 Raffan concludes his article by contending that these types of a “sense of place,” as understood through meaning rather than instrumentality, are intimately associated with identity: “…it appears that sense of place, in varying degrees, constitutes an existential definition of self. For many consultants to this study, you take away the land or break the connection to land, you prevent them from being who they are.”27 Place Relations, Identity, and Reciprocity James and Raffan help us understand the ways in which a relationship to place that goes beyond simple instrumentation is intimately connected to identity. There is an underlying reciprocity at play here; the meanings we attach to certain places in turn shape who we understand ourselves to be, and in turn the characters and virtues we choose to embody. Relationships and identities are illusive, not easily distilled or reduced to analyzable concepts.28 This is certainly the case with human–human relationships. I might refer to someone as “friend” or “acquaintance” based upon how emotionally safe I feel with the other person, how much time we’ve spent together, or the nature of our shared experiences. And this perception may not be mutual; I may call someone a “friend,” and that person may refer to me as an “acquaintance.” We have a whole host of other ways to categorize human-human relationships as well—colleague, family, lover, enemy, etc. These sentiments denote, to some degree, the connection the other has to my own identity. There is also inherent in all of these categorizations the idea of a subject-subject relationship, which infers a kind of reciprocity. In the Western world, we do not tend to refer to the more-than-human world in this way. Our references to aspects of this world tend to denote a subject–object relationship, which also suggests that we do not experience the same level of reciprocity. Australian outdoor educators Paul Martin and Glyn Thomas discuss the possibility of referring to nature as “friend” as helpful language to consider the relationship as subject–subject rather than subject–object.29 As subject, the relationship is based on care and respect for the “other.” Rather than relating to nature from an objective, rational paradigm, this type of relating is based in experiential, tacit, and intuitive ways of knowing.30 In considering the more-than-human world in subject–subject terms, we are rather late to the party. Indigenous cultures have had this perspective for centuries. Robin Wall Kimmerer, who is both a botanist and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, discusses the reciprocal nature of a gift economy which illustrates the outcomes of encountering the more-than-human world as subject. “A gift creates ongoing relationship,” she notes, and illustrates further with the following example: Sweetgrass belongs to Mother Earth. Sweetgrass pickers collect properly and respectfully, for their own use and the needs of their community. They return a gift to the earth and tend to the well-being of the wiingashk. The braids are given as gifts, to honor, to say thank you, to heal and to strengthen. The

Primary Encounters  203 sweetgrass is kept in motion…. That is the fundamental nature of gifts: they move, and their value increases with their passage.31 And further, From the viewpoint of a private property economy, the “gift” is deemed to be “free” because we obtain it free of charge, at no cost. But in the gift economy, gifts are not free. The essence of the gift is that it creates a set of relationships. The currency of a gift economy is, at its root, reciprocity. In Western thinking, private land is understood to be a “bundle of rights,” whereas in a gift economy property has a “bundle of responsibilities” attached.32 The reciprocal relationship described by Kimmerer is one of mutual respect, care, and responsibility. These virtues are cultivated through a series of relational interactions and an embracing of our collective responsibility toward ecoflourishing. With some clarity around an alternative way to construct meaning from our primary encounters with the more-than-human world, let us explore how values that stem from relations rather than entities can enhance the development of environmental virtues. Relational Ontology and Environmental Virtues We have already acknowledged the possibility of primary encounters with the natural world in our previous discussion of the sublime. Inherent in a sublime encounter is a temporary suspension of self-consciousness which allows us to experience the “other” fully and authentically. As this temporary state subsides, human consciousness resurfaces to construct the experience in a way that allows us to make sense of it. Our ontological assumptions play a key role in this work of meaning-making. Our previous description of Western constructions of “nature” and “wilderness” finds its roots in a substance-based ontology. Decisions regarding what has value, and thus what must be protected, assumes that substances are primary. North American policy decisions reflect these constructions of substance-based value, separating the presence of humans from the places we value. Subsequently, it would seem natural that when we have meaningful encounters with the more-thanhuman world, the result is a desire to seek protection for the specific place where this occurred, to preserve it for future generations. How might this change if our cultural constructions were based in relational ontology? If our values were to shift toward that which is morally good for relationship and reciprocity with the morethan-human world, what would the result be? A primary encounter with the more-than-human world—a sublime experience— allows us to briefly enter into a liminal space. For a moment, we are so overcome with the other that our sense of self is briefly suspended, and we recognize the wholly different nature of the other. A construction of this experience that focuses on this relationship must naturally lead to a sense of wonder and reverence for that-which-is-not-me.

204  Amy E. Smallwood Emily Brady, in her work on the aesthetics of the sublime in nature, discusses the way in which sublime encounters contribute to a moral attitude toward nature through dispositions of respect and humility. Contrasted with experiences of beauty, the sublime includes both positive and negative emotions, the negative comprising elements of fear or anxiety. This fear naturally leads to humility in the face of something wholly other than ourselves, and a respect that goes beyond admiration. As Brady puts it, “… the kind of distanced fear we find in the sublime prepares the way and presents a valuable grounding for a moral attitude toward nature—a route from admiration to respect, if you will.”33 These sentiments are also reflected in Ronald L. Sandler’s framework for a virtuebased environmental ethic. An environmental ethicist, Sandler proposes an environmental ethic that stems from character and virtue, arguing that the way we interact with the environment is directly influenced by our attitudes toward it. Of particular relevance, Sandler lays out five virtues associated with “respect for nature:” care, compassion, restitutive justice, nonmaleficence, and ecological sensitivity.34 A construction of sublime encounters that stems from relational ontology has the potential to accentuate these virtues, bring them to the forefront, and allow them to extend beyond the particular place of encounter. Let’s take, for example, the immensity of the Grand Canyon. The endless nature of the landscape and inability to fathom the depth of the canyon often lead to a complex mix of emotions—pleasure, anxiety, a sense of being overwhelmed by immensity, etc. If our framework for constructing meaning from this experience stems from the relationship rather than the substance, the dispositions of respect and humility for the more-than-human world, in all its forms, becomes central to those constructions. I would argue that these virtues lay a foundation for the work of reciprocity. Humility stems from an awareness of human frailty in the presence of that which is not human. My gratitude for being granted life in the face of a power that could take it from me might be interpreted relationally as a gift alongside many of the other gifts that the more-than-human world provides. Respect allows me to fully acknowledge the “otherness” of the more-than-human world and its right to exist and to flourish independent of instrumentality or causal determinism. This, according to Sandler, engenders virtues such as care and compassion. The resulting relationship is intimately connected to my identity, transcending particular places and values of instrumentation. The flourishing of the ecosystem becomes central to human flourishing, and vice versa, in a reciprocal set of responsibilities. Or, as Kimmerer puts it, “All flourishing is mutual. Soil, fungus, tree, squirrel, boy—all are the beneficiaries of reciprocity.”35 Notes 1 While existentialism could be seen as moving towards viewing relations as primary (particularly evident in the writings of Martin Buber), the challenge of defining and categorizing what we mean by “relation” has proven to be exceedingly difficult for philosophers. For more on this, see Wesley J. Wildman, “An Introduction to Relational Ontology,” in The Trinity and an Entangled World: Relationality in Physical Science and Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010).

Primary Encounters  205 2 Wildman, “An Introduction to Relational Ontology,” 55. 3 The word “nature” has become problematic in recent years. Generally used to refer to “that which is not human,” this begs the question that humans are also part of nature. The current preference in environmental philosophy is to use the phrase “more-than-human”, coined by David Abrams and acknowledging humans as part of nature. This phrasing, however, can be unwieldy for the reader. Thus, in my use of the word “nature” and/or “natural world,” the concept of “more-than-human” is implied. 4 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature (Ann Arbor, MI: Charles River, 2018), 6. 5 Emerson discusses this level of solitude in the opening chapter of Nature. See also Bryan Perley’s post “The Perpetual Presence of the Sublime” in Literature and the Environment, February 19, 2013, https://academics.skidmore.edu/blogs/en229-2-s13/2013/02/19/ the-perpetual-presence-of-the-sublime/. 6 Ralph W. Black, “From Concord Out: Henry Thoreau and the Natural Sublime,” Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment 2, no. 1 (1994): 65. 7 Ibid., 65–75. 8 Robert R. Clewis, “Editor’s Introduction,” in The Sublime Reader, ed. Robert R. Clewis (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019), 1. 9 Emily Brady, The Sublime in Modern Philosophy: Aesthetics, Ethics, and Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 84. 10 Max Oelschlaeger, The Idea of Wilderness (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991). 11 “About Interior | U.S. Department of the Interior,” accessed August 9, 2018. https:// www.doi.gov/whoweare. 12 An Act to establish a National Wilderness Preservation System for the permanent good of the whole people, and for other purposes, Public Law 78 Stat. 890 (1964), 890. 13 Leave no Trace, “Problems We Solve - Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics,” accessed September 5, 2021. https://lnt.org/why/problems-we-solve/. 14 Roderick Frazier Nash, Wilderness & the American Mind, 4th ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982); Max Oelschlaeger, The Idea of Wilderness; Paul Shepard, Man in the Landscape 3rd ed. (Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press, 2002); William Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature,” in Uncommon Ground, ed. William Cronon, 2nd ed. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996). 15 Nash, Wilderness & the American Mind; Oelschlaeger, The Idea of Wilderness. 16 Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness,” 78. 17 Ibid., 80. 18 Nash, Wilderness & the American Mind, 44. 19 Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness,” 80. 20 Ibid., 83. 21 Kate Rawles, “Outdoor Adventure in a Carbon-Light Era,” in Outdoor Adventure and Social Theory, eds. Elizabeth C.J. Pike and Simon Beames, 159–70 (New York: Routledge, 2013). 22 Yi-Fu Tuan, “Space and Place: Humanistic Perspective,” in Philosophy in Geography, eds. Stephen Gale and Gunnar Olsson, Theory and Decision Library, vol. 20 (Dordrecht, Holland: Springer, 1979), 387. 23 As quoted in Simon P. James, “Natural Meanings and Cultural Values,” Environmental Ethics 41, no. 1 (2019): 3. 24 James goes on to suggest an alternative understanding of human-nature relations in terms of meanings rather than instrumentation, introducing a new model which he refers to as semiotic-constituitive. For more on this, see James, “Natural Meanings and Cultural Values” in Environmental Ethics, https://doi.org/10.5840/enviroethics20194112. 25 James Raffan, “The Experience of Place: Exploring Land as Teacher,” Journal of Experiential Education 16, no. 1 (1993): 39–45. 26 Ibid., 44. 27 Ibid., 45. 28 For more on this, see Wildman, “An Introduction to Relational Ontology.”

206  Amy E. Smallwood 29 Peter Martin and Glyn Thomas, “Interpersonal Relationships As A Metaphor For Human-­Nature Relationships,” Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education vol. 5 (2000): 39–46. 30 Martin is quick to acknowledge that rational/cognitive knowledge is also important in balancing out the relationship so it is neither a distanced, objective relationship nor that of blind romanticism. 31 Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2013), 20, 27. 32 Ibid., 28. 33 Brady, The Sublime in Modern Philosophy, 205. 34 Ronald L. Sandler, Character and Environment: A Virtue Oriented Approach to Environmental Ethics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). 35 Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 20.

References “About Interior | U.S. Department of the Interior.” Accessed August 9, 2018. https://www. doi.gov/whoweare “An Act to establish a National Wilderness Preservation System for the permanent good of the whole people, and for other purposes.” Public Law 78, Stat. 890 (1964): 890–896. Black, Ralph W. “From Concord Out: Henry Thoreau and the Natural Sublime.” Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment 2, no. 1 (1994): 65–75. Brady, Emily. The Sublime in Modern Philosophy: Aesthetics, Ethics, and Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Clewis, Robert R. “Editor’s Introduction.” In The Sublime Reader, edited by Robert R. Clewis, 1–13. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019. Cronon, William. “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature.” In Uncommon Ground, edited by William Cronon, 69–90, 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996. Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Nature. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Charles River Editors, 2018. James, Simon P. “Natural Meanings and Cultural Values.” Environmental Ethics 41, no. 1 (2019): 3–16. Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2013. Leave no Trace. “Problems We Solve - Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics.” Accessed September 5, 2021. https://lnt.org/why/problems-we-solve/ Martin, Peter, and Glyn Thomas. “Interpersonal Relationships As A Metaphor For HumanNature Relationships.” Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education 5 (2000): 39–46. Nash, Roderick Frazier. Wilderness & the American Mind. 4th ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982. Oelschlaeger, Max. The Idea of Wilderness. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991. Perley, Bryan. “The Perpetual Presence of the Sublime.” Literature and the Environment, Skidmore, February 19, 2013. https://academics.skidmore.edu/blogs/en229-2-s13/2013/02/19/ the-perpetual-presence-of-the-sublime/ Raffan, James. “The Experience of Place: Exploring Land as Teacher.” Journal of Experiential Education 16, no. 1 (1993): 39–45. Rawles, Kate. “Outdoor Adventure in a Carbon-Light Era.” In Outdoor Adventure and Social Theory, edited by Elizabeth C.J. Pike and Simon Beames, 159–70. New York: Routledge, 2013.

Primary Encounters  207 Sandler, Ronald L. Character and Environment: A Virtue Oriented Approach to Environmental Ethics. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Shepard, Paul. Man in the Landscape. 3rd ed. Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press, 2002. Tuan, Yi-Fu. “Space and Place: Humanistic Perspective.” In Philosophy in Geography, edited by Stephen Gale and Gunnar Olsson, 387–427, Theory and Decision Library, vol. 20. Dordrecht, Holland: Springer, 1979. Wildman, Wesley J. “An Introduction to Relational Ontology.” In The Trinity and an Entangled World: Relationality in Physical Science and Theology, edited by John Polkinghorne. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010.

17 Toward a Christian Ecological Philosophy of Work Karl Clifton-Soderstrom

Introduction I believe any environmental virtue ethics worthy of the name must also include a desire to put economic life in its proper place—that is, as a support for comfortable and decent human lives, rather than as an engine powering endlessly more acquisition and consumption…. In seeking to subordinate economic life to life as a whole, environmental virtue ethics sounds an ancient and very necessary ethical theme.1 This chapter examines the meaning of human labor as both a site and school for the exercise of ecological virtues. If we are to consider an economic life “in its proper place,” we need to consider the meaning and ethics of work in light of ecological and human flourishing. While changes to our consumption habits are crucial to limiting the destructive impact of our economy, economies are more than systems of consumption. They are systems of organizing the purposes of human labor. And for Christianity, as indeed for other religions, the purposes of work are bound to the purposes of creation and the larger human vocation. As such, the potential of our worklives to cultivate and practice ecological virtues and vices is profound, and how a culture motivates and directs its workforce has direct ecological consequences. This is where a philosophy of work becomes critical for an ecological ethic. In general, a philosophy of work critically examines what qualifies as work within a culture, the criteria for meaningful or ethical work, and how work practices reflect or conflict with other moral values. These questions open a space for Christian philosophical reflection that connects the concerns of individual character formation, the ecological impact of work as people’s primary economic activity, and the human relationship to creation. This chapter offers a preliminary philosophy of work from which we may later identify ecological virtues. I argue that there are three intentionalities that lay at the core of human labor—toil, production, and reproduction—and that from this metaethical foundation, we can evaluate the ethics of our labor practices and systems according to how they “fit” individuals, our society, and our ecosystem. My argument will begin with a phenomenology of human labor that focuses the variety of worklife experiences into the three intentionalities. These intentionalities indicate a DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-33

Toward a Christian Ecological Philosophy of Work  209 philosophical anthropology of persons as creatures, creators, and procreators, and suggest a set of ecological virtues such work could foster. Following this phenomenology, I reference and expand upon the philosopher Russell Muirhead’s recent philosophy of work to articulate ethical criteria for evaluating our worklives according to how it may “fit” individuals, our society, and our ecosystem. Ideally, one’s worklife as a whole could achieve a personal, social, and ecological fit, thus suggesting the ongoing task of ecological justice to shape an economy that serves life as a whole. The Meanings of Work Like any “philosophy of…,” a philosophy of work aims to understand and articulate the meaning of work as work. It aims at the broadest conception that is nevertheless rooted in human experience. A difficulty soon arises in a phenomenology of work when we survey work’s diversity across history, class, and culture. How could one concept indicate something common between a 12th-century nun, a 15th-century artist, an 18th-century slave, a 19th-century factory worker, a 20thcentury corporate executive, and a 21st-century Uber driver? There seems as many experiences of work as there are workers and as many kinds of professions as there are jobs. And yet even associating work with “professions” or “jobs” excludes whole classes of human labor that are typically performed for no pay, through no formal organization, and with little recognition in the public sphere. The labor of raising children, caring for one’s elders, tending to a household garden, walking to pick up the day’s water supply, maintaining one’s home—none of these find their way into the official economic indicators, and yet are essential work for any society to function and flourish. To this end, I will consistently refer to our “worklives” and not specifically to “jobs,” “careers,” or “professions” which limit work to paid employment. Given this multiplicity of experiences, it is best that we not seek one essential feature, but rather the family resemblances and overlapping network of similarities between its’ meanings. At the risk of still oversimplifying, I propose there are three modes of being-in-the-world in which work operates: work as toil, as production, and as reproduction. Each conveys a particular relationship to the natural world, and each can be done in ways that contribute to or interfere with ecological flourishing. Work as Toil

All work, whether manual or intellectual, is inevitably linked with toil. The Christian finds in human work a small part of the Cross of Christ and accepts it in the same spirit of redemption in which Christ accepted His Cross for us.2 While the experiences of work are varied, the need to work is as universal to the human condition as the need for daily bread. This character of “necessity” distinguishes it from other activities requiring exertion, such as play or worship. Philosopher Russell Muirhead comments “If not for all, then for most, work is a command,

210  Karl Clifton-Soderstrom and not an option. We do it because we have to do it, because we are born and remain insufficient.”3 Our insufficiency does not dictate regular suffering, though it has for many throughout history. Rather, the reality that work simply has to be done reveals our finitude and fragility as creatures. At its root, toil indicates one way creaturely beings subsist in the natural world, though it can also describe our experiences in built environments. As such, toil itself is not evil, even if unjust social structures have relegated the worst of it to whole classes of people. In its most basic sense, such work requires strenuous effort or attention stemming from our embodiment and the stubborn order of the natural or built environment. To be a finite creature is to be thrown into an environment operating according to its own laws within which we must labor to survive. As Karl Marx states: “The labour process is the everlasting nature-imposed condition of human existence.”4 We toil because we are not masters of the ecosystem, whatever “dominion” over creation humanity may assume it has been granted. Philosopher Hannah Arendt notes the character of toil in her address, “Labor, Work, Action,” and describes there the most basic form of work, which she names “labor”: …labor is an activity which corresponds to the biological processes of the body…the metabolism between man and nature or the human mode of this metabolism which we share with all living organisms. By laboring, men produce the vital necessities that must be fed into the life process of the human body. And since this life process, though it leads us from birth to death in a rectilinear progress of decay, is in itself circular, the laboring activity itself must follow the cycle of life, the circular movement of our bodily functions, which means that the laboring activity never comes to an end as long as life lasts; it is endlessly repetitive.5 When considering our fragility and finitude, the curse of Adam comes to mind: the sweaty brow, hunched shoulders, calloused hand, scarred shin, sunburnt neck as he wrests nutrients from hard soil, amidst a hot sun, biting flies, slow growing seeds, etc. The toll of toil on the body is not reserved for agrarian work, but is present in our urban environments of industrial factories, office cubicles, and urban sewers. While toil need not be outright suffering, the strain can be experienced as a kind of violence. Studs Turkel’s conclusion, after interviewing scores of workers across as many professions for his famous book Working, is that “work is about violence-to the spirit as well as to the body…. It is, above all (or beneath all), about daily humiliations. To survive the day is triumph enough for the walking wounded among the great many of us.”6 The reality of creaturely bodies confronting the natural order is familiar to ancient philosophical and biblical writings. The teacher in Ecclesiastes considers “What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun?” (Eccl 1:3, NRSV). Toil, amal in Hebrew, denotes trouble, hardship, and the seemingly unsatisfying character of work. The teacher reflects with humility on the reality of such work and our delusion hoping that our efforts must mean something more significant. It is a vanity to make toil into a calling or purpose.

Toward a Christian Ecological Philosophy of Work  211 In contrast, we should simply let it be what it is: repetitive exertion necessary so we may live another day. That said, and this is crucial, such exertions need not result in “daily humiliations” or violence but, properly limited, can be their own joy. As the teacher in Ecclesiastes 3:9–11 (NRSV) states, “it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil.” Relishing hard work, feeling one’s body through tired muscles and successfully completing minute tasks—these too are creature comforts. Arendt is not naïve to the difficulty of such work, or the suffering many experience when an unjust imposition of toil bears down on the totality of a person’s attention or life, but she too notes a distinctly human joy that can come from such labor: Since labor corresponds to the condition of life itself, it partakes not only in life’s toil and trouble but also in the sheer bliss with which we can experience our being alive…. insofar as we too are just living creatures, laboring is the only way we can also remain and swing contentedly in nature’s prescribed cycle, toiling and resting, laboring and consuming, with the same happy and purposeless regularity with which day and night, life and death follow each other. The reward of toil and trouble…lies in nature’s fertility, in the quiet confidence that he who in “toil and trouble” had done his part, remains a part of nature in the future of his children and his children’s children.7 Toil in its proper place offers something else to the worker: a bodily intimacy with our environment. To work the land is to come to know one’s dependence upon it through touch, smell, and our haptic sensibilities. To “swing contentedly in nature’s prescribed cycle” is no abstract notion to the farmer. Ecofeminists cite this basic element of human labor to argue that much of women’s work throughout the world has put them into more regular contact with the natural environment than men’s work. The toil offers them intimate local knowledge of natural processes of which others are ignorant. It also puts them at disproportionate risk of pollution and unhealthy ecosystems.8 Together, the strain, joy, and intimacy with the world that we experience in toil, can be a school of ecological virtues and vices. According to its proper measure, toil schools us in humility before the natural world and an honest assessment of our creatureliness. On phenomenological analysis, this perhaps boils down to the experience of touch. Christian philosopher Norman Wirzba’s description of touch gets at the virtuous humility that comes from being a creature in creation: [Touch] defines us as creatures that must touch and be touched in order to be…. It is in terms of the vast and deep memberships of creation, what ecologists call “webs of interdependence” that we derive our nurture and inspiration, our very being…. Indeed, the intimacy and ubiquity of our touching earthly bodies is conveyed in the etymologies that identify humanity (adam) with the humus or life-giving layer of soil (adamah) that makes the earth come alive. Humility is the feature of a life that has adequately taken into account this body/earth relationship by honoring and strengthening the memberships of creation.9

212  Karl Clifton-Soderstrom Toil cultivates humility through an attentive intimacy with the land, uniting our circadian and ecological rhythms. It brings forth a respect for the stubborn resistance of creation’s order and the wonder of our sensitivity to it. Toil also can lead to suffering, vices, and injustice. When one considers those who toil solely in anemic artificial environments or in “dirty jobs,” toil fails to connect us to creation, but alienates us from it. But across professions, toil for some so dominates their lives that it does not produce virtuous humility, but the “daily humiliations.” These encourage the vices of apathy and anger, but also greed and the distractions of consumption, desperate as we are to escape the exhausting daily grind. Work as Production

Toil allows us to survive to the next day, but what allows for human culture, progress, or flourishing? For this, humans must make, produce, create, and shape the environments we live within. Human beings not only make artifacts and manufacture commodities, but also design rituals, artistic works, and entire built environments including cities and digital worlds. Such productive work changes the world in meaningful and enduring ways. In the language of Aristotelian virtues, such work entails poiesis. Poiesis is a human activity that results in goods distinct from that activity: for example weaving a sweater, building a bridge, writing a song. Through poiesis, a person brings something into being that did not exist before that will endure after the productive activity is finished. As creators and producers, we pour our emotional, rational, and spiritual capacities into something outside ourselves, thus creating human cultures within which to dwell. These artifacts in turn orient further human behavior beyond the original productive process—sweaters enable access to mountain peaks, bridges connect otherwise distant villages, songs sung lend music to a silent land. None of these activities consumes the made thing—but rather brings each to fruition. The potential for such work stems from a distinct mode of being-in-the-world and bespeaks another ontological character of creation. If toil binds our bodies to wrestle with the order of creation, productive work exercises our creative imagination given the organic malleability of the natural world. Ecosystems are dynamic, adaptable, full of redundancies, and wildly innovative in repurposing their own elements. Our creative imaginations participate in these very characteristics and add to them.10 As Arendt notes, “The work of our hands, as distinguished from the labor of our bodies, fabricates the sheer unending variety of things whose sum total constitutes the human artifice, the world we live in.” This allows us to make things that endure which become new stable realities in the world.11 The enduring quality of the products of work can complement or interfere with the surrounding environment. Artifacts that endure may do less harm to the ecosystem than ephemeral commodities to be quickly consumed so we can produce more commodities. Yet, the endurance of the built environment may or may not fit the temporality of the surrounding ecosystem. A log home will eventually decay back into the soil of the land from which it was built, while products made of plastics and “forever chemicals” endure far too long to be reincorporated. Further

Toward a Christian Ecological Philosophy of Work  213 problems arise when an obsession with productive labor leads to the exploitive extraction of natural resources and hegemony of built environments. As Arendt notes, “[Productive labor] is no longer the earning of one’s bread ‘in the sweat of his brow’…. Homo Faber becomes lord and master of nature herself insofar as he violates and partly destroys what was given to him.”12 The making of the human world, however careful, always involves some element of destruction of the natural world. This need not be catastrophic, of course, where the human transformation of the world threatens the very natural structures that sustain human culture let alone ecological flourishing. But we must acknowledge that as toil always takes a toll on the human body, so productive work takes its toll on the land.13 Productive work can, when properly realized, offer its own school of ecological virtues. Creative work forms a person to be more mindful of their ethical place on the earth. Attentiveness to the land from which our creations are made can be incorporated into the laboring process. Even a modern national park is the result of productive labor that aims to preserve land and cultivate ecological virtues in the citizens. In these (and countless other) ways, properly attuned and virtuous productive work can play a vital role in the realization of ecoflourishing.14 Work as Reproduction

The final form of work that helps frame an ecological ethic of work is reproductive labor. Reproductive labor—broader than biological procreation—refers to an array of human experiences including the labor of procreation and giving birth, the daily and generational “reproduction” of workers necessary to keep the economy running, and the work that cares for the fecundity of the earth and its members. This is distinct from the immediate necessity and monotony of daily toil as well as the creative world-making of productive labor. In the most general sense, “reproductive labor” refers to work that renews, restores and cares for life that is primarily not one’s own. The idea of serving life that is not merely one’s own, or “life as a whole,” as Cafaro noted in the opening quote of this chapter, indicates perhaps a nested teleological hierarchy of toilsome, productive, and reproductive labor. Reproductive labor is indeed the condition for the possibility of toil and production, and orients one’s labor beyond one’s immediate needs. Reproductive labor therefore points to a more participatory telos by which our activities make possible the whole of life. Consider first, the sexual connotations of reproductive labor in light of human vitality. If toil stems from the stubborn order of the natural world and productive labor from its malleability, reproductive labor participates in the fecundity and regenerative capacity of creation. Human sexuality itself is rooted in this. Regardless of whether any one of us has or will have children, our drive to participate in the regeneration of life occurs through a variety of practices: growing food, feeding others, being hospitable to others in our homes, sexual union, having families and children of our own, adopting the children of others, or caring for others in sickness and health in their journey between birth and death. When virtuous, our individual sexuality is integrated into the larger good of the continuation of life

214  Karl Clifton-Soderstrom within our familial, social and ecological communities. As Wendell Berry remarks in his essay “Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community,” “Sexual love is the heart of community life. Sexual love is the force that in our bodily life connects us most intimately to the Creation, to the fertility of the world, to farming and the care of animals. It brings us into the dance that holds the community together and joins it to its place.”15 And this, as Berry argues, is not independent of the meaning of our economies or work. When we consider work that cares for all of life, it is helpful for ecological ethicists to engage the literature of Social Reproductive Feminism.16 Feminist social theorists over the last few centuries have drawn attention to unjust patriarchal economic structures that have organized our worklives into capitalistic economies. Two critical questions that animate this scholarship include “Which kinds of work are valued and compensated within an economy?” and “Who within the population has access to such work?” In general, according to these thinkers, the gendered character of the economy results in injustices to women and, to a lesser extent, to men. Though capitalism’s ecological impact is not a primary focus of this literature, one can imagine the connections. As capitalism took hold first within European and now global contexts, commodity producing labor compensated through wages became the dominant form of work recognized in the public sphere, and men became the predominant publicly recognized laborers. This concentrated both economic and social power to men, the producers of commodities. On the other hand, reproductive labor—primarily done by women caring for the lives of others, whole communities, or the land—lost economic and social power.17 And in so doing, non-commodity producing labor lost significance in the public sphere. As a corrective to this and over the course of its evolution, Social Reproductive Feminists broadened the meaning of reproductive labor from merely “reproducing the worker for productive labor” in a Marxist sense, to something akin to an ethicof-care in support of human life.18 Extending these theorists’ scope of concern, I would argue that by analogy this approach can, and should be expanded to environmental care. Taken more broadly as creation-care, reproductive work helps us to recognize and promote a form of human labor that entails (a) sustainability—by protecting the reproductive capacity of the natural environment and species other than humans, (b) ecological dependence—by acknowledging that the health of the ecosystem is necessary for human productive labor, and (c) benevolence—by cultivating an orientation of care for the human and non-human creation. The unique ecological virtues of reproductive work take further shape, when we consider that such care for the renewal and maintenance of life is at times experienced alongside toil and production, but its intentionality is distinct in being attentive to that which it cares for. Caring for a home and its inhabitants orients us differently than toil or production, and requires a distinct set of skills and virtues, especially when our home is taken in its broadest sense. Reproductive labor that connects the oikos or household of the human and ecological community, distinctively encourages the virtue of ecological beneficence and love. According to Steven Bouma-Prediger, “The virtue of ecological love, as its etymology suggests, names the settled disposition to care about our house (oikos) and its inhabitants—to

Toward a Christian Ecological Philosophy of Work  215 promote the flourishing of all creatures. It is the care we have not only for people but also for animals and plants and special places.”19 Bouma-Prediger’s reference to the oikos is crucial, and ties the reproductive labor to reimagining our economy in “its proper place.” In summary, how we attend to our work can connect or distance us from the natural world. In my analysis, I have examined three fundamental experiences of human labor with regard to our relationship to the earth: we toil in it, we remake it, and we care for it. These aspects of our worklives are rarely experienced in isolation. Indeed, societies should not be so stratified that individuals or social classes are condemned to experience any single relationship to the earth. Each form of work connects with the character of the earth’s ecosystem as ordered, malleable, and life-giving. Each also indicates an aspect of our anthropology as earth-­dwellers: we are creaturely, creative, and procreative. These characteristics of our being-in-the-world are fundamentally relational and admit of dependencies, cooperation, and mutual care. While my argument has been a more general philosophical one, defensible from the phenomenology of historical human labor, I think these can fit within a Christian theology of human beings. We are finite creatures of God and bound to creation; we are co-creators with God in creation; and we share in and steward the pro-creative character of creation itself. Toward an Ethic of Work From this phenomenology of human labor we must raise the ethical question: “When is work good or just?” The philosopher Russell Muirhead answers this question in his recent and important book Just Work. His analysis of work uses the language of “fit” as the primary ethical criteria by arguing that work is both fulfilling and just when it fits us socially, and personally. Muirhead has primarily the needs of human beings in mind here, and thus his framework could, at best, advocate for an anthropocentric environmental ethic. In expanding upon his useful framework, then, I suggest we add “ecological fit.” First, “social fit” is a necessary condition for a just work ethic. According to social fit alone, suggests Muirhead, our worklives can be evaluated as morally good if the communal needs served are morally just and we the workers are capable, if not excellent, at our tasks. We can say our worklife fits in this sense, when it “calls on the aptitudes and talents through which we can best contribute to society (or the market). When our abilities are aligned with the tasks or jobs society needs performed, work fits.”20 In order for societies to survive, function, and flourish, they need workers accomplishing any number of tasks. Whether it is through toil, productive, or reproductive labor, it is ethical for members of a society to work for the goods of that society.21 In addition, when working for the flourishing of society, our efforts make possible (though do not guarantee) public recognition of our work. Fitting work gives individuals status within a community, though such recognition is sometimes a difficult achievement. Indeed, one could imagine a host of jobs associated with environmental protection and restoration that should be raised in esteem in our culture.

216  Karl Clifton-Soderstrom In addition to social fit, personal fit is also necessary in just work whereby one’s work practices contribute to personal development, actualize one’s capacities, and intersect one’s desires and interests. Of course, not all work practices do this even if the cause they serve is noble. Yet, a minimal standard of personal fit is that societies should allow individuals to have sufficient choice over their own jobs or career paths. A slightly more robust standard would be that personal fit occurs when we enjoy our worklife. This historically recent criteria for discerning one’s vocation is still morally thin for a robust work-ethic and easily fuels, as noted by Robert Bellah (et alia) in Habits of the Heart, a hedonic individualism.22 However, critiquing freedom and personal enjoyment as insufficient guides for a work ethic, Muirhead claims personal fit is attained when the practices of our worklives possess intrinsic goodness and contribute to virtues in the worker. This opens a space to consider the ecological virtue formation that may happen in work, whether or not the work itself contributes directly to ecological flourishing. Our virtues are not standalone character traits that are praiseworthy simply in themselves. A virtuous person is not just splendid to behold, they are good—for themselves, for others, and for the earth. Virtues are both constitutive of and conducive to human flourishing, and thus they are naturalistic (grounded upon human nature) and teleological (aimed toward certain ends).23 Another way of putting this is that virtues are excellent and praiseworthy character traits that are fitting to us as human beings and fit us to the contexts within which we dwell.24 Even personal fit implies connection (not isolation), complexity (not simplicity), and mutuality (not autonomy). Beyond Muirhead’s analysis, I would argue that a third criterion of “ecological fit” is necessary to formulate a work ethic keeping with the relationship inherent between human labor and the earth. Consider the logic so far. If work fits personally, it engages my distinct capacities to directly and indirectly benefit me in light of my needs and desires. Such work is good because my wellbeing has inherent worth, and thus good work fits my human dignity. If work fits socially, it directly and indirectly benefits society. Here too, my community as such has moral considerability: that is, human community is good and worthy of maintaining. Along the same lines, ecological fit should be the third criterion by which to assess the justice of our worklives, because the wellbeing of non-human life and the earth as a finite ecosystem has value itself. In addition, human labor holds an integral function in the flourishing of the earth, and not as an exceptional practice alien to the earth’s ecological dynamics. A worklife that fits the needs and interests of our ecological community and brings about its flourishing should be one that contributes to the ecosystem’s integrity, biodiversity, adaptability, and sustainability. Of course a worklife that fits ecologically may be personally fulfilling because it fits our own values and may also serve society and the common anthropocentric good. But the moral criterion of ecological fit is not reducible to either, for the ecological community is a good worthy of our labor. In an ecologically just world, personal, social, and ecological fit could be found together in one’s worklife, simultaneously or over time. It is obvious that all of these rarely align, even if two out of three consistently do. But in our ongoing

Toward a Christian Ecological Philosophy of Work  217 attempt to survive as a species, achieve justice in a rich human culture, and be loving members of the earth’s community, it is crucial that we evaluate our worklives and the economies according to these criteria. The Diversity of Ecologically Impactful Work The successful application of these philosophical and ethical concepts to our worklives must take into account that there are many kinds of ecologically impactful work. Indeed, the virtues that will contribute to ecoflourishing can be cultivated in a variety of work settings and activities. We need not limit our imagination of ecological work only to more obvious jobs of, say, working for a non-profit like the Nature Conservancy, or a for-profit sustainable energy company, or volunteering in a native prairie restoration project. Ecological impact happens in both personal and public ways, directly and indirectly, and on different levels of scale. We can propose here a preliminary typography of ways that work practices and structures contribute to or inhibit ecological flourishing and satisfy the ethical criteria of “ecological-fit.” While the following list is not exhaustive, and these categories overlap in any given job, several categories of ecological impactful work come to mind. 1 Work that affects the natural environment as such. Direct: Human labor that in its very activity directly and immediately contributes to ecological flourishing by nourishing, restoring, or protecting ecosystems and their members. For example, a worker cleaning up an oil spill or planting native trees in a city park. Indirect: Work that will eventually lead to reducing ecological destruction, but itself does not involve the worker in direct action within or upon the affected environment. For example, a scientist researching the effects of potential toxins on a watershed. 2 Work that affects the worker themselves. Knowledge: Work that results in educating the worker on socio-ecological flourishing or destruction. For example, a teacher designing lessons plans to promote eco-literacy, or a farmer learning about the need for soil conservation by tilling the land. Character: Work that shapes the moral character of the worker to be more sensitive, aware, or committed to ecological virtues and action. For example, a photographer gaining a sense of wonder toward the natural environment, or a restaurant worker who becomes frugal regarding food waste in light of practices they witness. 3 Work that affects the broader economy. Work that addresses the macro-economic structures of employment (paid and unpaid) and resource use and distribution. For example, economists designing economic incentives for environmentally friendly practices, or local cooperatives sharing resources and labor in new ways to disrupt patterns of over-consumption.

218  Karl Clifton-Soderstrom 4 Work that affects a community’s philosophical/theological/political worldview. Work that engages others in examining their worldviews and equips others to reframe how they think about their worklives and democratic commitments. For example, artists who help reframe cultural narratives and aesthetic sensibilities about the natural world, or pastors, philosophers, and theologians who help reshape the moral imagination of their local communities. A rich ecological philosophy of work could speak into each of these categories of human labor. Naming them can equip people to intentionally situate their worklives into the broader commitment toward ecological flourishing, whether the effects are direct and immediate, educational, character forming, or more systemic. Conclusion A Christian ecological ethic would do well to explore more deeply how our vocations, and the economic systems that they prop up, contribute directly and indirectly to the earth’s flourishing. With that in mind, how should we then counsel the next generation on their future employment? How shall we process our own crises of worklife dissatisfaction, tedium, workaholism, and alienation? I advise my undergraduate students to seek work that promotes the love of neighbor. This is the virtue approach to work. Seek work that fits what you, your community, and your environment need to flourish. This may or may not align with a paid job. But in the larger picture of your worklife, be humble enough to toil alongside others and embrace the fragility of our mortal bodies and the natural world. Be courageous enough to contribute new creations to ease others’ suffering, delight the senses, enrich our histories, and challenge our aging imaginations. Be kind enough to promote and protect the lives of others, human, animal, and otherwise. My second piece of advice to these students is to keep work in its place. Guard your time for play, for sabbath, for friendship. For this is how we can “subordinate economic life to life as a whole.” There is a wonderful scene in a favorite movie of mine, A River Runs through It, when a 12-year-old Norman MacLean is receiving his daily instruction on writing from his father. After working all morning on drafting and redrafting an essay, and receiving regular corrections from his paternal editor, his father finally reads a draft worthy enough and replies, “Good. Now throw it away.” The script continues: There was a balance to my father’s system. Every afternoon, I was set free, untutored and untouched till supper, to learn on my own the natural side of God’s order. And there could be no better place to learn than the Montana of my youth. It was a world with dew still on it, more touched by wonder and possibility than any I have since known.25 Notes 1 Phillip Cafaro, “Thoreau, Leopold, Carson: Toward an Environmental Virtue Ethic,” in Environmental Virtue Ethics, eds. Ronald Sandler and Phillip Cafaro (Lanham: Roman & Littlefield, 2005), 33–43.

Toward a Christian Ecological Philosophy of Work  219 2 Pope John Paul II, On Human Work: Encyclical Laborem Exercens (Washington, DC: Office of Publishing Services, United States Catholic Conference, 1981), 58. 3 Russell Muirhead, Just Work (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 5. 4 Karl Marx, Das Kapital, trans. Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, ed. Frederick Engels (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1867), Marx/Engels Internet Archive, Volume I, Chapter 7, Section 1. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch07.htm (Accessed August 19, 2023). 5 Hannah Arendt, “Labor, Work, Action,” in Amor Mundi: Explorations in the Faith and Thought of Hannah Arendt, ed. James W. Bernauer, S.J. (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987), 32. 6 Studs Terkel, Working: People Talk about What They Do All Day and How They Feel about What They Do (New York: Pantheon Books, 1974), viii. 7 Arendt, “Labor, Work, Action,” 33. 8 One helpful article connecting these themes is by Vandana Shiva, “Women's Indigenous Knowledge and Biodiversity Conservation,” India International Centre Quarterly vol. 19, no. 1/2 (spring-summer 1992): 205–214.  JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23002230. Accessed August 22, 2021. 9 Norman Wirzba, “The Touch of Humility: An Invitation to Creatureliness,” Modern Theology 24, no. 2 (2008), 232. 10 The artist, sculpture, and environmentalist Andy Goldsworthy is a paradigmatic example of such creative work. https://andygoldsworthystudio.com/. 11 Arendt, “Labor, Work, Action,” 34. 12 Ibid., 35. 13 There is a perennial risk that what gets produced is reduced to a toil-mentality. Cf. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 125. As Marx well understood, capitalism eventually commodifies all parts of human life and work, and on this point Arendt is in agreement. 14 See, for example, mechanic/philosopher Matthew Crawford’s claim that trade work and craftsmanship shape moral imagination by challenging consumerism, enhancing pride in and appreciation for one’s work, and offering to the craftsperson “independence from the manipulations of marketing.” Matthew Crawford, “Shopclass as Soulcraft: A Case for the Manual Trades,” in The New Atlantis no. 13 (Summer 2006): https://www. thenewatlantis.com/publications/shop-class-as-soulcraft (Accessed August 21, 2021). 15 Wendell Berry, “Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community,” in Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992), 133. 16 Cf. Susan Fergusson, Women and Work: Feminism, Labour, and Social Reproduction (London: Pluto Books, 2020), 12. 17 Fergusson, Women and Work, 12. 18 For more detail on key components of such work, see Isabella Bakker, “Social Reproduction and the Constitution of a Gendered Political Economy,” New Political Economy 12, no. 4 (December 2007): 541. 19 Steven Bouma-Prediger, Earthkeeping and Character: Exploring a Christian Ecological Virtue Ethic (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020), 95. 20 Muirhead, Just Work, 2. 21 Ibid., 2. Muirhead’s parenthetical remark “or the market” is no trivial concern, and indicates his critique against economies that limit “fit” to the market rather than an informed notion of the common good. 22 Robert Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler and Steven M. Tipton, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007). 23 See Ronald Sandler’s treatment of the virtues in chapter 1 of Ronald L. Sandler, Character and Environment: A Virtue-Oriented Approach to Environmental Ethics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007).

220  Karl Clifton-Soderstrom 24 The language of “fit” is also used by Ronald Sandler in his definition of a virtue, in Ibid., 17. 25 A River Runs through It. Film directed by Robert Redford. Columbia Pictures, 1992.

References A River Runs through It. Directed by Robert Redford. Columbia Pictures, 1992. Film. Arendt, Hannah. “Labor, Work, Action.” In Amor Mundi: Explorations in the Faith and Thought of Hannah Arendt, edited by James W. Bernauer, 29–42. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987. Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Bakker, Isabella. “Social Reproduction and the Constitution of a Gendered Political Economy.” New Political Economy 12, no. 4 (2007): 541–556. Bellah, Robert, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M. Tipton. Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007. Berry, Wendell. “Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community.” In Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community, 117–174. New York: Pantheon Books, 1992. Bouma-Prediger, Steven. Earthkeeping and Character. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020. Cafaro, Phillip. “Thoreau, Leopold, Carson: Toward an Environmental Virtue Ethic.” In Environmental Virtue Ethics, edited by Ronald Sandler and Phillip Cafaro, 33–43. Lanham: Roman & Littlefield, 2005. Crawford, Matthew. “Shopclass as Soulcraft: A Case for the Manual Trades.” The New Atlantis no. 13 (Summer 2006): https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/shop-classas-soulcraft. Fergusson, Susan. Women and Work: Feminism, Labour, and Social Reproduction. London: Pluto Books, 2020. Marx, Karl. Das Kapital. Translated by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, edited by Frederick Engels. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1867. Marx/Engels Internet Archive: https:// www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ Muirhead, Russell. Just Work. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007. Pope, John Paul II. On Human Work: Encyclical Laborem Exercens. Washington, DC: Office of Publishing Services, United States Catholic Conference, 1981. Sandler, Ronald L. Character and Environment: A Virtue-Oriented Approach to Environmental Ethics. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Shiva, Vandana. “Women’s Indigenous Knowledge and Biodiversity Conservation.” India International Centre Quarterly 19, no. ½ (1992): 205–214. Terkel, Studs. Working: People Talk about What They Do All Day and How They Feel about What They Do. New York: Pantheon Books, 1974. Wirzba, Norman. “The Touch of Humility: An Invitation to Creatureliness.” Modern Theology 24, no. 2 (2008): 225–244.

18 Fairy Tales and True Stories: Economic Talk for Ecological Flourishing Kathryn D. Blanchard

Introduction In 2019, Swedish eco-activist Greta Thunberg appeared on stage at the United Nations (UN) Climate Action Summit at the tender age of 16. Having learned about the present and future horrors of climate change, she began the weekly “school strike for the climate” (Skolstrejk för klimatet) that spread to youth around the world, made her famous, and earned her the invitation to speak. If anyone at the UN had expected this sweet-looking girl to use her platform to warm people’s hearts with inspiration, they were likely disappointed. Instead of offering encouragement, Thunberg castigated attendees for relying on children to be the heroes who would remedy the damage already done and the damage to come. “People are suffering,” she exhorted: People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you? .…You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.1 One person’s “fairy tale” is another person’s horror story. The old narratives that comforted the adults in the room, allowing them to go on with business as more or less usual, are terrifying for Thunberg and the generation who are certain to pay for the consequences of inaction. Thunberg’s critique is thus perceptive as well as somewhat unexpected. It is often environmentalists who are dismissed in public discourse as naïve about how the world works, accused of alternately telling fairy tales about human capacities for altruism, self-denial, or neighborly love on one hand, and overblown horror stories about climate disasters on the other. “Eternal economic growth,” meanwhile, is often presented by economically minded folks as a fact or a law of nature: growth is a necessary and inherently good thing, and economies that are not growing are dying. Thunberg turns this critique on its head, accusing the world’s most powerful leaders of blind faith in markets—if not something even more sinister, DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-34

222  Kathryn D. Blanchard like covering up outright lies about greenhouse gasses while celebrating an outspoken child. Though she does not go so far as to compare their fairy tales and business-­as-usual approach to a kind of theology or religious practice, it is not a difficult leap to make.2 People who study religion tend to think a lot about stories, and theology is essentially storytelling. History teaches that the stories humans tell matter deeply, both because their emergence reveals something about those who tell them, and because they go on to shape the further becoming of individuals and societies. It’s not that this is always a simple or obvious process; in some cases, the stories we don’t tell—that lie hidden in our subconscious—may matter even more than the ones we think we live by. The ineluctability of storytelling seems to be a universal characteristic of human life, and struggles over whose stories should run the world are often at the core of our politics. Bringing these stories to the forefront is key to understanding ourselves and others and why we do the things we do. The “fairy tale” critique causes us to consider the ways in which today’s climate crisis has been caused and fostered by problematic storytelling: the frameworks, definitions, worldviews, and narratives that prevail among those responsible for the majority of the problems, which in turn shape behaviors, structures, and institutions. Economist John Maynard Keynes was well aware of the dangers of storytelling (what he calls “ideas”), particularly by economists, as evidenced in this oft-cited passage: The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood…. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back… soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.3 If we don’t want to be enslaved to stories told by “some defunct economist” (or one of their disciples claiming to interpret them for us), we must all first wake up to our most harmful fairy tales, and then be converted to better ones. By “better,” I mean true, or at least closer to true, in that they are inclusive of more complete and complex data than has traditionally been incorporated into economic stories. We need stories that cultivate an understanding that we belong to the earth and the community that depends upon it, rather than stories that have built the Anthropocene, encouraging us to care only for ourselves and the few things we perceive as belonging to us—our private property, our children, or even our rights. More inclusive stories and frameworks may enable behaviors that foster the long-term flourishing of humankind and the widest possible range of other animal and plant life forms on the earth through conversion of various kinds: to renewable energies, lower consumption, ecological protection and restoration, and environmental justice. Conversion requires change and is therefore not for the faint of heart; it rests on virtues like courage, prudence, and love. In what follows I will

Fairy Tales and True Stories  223 highlight some of the most harmful fairy tales that have brought us here, and then urge us to be converted to some of the better stories (re)emerging in the midst of our current crisis. Economic Fairy Tales Eternal Economic Growth

What’s so bad, readers might ask, about stories that celebrate “eternal economic growth?” Growth sounds like a good thing, long associated with providing jobs, creating material wealth, and fostering cultures of people who can afford to care about “sustainability.” But this is only part of the story. The late 20th century saw tremendous but radically uneven economic growth; a few people grew much, much richer, while many more saw their material conditions stagnate or grow worse.4 Modern growth is also steeped in colonialist, imperialist, and Wild West mindsets, when people imagined they could keep on expanding as far as their powers would allow. The industrial forces that undergirded most modern growth were directly responsible for today’s environmental crises. The idea that a company or an economy can expand forever should be as nonsensical to us as the idea that a person or a tree can expand forever. Yet anyone who says the economy can’t keep growing may find themselves accused of a Malthusian lack of faith in human ingenuity and the “laws” of economics. The fairy tale of eternal economic growth has landed us in a place UN scientists recently called “bleak”: “Countries collectively failed to stop the growth in global GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions, meaning that deeper and faster cuts are now required.”5 Most countries have not only failed to meet their stated goals, but they also have actively made things worse over the past decades, necessitating even more radical changes to their economic models than previously planned. And though change is still possible, it is not getting any easier the longer we wait. The world must “set in motion the radical transformations we need now, or face the consequences of a planet radically altered by climate change.”6 It is perhaps self-contradictory that the story of eternal growth goes hand in hand with the half-true story of scarcity—the premise that there are limited quantities of everything in the world, from time to land to diamonds. In this fairy tale technology can save us from food and water scarcity (although despite breakthroughs, hundreds of millions of people continue to suffer from hunger and malnutrition),7 and perhaps even time scarcity (although because of multi-tasking, people seem to feel busier than ever before),8 but in the end scarcity always wins. Human life is thus narrated as a zero-sum game: one person’s wealth is another person’s loss; time spent at work is time not spent with family; attention to your phone is attention not given to smelling the roses. No one can have it all, but some people can have an awful lot if they play the game more successfully than everyone else. Eternal economic growth will never compensate for the realities of billions of humans competing for resources. The tale of necessary scarcity means there is really no such thing as enough for everyone.

224  Kathryn D. Blanchard Whether ironically or predictably, Christianity is often seen as leading the charge for this fairy tale, rather than offering a corrective. “The Abrahamic tradition,” writes Ira Rifkin, “has promulgated the belief that a favored humanity has domain over the Earth and all its life forms. That’s interpreted in the global secular marketplace to mean human progress, above all, is measured by unbroken material advancement.”9 Instead of offering virtues that might undermine this fairy tale— neighbor love, humility, courage, hope for the reign of God on earth—Christian traditions have often come down on the side of exploitation of the earth, (nonhuman) animals, and their human neighbors, all for the sake of gaining material wealth in this life, and perhaps salvation in the next. Human Nature: Rational Choosers and Bad Apples

Just as scarcity underlies “the dismal science,” no one can accuse classical economics of offering a too-optimistic image of humankind. Indeed, homo economicus, the “economic person” upon whom neoliberal theory rests, is more like a villain in one of Grimm’s fairy tales—a witch living in a candy house, or a wolf dressed in a grandma’s nightgown. The economic person looks out exclusively for number one, and an economy of economic persons works properly only if it is built on the assumption of self-interested individuals serving themselves through individual choices, always garnering the greatest benefit possible for them while incurring the smallest cost possible for them. In feminist economics, homo economicus is sometimes referred to as “the separative self,” because he (always he) exists in a vacuum, disconnected from anyone else, and spends his time making totally “free” and “rational” decisions based on individual and material cost–benefit analyses under conditions of scarcity.10 While most economists will tell you the economic human is only a model— no one thinks he actually exists in real life—the problem is this message has not trickled down into policy. Very real businesses and political and economic systems are still built on this overly simplistic model. They demand everyone look out for themselves, which in turn forces players to act as homo economicus would if they want to succeed—or even just survive. Self-interest is the rule of the game. The individual choice-maker or separative economic person are strands in a web of interrelated (though again self-contradictory) fairy tales about humanity, among which is another favorite business story, that of the bad apple. The bad apple is someone who exists within a perfectly healthy and rational system, who for some reason makes unhealthy and irrational choices. There is nothing wrong with the way we do business, finance, or capitalism, so the argument goes. They are perfectly good systems that would work perfectly if not for a few individuals whose behavior ruins them for everyone else: paternalistic politicians enact policies that prevent the magic of markets; greedy financiers or executives corrupt the system by lying or stealing; deluded workers demand better pay or working conditions than customers are willing to pay for. Sure, economic persons are all self-interested, but these folks are irrationally self-interested and not playing by the rules. The fairy tale of bad apples allows the fairy tale of perfect markets

Fairy Tales and True Stories  225 to remain unscathed by shifting responsibility from the system to individuals within it. This connects to another strand in the fairy tale of humanity, which is that individual choices are the most important factor in how the world works, and every individual has equal power to make a difference through their choices. It almost makes sense: “we” are all responsible for climate change, so “we” must change our ways by cutting back on single-use plastics or riding a bike to work. As comforting as this story is, it does not reflect reality. One study found over 70% of the world’s greenhouse gasses so far were produced by just 100 corporate and state entities; over half were from just the top 25.11 “This contradicts the narrative pushed by fossil fuel interests that individuals’ actions alone can combat climate change, as individual actions have minute effects relative to these emissions.”12 (This is not to say individual choices are worthless, especially among the “polluter elite”: “Globally, the wealthiest 10% of the world’s population is responsible for roughly half of all greenhouse gas emissions,” and “the bottom 40% of the population in the United States emit more per capita than the richest 10% of people in countries such as China, India and Brazil.”13) While there are good reasons for relatively wealthy individuals to take responsibility for our own choices, we are kidding ourselves if we believe such choices can make a significant difference without substantive, large-scale policy change and organized collective effort. Ownership

Stemming from the fairy tale of individual consumers as the sole component of a thriving ecosystem, the notion of private ownership has played a central role in market-based systems. The story of humans as owners is, of course, not a modern invention. Humanity “having dominion” is a story that goes back at least as far as Genesis 1, and at its best private property has great practical value for figuring out who will take care of something (and motivating them to do so), whether it is a house or a child.14 Private ownership as an organizing principle can even be liberating, as when humans are seen as “owning” or having exclusive rights over their labor or their bodies, as a safeguard against enslavement or coercion. Private ownership thus has some wholesome effects, but as with most fairy tales, it also has a dark side, particularly under assumptions of scarcity. For people who are wealthy enough to own property, the falsity of the ownership story is not always obvious till it rears its head. Ownership of a piece of land, for example, might seem straightforward until a neighbor’s eyesore of a yard takes its toll on our property values, or until a fracking company begins funneling oil from underneath it. Situations that lay bare the illusion of individual ownership—as in the case of water, air quality, and climate change—are becoming ever more common. Beachfront property shrinks to nothing. A house in the woods is devastated by fire. Children supposedly safe in their family’s private homes suffer from pollution-related asthma or community-wide lead poisoning. Even ownership of one’s own body can be weaponized to harm large numbers of people, as when

226  Kathryn D. Blanchard disease or poverty are seen as private problems to be solved (and paid for) individually, or workers “choose” jobs with terrible wages or inhumane conditions because their only other option is no employment at all. Externalities

In my opinion, the most harmful fairy tale of all is the one suggesting that buyers and sellers, both separative selves, exist in a vacuum where their choices are private and don’t affect anyone else. An externality is an effect of a transaction between two parties, whether positive or negative, that happens to a third party— someone not directly involved in the exchange. A giant oil company, for example, exists to extract oil as cheaply as possible and sell it as expensively as possible, but in the process of buying and selling it can also harm many third parties, destroying entire ecosystems and the economies that rely on them.15 As private persons the seller and the customer have the sole rights to make or not make a transaction. But who is responsible for the “external” cost of income loss on the fisherwomen who can no longer fish nearby? The fairy tale of externalities says pollution, worker injury, or community injustice is someone else’s problem—for example, governments, workers, or local citizens—rather than something to be accounted for within the story itself. Externalizing costs is not accidental or exceptional; it is seen as “rational” if it is legal and saves money. It is not a matter of “bad apples” but rather part of the traditional story of good business.16 Given freedom from regulation, corporations can and will become “externalizing machines” that choose not to consider the material and social costs their businesses inflict upon environments, animals, or humanity. Not being forced to clean up after themselves, pay workers a living wage, or treat animals humanely allows corporations to focus on customers. They can provide their products and services at low, low prices, while providing owners or shareholders with the highest possible returns on their investments. This also enables them to compete in a system full of other providers of goods and services who are also seeking the highest margins by externalizing costs wherever possible. Helplessness and Hopelessness

It is difficult not to despair amidst this litany of grim societal fairy tales. A world of intensifying scarcity, voracious individuals who grab as much as they can for themselves, business firms that extract and pollute, and unsustainable market growth conspire to rob us of both hope and sleep. We may find ourselves crying out in the wilderness like Greta, feeling like real-life Loraxes, “speaking for the trees,” but powerless to do anything to stop their destruction.17 But despair itself is an unsustainable story that requires correction. While history is full of examples of individuals and groups of humans doing horribly destructive things, it also provides evidence that change is possible when a critical mass of people works together to resist the fairy tales and replace them with something better. If bad business grows out of fairy tales, better business must come from true (or at least truer) stories.

Fairy Tales and True Stories  227 Bad stories are, in essence, a fear-based denial of reality. We see this in the celebration of fake-news, post-truth culture in recent years. This kind of fear leads to destruction, sometimes in obvious forms like acute violence (as on January 6, 2021), other times in a long, slow burn (as with new waves of Covid-19 deaths even after the availability of vaccines). Climate disasters are the latter sort, as we sleepwalk toward catastrophe. True flourishing requires facing reality with courage, prudence, and love. Facing reality begins with telling true stories. True Economic Stories In place of the kinds of stories that reinforce vices like greed, imprudence, and cowardice, “true” economic stories inspired by Christian traditions should reinforce virtues that foster flourishing, such as patience, courage, prudence, and love. These truer stories take a greater number of factors into consideration—more perspectives, more complexity, more time—and do not demand simple, one-sizefits-all solutions (such as “growth” or “private property”) to humanity’s wicked problems.18 The following are a few possibilities for truer stories that might produce virtues for flourishing. Ecology Is Economy

As noted earlier, economics and ecology are often presented as opposing stories. The truth is, they are different aspects of the same global phenomenon, in which humanity seeks to provide for its own material survival (and perhaps even flourishing). Environmental sciences have been important in helping to illuminate the truth that economics cannot be separated from earthly conditions. It is one thing for a scientist-poet to claim in awe, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”19 But this claim becomes more persuasive to modern audiences when the earth’s interconnected systems can be shown to be a literal web, and not just a metaphorical or spiritual one. The realization of the ecology–economy connection can sometimes come as a “Damascus Road” experience, as in the case of the late Ray Anderson. As CEO of a carpet manufacturer, he had an “epiphany” when he first perceived that he, personally, was “a plunderer of the Earth.” To realize that his business was taking good things from the planet and creating and leaving bad things in their place was, in his words, “like a spear in the chest.”20 So like any good convert, he made it his life’s mission to repent of his own sins while also spreading his gospel far and wide: good business and ecological responsibility are one and the same. With costs down, and with product quality and marketplace goodwill at its best ever, the business case for sustainability, says Anderson, is “so compelling.”21 The clothing company Patagonia is another example of what business can look like when it sees ecology as the key to economic success. Unlike Ray Anderson’s latecareer conversion to an ecological sensibility, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard set out from the beginning to create a business model that existed in harmony with its earthly surroundings.22 More and more economic leaders—such as Blackrock23 and

228  Kathryn D. Blanchard the Business Roundtable24—are realizing the short-sightedness of any strategy that pursues financial wealth to the exclusion of everything else. In some cases, businesses might merely be responding for PR purposes, or in craven attempts to stave off new regulations that might cramp their styles. But these small changes signal that an environmentally conscious public is forcing businesses to pay attention. And at least some businesses have incorporated under a new form called a “B Corporation,” which means they exist to provide social benefits and are “legally required to consider the impact of their decisions on their workers, customers, suppliers, community, and the environment,” rather than prioritizing profits or stock prices.25 Governments are also starting to pay attention. The executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, who for decades has been promoting a model he calls “stakeholder capitalism,” was encouraged by what he called the “Greta Thunberg effect”—young people critical of shareholder models of business and calling for urgent changes.26 The Davos Manifesto of 2020 explicitly demanded sustainability and human dignity at every step of the economic chain, arguing corporations exist to “fulfil human and societal aspirations as part of the broader social system.”27 Meanwhile in the United States, younger lawmakers are fighting for a “Green New Deal” and demanding environmental concerns be front and center in matters of infrastructure, job creation, and public health.28 To tie the economy to ecology requires prudence—the ability to reason with complexity rather than applying simplistic solutions. It also requires the courage to make necessary changes. And it requires love of neighbors and the earth that enables us to be willing to limit our own desires. Such virtues are possible for humanity, but only if we tell ourselves and each other truer stories. Interdependence

Related to the ecology–economy connection, a crucial story for the healing of the earth is that everything is not merely connected, but also dependent on all of the connections being kept in balance. If environmental science has taught us anything, it is that there are no externalities. Nothing is external to any of us; we are all embedded in systems, and ultimately a single biosphere in which no one ever acts alone or makes a perfectly private decision. So when any of us tries to externalize a cost, we are merely ensuring it will fall to someone else. As economist Kate Raworth notes, “There are no side effects—just effects.”29 Another term we might borrow for interdependence is “interbeing.” Sarah James of the Gwich’in Nation in the Yukon, for example, describes the interbeing of her people and their caribou neighbors: “Caribou is our way of life, who we are…. We take care of them, and in return, they take care of us. We’re in their heart, and they’re in our hearts.”30 This mental model allows no possibility that the people could harm the caribou or the caribou’s habitat without hurting themselves; the caribou are internal to the human community. Such a posture is often expressed in spiritual terms: “for people whose spirituality leads them to be engaged with the world, the idea that we are interconnected with nature…leads to a profound respect for other living beings and the environment.”31

Fairy Tales and True Stories  229 Yet beyond the spirituality of “interbeing,” even some economists are now realizing that interdependence correlates in a real way with the material world, and many are working toward models of interdependence. The aforementioned Kate Raworth, of Oxford, has developed what she calls “doughnut economics,” which balances economic growth with human needs and ecological limits. The inside of the doughnut is a kind of “floor” of what humanity needs to survive with justice and dignity, and the “ceiling” is what the earth can reasonably support.32 In a circular system there can be no externalities, so everything must be part of the accounting. Even some “bean counters” are paying attention. For example, there is a longstanding journal called Critical Perspectives on Accounting that exists to “provide a forum for the growing number of accounting researchers and practitioners who realize that conventional theory and practice is ill-suited to the challenges of the modern environment, and that accounting practices and corporate behavior are inextricably connected with many allocative, distributive, social, and ecological problems of our era.”33 Gift and Belonging

The fairy tale of “ownership” says things belong to individuals in the form of property. While this might make provisional sense in a legal context, it does not foster a true understanding of humanity’s place in the ecosystem. An important corrective is the truer story that humans belong to someone or something—whether to a creator or the earth itself. In a purely scientific sense, the human species has evolved and adapted through countless generations to be at home on the earth; we belong nowhere else. Christians and other religious folks might add the notion that “We are not our own… we are God’s.”34 Whether we say we belong to God or to the earth, it is clear we owe our entire being to forces outside ourselves. In her modern classic, Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer suggests an alternative posture of belonging, an alternative to stories of ownership: that of gift. Gifts “establish a particular relationship, an obligation of sorts to give, to receive, and to reciprocate.”35 Economies based on gift could never be mistaken for those founded on economic fairy tales: It’s funny how the nature of an object…is so changed by the way it has come into your hands, as a gift or a commodity. The pair of wool socks that I buy at the store, red and gray striped, are warm and cozy. I might feel grateful for the sheep that made the wool and the worker who ran the knitting machine. I hope so. But I have no inherent obligation to those socks as a commodity, as private property…. A gift creates ongoing relationship.36 A gift economy can take place only among those who belong to one another. Meditating on the humbling experience of finding wild strawberries, Kimmerer highlights the importance of narration for the shaping of life: “[O]ur human relationship with strawberries is transformed by our choice of perspective. It is human perception that makes the world a gift. When we view the world in this way, strawberries and humans alike are transformed.”37

230  Kathryn D. Blanchard If interdependence or belonging are a bridge too far for some, more traditional alternative frameworks to ownership include stewardship of creation and love of neighbor. Pope Francis I, who wrote his first papal encyclical, Laudato Si’, on the topic of the environment, demonstrates an overwhelming concern for the poorest people around the world. He attacks consumerism, basic human selfishness, and what he calls a “magical conception of the market”—reminiscent of Greta’s fairy tales—“which would suggest that problems can be solved simply by an increase in the profits of companies or individuals.”38 The Pope was neither the first nor the last member of an Abrahamic tradition to call out bad economic stories. His letter was soon followed by the Islamic Declaration on Climate Change, which called humanity to better stewardship of God’s earth through a total phase-out of fossil fuels, and the Union for Reform Judaism increased the urgency in its longstanding call for environmental stewardship, social justice, and “healing the world” (tikkun olam).39 Again, telling the truth requires virtues that will not be found in shallow economic fairy tales. It takes courage to tell the truth, and telling the truth is necessary to making genuinely prudent (reasonable) decisions. Furthermore, we cannot truly love our neighbors if we insist on blinding ourselves to their plights. We must tell truer stories to foster characters that are conducive to flourishing; at the same, time, we need the kind of character that allows us to be open to true stories. Our Stories, Ourselves Joining Pope Francis, Greta Thunberg, Kate Raworth, and others, I have argued the world needs better stories about economics and business if our businesses and economies are to develop better character. Character is made up of habits: our ethics (ethos is Greek for habit or custom) and morals (mos is Latin for habit or custom) are the things we habitually do and the things we habitually avoid. And these habits have their roots in the stories we tell ourselves—our individual and collective mythologies. Or as Kimmerer puts it more scientifically, “The stories we choose to shape our behaviors have adaptive consequences,” for both for the human species and others.40 One environmental physicist encourages scientists, in particular, to focus on telling better stories, taking “messy reality and forc[ing] it into a narrative” that sparks emotions and hits home.41 As it turns out, reason or data alone is not enough to change people’s minds or get politicians and voters on board with addressing climate change. Narratives, the meaningful way we piece data together, matter to the people we become and the virtues we require. “A community…lives and acts by the common virtues of trust, goodwill, forbearance, self-restraint, compassion, and forgiveness,” writes Wendell Berry. “If it hopes to continue long as a community, it will wish to—and will have to—encourage respect for all its members, human and natural.”42 To encourage mutual respect, we must exchange harmful fairy tales for true stories. But telling true stories is extremely difficult; it will take all of us, since no individual or community is able to see and understand the whole picture. Some truer stories can come from religious traditions, others may come from the ecological sciences, and as we have seen, still others may emerge from the world of economics and business itself.

Fairy Tales and True Stories  231 Interdependence is a social reality as well as an ecological one. If humanity’s narratives, virtues, and habits constitute our collective character, true economic stories will be crucial to our ecoflourishing. Notes 1 “Transcript: Greta Thunberg’s Speech At The U.N. Climate Action Summit,” NPR (September 23, 2019): https://www.npr.org/2019/09/23/763452863/transcript-gretathunbergs-speech-at-the-u-n-climate-action-summit. 2 Naomi Klein, for example, has condemned “the god of economic growth” that pits capitalism against the planet. See This Changes Everything: Capitalism v. the Climate (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2014), 68. 3 John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936), chapter 24, section V. 4 Alana Semuels, “Does the Economy Really Need to Keep Growing Quite So Much?” The Atlantic (November 4, 2016): https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/ economic-growth/506423/. 5 United Nations Environment Programme, Emissions Gap Report 2019 (Nairobi: UNEP, 2019), XIV: http://www.unenvironment.org/emissionsgap. 6 Ibid., XIII. 7 “World Hunger: Key Facts and Statistics 2021,” Action Against Hunger (accessed August 31, 2021): https://www.actionagainsthunger.org/world-hunger-facts-statistics. 8 Laura Vanderkam, “We Aren’t Busier. So Why Do We Think We Are?” Fast Company (November 17, 2015): https://www.fastcompany.com/3053311/we-arent-busierso-why-do-we-think-we-are. 9 Ira Rifkin, “The Dalai Lama teaches a lesson on rethinking our faith traditions,” Religion News Service (November 27, 2019): https://religionnews.com/2019/11/27/ the-dalai-lama-teaches-a-lesson-on-rethinking-our-faiths-traditions/. 10 For a fuller treatment on this topic, see Kathryn D. Blanchard, The Protestant Ethic or the Spirit of Capitalism: Christians, Freedom, and Free Markets (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2010). 11 Paul Griffin, CDP Carbon Majors Report 2017 (CDP Worldwide and Climate Accountability Institute, 2017). https://www.cdp.net/en/articles/media/new-report-showsjust-100-companies-are-source-of-over-70-of-emissions. 12 Elliott Hyman, “Who’s Really Responsible for Climate Change?,” Harvard Political Review 47, no. 5 (January 2, 2020). https://harvardpolitics.com/climate-changeresponsibility/. 13 Peter Newell, Freddie Daley, and Michelle Twena, Changing our Ways: Behaviour Change and the Climate Crisis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022): 66. https://www. cssn.org/cambridge-sustainability-commission-report-on-scaling-behaviour-change/. 14 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1981), II.ii, question 66, answer 2. 15 Ruth Maclean, “The Fisherwomen, Chevron and the Leaking Pipe,” New York Times (July 25, 2021). https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/25/world/africa/nigeriafisherwomen-chevron.html. 16 See Zsolt Boda and Laszlo Zsolnai, “The Failure of Business Ethics,” Society and Business Review 11, no. 1 (2016), 98. 17 Dr. Seuss, “The Lorax” (New York: Random House, 1971). 18 Kevin O’Brien’s chapter on “intersectionality” in this volume is helpful on this point. 19 John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press, 1911), 110. 20 Emily Langer, “Ray Anderson, ‘greenest CEO in America,’ dies at 77,” Washington Post (August 10, 2011). https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/ray-andersongreenest-ceo-in-america-dies-at-77/2011/08/10/gIQAGoTU7I_story.html.

232  Kathryn D. Blanchard 21 Ibid. 22 “Patagonia: Yvon Chouinard,” How I Built This with Guy Raz, NPR (December 2017). https://www.npr.org/2018/02/06/572558864/patagonia-yvon-chouinard. 23 Jessica Dickler, “$7 trillion asset manager BlackRock makes climate change central to its investment strategy for 2021,” CNBC (Dec. 16, 2020). https://www.cnbc. com/2020/12/16/blackrock-makes-climate-change-central-to-investment-strategy-for2021.html. 24 Business Roundtable, “Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation” (August 2019). https://opportunity.businessroundtable.org/ourcommitment/. 25 Certified B Corporation (accessed Aug. 21, 2021): https://bcorporation.net/. 26 Klaus Schwab, “Why we need the ‘Davos Manifesto’ for a better kind of capitalism,” World Economic Forum (December 1, 2019). https://www.weforum.org/ agenda/2019/12/why-we-need-the-davos-manifesto-for-better-kind-of-capitalism/. 27 Klaus Schwab, “Davos Manifesto 2020: The Universal Purpose of a Company in the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” World Economic Forum (December 2, 2019). https:// www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/12/davos-manifesto-2020-the-universal-purpose-of-acompany-in-the-fourth-industrial-revolution/. 28 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, “House Resolution 332 - Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal” (April 20, 2021): https://www.congress. gov/bill/117th-congress/house-resolution/332?s=1&r=5. 29 Kate Raworth, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist (London: Chelsea Green, 2017), 123. 30 Daysha Eaton, “Sarah James: Fighting for What’s Sacred in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,” University of Southern California Dornsife (October 12, 2020): https://crcc. usc.edu/sarah-james-fighting-for-whats-sacred-in-the-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge/. 31 Megan Sweas, “Where the Search for Simplicity Leads,” YES Magazine (August 10, 2021): https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/how-much-is-enough/2021/08/10/simplelife-challenge-inequality. 32 Kate Raworth, “What on earth is the doughnut?: Exploring Doughnut Economics” (accessed August 27, 2021): https://www.kateraworth.com/doughnut/. 33 Go to https://www.journals.elsevier.com/critical-perspectives-on-accounting 34 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, translated by Henry Beveridge (1536/1845), III.vii.1 (accessed September 1, 2021): https://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/ institutes. 35 Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (Minneapolis: Milkweed, 2013), 25. 36 Ibid., 26. 37 Ibid., 23. 38 Francis I, Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home (Vatican, May 2015), 139. w2.vatican.va/content/dam/francesco/pdf/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_ 20150524_enciclica-laudato-si_en.pdf 39 Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Science (IFEES), Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change (August 18, 2015): https://www.ifees.org.uk/about/ islamic-declaration-on-global-climate-change/. Union for Reform Judaism, Resolution on Addressing the Impacts of Climate Change (December 2017). https://urj.org/ what-we-believe/resolutions/resolution-addressing-impacts-climate-change. For further reading, see the Harvard University Press “Religions of the World and Ecology” series, which includes volumes on Judaism and Islam, among others. https://www.hup.harvard. edu/collection.php?cpk=1057. 40 Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 30. 41 Kate Marvel, “How Should You Talk to Policymakers about Climate Change?” Scientific American (December 11, 2015). https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/hot-planet/ how-should-you-talk-to-policymakers-about-climate-change/. 42 Wendell Berry, Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community (New York: Pantheon, 1993), 120.

Fairy Tales and True Stories  233 References Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae. Translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1981. Berry, Wendell. Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community. New York: Pantheon, 1993. Blanchard, Kathryn D. The Protestant Ethic or the Spirit of Capitalism: Christians, Freedom, and Free Markets. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2010. Boda, Zsolt, and Laszlo Zsolnai. “The Failure of Business Ethics.” Society and Business Review 11, no. 1 (2016): 93–104. Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Translated by Henry Beveridge. Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 2019. “Certified B Corporation.” B corporation.net. 2018. https://bcorporation.net/. Dickler, Jessica. “$7 Trillion Asset Manager BlackRock Makes Climate Change Central to Its Investment Strategy for 2021.” CNBC. December 16, 2020. https://www.cnbc. com/2020/12/16/blackrock-makes-climate-change-central-to-investment-strategyfor-2021.html. Eaton, Daysha. “Sarah James: Fighting for What’s Sacred in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.” Crcc.usc.edu. Accessed February 4, 2023. https://crcc.usc.edu/sarah-jamesfighting-for-whats-sacred-in-the-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge/. Francis, I. Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home. Vatican City: Vatican, 2015. Hyman, Elliott. “Who’s Really Responsible for Climate Change?” Harvard Political Review 48, no. 7 (January 2, 2020). https://harvardpolitics.com/climate-change-responsibility/. “Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change.” Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Science, 2015. https://www.ifees.org.uk/about/islamic-declaration-onglobal-climate-change/. Keynes, John Maynard. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. London: Macmillan, 1936. Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Milkweed, 2013. Klein, Naomi. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014. Langer, Emily. “Ray Anderson, ‘greenest CEO in America,’ dies at 77.” Washington Post, August 10, 2011. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/ray-anderson-­greenestceo-in-america-dies-at-77/2011/08/10/gIQAGoTU7I_story.html. Maclean, Ruth, and Yagazie Emezi. “The Fisherwomen, Chevron and the Leaking Pipe.” The New York Times, July 25, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/25/world/africa/ nigeria-fisherwomen-chevron.html. Marvel, Kate. “How ShouldYou Talk to Policymakers about Climate Change?” Scientific American. December 11, 2015. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/hot-planet/how-should-you-talkto-policymakers-about-climate-change/. Muir, John. My First Summer in the Sierra. Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press, 1911. Nelson, Robert H. The New Holy Wars Economic Religion Versus Environmental Religion in Contemporary America. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State Univ. Press, 2010. “New Report Shows Just 100 Companies Are Source of over 70% of Emissions - CDP.” CDP. net. July 10, 2017. https://www.cdp.net/en/articles/media/new-report-shows-just-100companies-are-source-of-over-70-of-emissions. Newell, Peter, Freddie Daley, and Michelle Twena. Changing Our Ways. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022.

234  Kathryn D. Blanchard Ocasio-Cortez, Alexandria. “House Resolution 332 - 117th Congress (2021-2022): Recognizing the Duty of the Federal Government to Create a Green New Deal.” www.congress.gov. April 21, 2021. https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-resolution/332?s=1&r=5. “Patagonia: Yvon Chouinard: How I Built This with Guy Raz.” December 2017. NPR.org. https://www.npr.org/2018/02/06/572558864/patagonia-yvon-chouinard. Raworth, Kate. Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2017. “Resolution on Addressing the Impacts of Climate Change.” Union for Reform Judaism, 2017. Accessed February 4, 2023. https://urj.org/what-we-believe/resolutions/resolutionaddressing-impacts-climate-change. Rifkin, Ira. “The Dalai Lama Teaches a Lesson on Rethinking Our Faith Traditions.” Religion News Service. November 27, 2019. https://religionnews.com/2019/11/27/ the-dalai-lama-teaches-a-lesson-on-rethinking-our-faiths-traditions/. Schwab, Klaus. “Davos Manifesto 2020: The Universal Purpose of a Company in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.” World Economic Forum. December 2, 2019. https:// www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/12/davos-manifesto-2020-the-universal-purpose-of-acompany-in-the-fourth-industrial-revolution/. Semuels, Alana. “Does the Economy Really Need to Keep Growing Quite So Much?” The Atlantic. November 4, 2016. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/ economic-growth/506423/. Sengupta, Somini. 2019. “‘Bleak’ U.N. Report on a Planet in Peril Looms over New Climate Talks.” The New York Times, November 26, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/26/ climate/greenhouse-gas-emissions-carbon.html. Seuss, Dr. The Lorax. New York: Random House, 1971. “Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation.” Business Roundtable, 2019. https://opportunity. businessroundtable.org/ourcommitment/. Sweas, Megan. “Where the Search for Simplicity Leads.” YES! Magazine, 2021. Accessed February 4, 2023. https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/how-much-is-enough/2021/08/10/ simple-life-challenge-inequality. Thunberg, Greta. “Transcript: Greta Thunberg’s Speech at the U.N. Climate Action Summit.” NPR.org. September 23, 2019. https://www.npr.org/2019/09/23/763452863/transcriptgreta-thunbergs-speech-at-the-u-n-climate-action-summit. Tucker, Mary Evelyn, and John Grim, series editors. Religions of the World and Ecology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. www.hup.harvard.edu. Accessed February 4, 2023. https://www.hup.harvard.edu/collection.php?cpk=1057. United Nations Environment Programme. “Emissions Gap Report 2019.” Nairobi: United Nations Environment Programme, XIV. Vanderkam, Laura. “We Aren’t Busier. So Why Do We Think We Are?” Fast Company. November 17, 2015. https://www.fastcompany.com/3053311/we-arent-busier-so-why-do-wethink-we-are. “Why We Need the ‘Davos Manifesto’ for a Better Kind of Capitalism.” World Economic Forum, 2019. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/12/why-we-need-the-davos-manifestofor-better-kind-of-capitalism/. “World Hunger: Key Facts and Statistics 2021,” Action Against Hunger (accessed August 31, 2021). https://www.actionagainsthunger.org/world-hunger-facts-statistics.

Shiversong George David Clark Given snow that doesn’t flinch to throw its pounds through heaven inch by inch, that sows a billion motes of chill into this ground man can’t defend; and given wind that won’t begin to tell us how it’s driven, where it fell from, what it’s meant to blow and which proud limbs its clouds want riven, if it even dimly knows, nor why the howling whims have pardoned us this far; now, given such, it’s hard to watch the black-eyed scarecrow some fool left here miming care above the blighted garden, though tonight he seems intent to wrack the soil and climb the air, to fly, to crash his flimsy cross against the deadpan rancor in our vast grim sky.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-35

VI

Virtue and Vice in Ecological Practice: Confronting Current Challenges

Garden Micheal O’Siadhail Garden given us to dress and keep In our greed we mar; Who on earth do we still think we are, Dare we name ourselves as stewards now? Dominance of all our idle boast – Flights from ravaged habitats allow Viruses to find their human host; As we sow we reap. Grieving God once bid for seven days Noah built his ark, Two by two earth’s creatures would embark. All things that swim or crawl or fly, Saving from that flood at most a pair. In love’s covenant they’d multiply; Every being just in being there Gives creation praise. In our stewardship we can’t forget Heaven has begun, Nature stewarded and we are one. God who stayed the hand of Abraham Shows creation love’s self-sacrifice, Lions may yet lie down beside a lamb; Work in hand, unfolding paradise, Now and still not yet.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-37

19 The Christian Ethics of Waste, Contaminants, and Emerging Pollutants in Marine Ecosystems Susan Power Bratton

Scientific Concerns for Marine Systems Over the decades, Christian environmental exploration and activism have focused on some issues far more than others. Interest in international missions, the continuation of farming as an honored profession in many Christian communities, and the availability of clear Biblical guidance have generated a thoughtful Christian presence in food production and sustainable agriculture. The response to climate change has been both theological and practical, incorporating a multi-­ denominational wave of publications and the direct engagement of Laudato Si. Church and Christian school projects install solar or geothermal, contract for wind power, and initiate energy retrofits. Christians have, however, remained surprisingly disconnected in several critical environmental spheres. Notable from a scientific perspective is the sporadic engagement with the myriad of chemical pollutants and the lack of interest in marine ecosystems, despite their critical roles in food production, particularly for the Global South. Multiple trend-setting projects have explicated theologies of the land or the Sabbath, thereby centering attention on terrestrial ecosystems. Wendall Berry, Norman Wirzba, and many others have provided in-depth guidance concerning agriculture.1 There is now a trickle of Christian publications on marine ecosystems, and authors such as Gary Nabhan include fish in treatises on food production.2 Still, Christian academics and activists remain barely engaged with issues such as the release of endocrine disrupters via sewage or the exposure of coral reefs to human-transmitted bacteria and viruses. The response to emerging pollutants is negligible and delayed until they are no longer “emerging.” Exposure to waste and contaminants is a significant ecojustice concern. As Robert Bullard’s environmental classic Dumping in Dixie thoroughly documented for terrestrial cases, the economically disadvantaged and ethnic minorities are more liable to health risks.3 The purpose of this chapter is to address a potential weakness in Christian environmental ethics: we have not developed an adequate definition of waste or the responsibilities it should entail, nor have we drawn firm boundaries concerning what defines purity versus pollution or cleanliness versus contamination. This chapter concentrates on waste disposal and contamination relative to marine ecosystems and the communitarian behaviors or virtues essential to constrain their impacts. DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-38

240  Susan Power Bratton Many other religions emphasize the concept of purity and its nemesis, desecrating pollution, degrading environmental productivity and human community alike. The Māori, for example, deem the mauri and māna (spiritual power and authority) of a stream critical to its health. They historically prohibited waste disposal in rivers and required that fish processing occur away from a river’s banks.4 Anthropologist Kelly Alley has investigated Hindu use of polyvalent terms, including purityimpurity for the Ganges River, where the goddess Gaṅgā and the river are sources of purity and cleansing. The opposite is gandagī or anthropogenic waste materials entering the river, including sewage, garbage, soaps, and industrial effluents.5 Kimberly Patton found multiple religions portray the oceans as purifying, absorbing evil, or as “a supreme means of catharsis.” However, religious conceptualizations of the oceans’ ability to infinitely absorb human cast-offs often entrain counter-themes, such as the oceans revealing what was hidden or rejecting the discarded in myths of “unwanted return.” For example, improper human waste disposal scatters debris and lice among the flowing tresses of the Inuit’s Great Sea Woman, Sedna. In her wrath, Sedna hides the animals the Inuit depend on for food and materials like skins.6 Religious definitions of purity and pollution are not simple dichotomies but demand social compliance, behavioral constraint, restitution, or spiritual renewal.7 Scholars, however, have disagreed over the degree to which religious definitions of pollution are social constructions. Anthropologist Mary Douglas argued that the Levitical laws concerning pollution have as much to do with defining natural order, ritual roles, and human community membership as they do with addressing health concerns like bodily discharges.8 In contrast, Patton has concluded that “impurity itself is real and is not simply a socially constructed vehicle for the experience of disorder.”9 Christianity is distinctive among Abrahamic and world religions in its lack of scripturally based dietary codes. Peter’s vision in Acts 11, where a sheet descending from heaven displayed animals, including beasts of prey and reptiles, and a voice instructed the apostle to “kill and eat” (Acts 11:7, all quotes RSV) negated the Jewish dietary codes and opened church membership to gentiles.10 Jewish cleansing rituals consolidated into the one-time initiation of baptism – addressing the individual’s spiritual state rather than day-to-day exposure to contaminants. Further, contemporary Christian environmental ethics have emphasized the concept that God made all Creation “good,” as stated in Genesis 1. Although this supports the idea of intrinsic value for the entire cosmos and all living creatures, the tenet provides no grounds for distinguishing some materials as impure, hazardous or entailing specific ethical responsibilities for their management. Jewish concepts of clean and unclean do not negate God’s original creative intent nor deny unclean organisms their role in the natural order. A central issue for Christian ethics is, thus, whether pollution ethics should take up the type of materials or the actions surrounding their manufacture, distribution, and use. Considering the daunting inventory of marine pollutants, the Christian ethical frame is more likely to be effective if based on the type of action and its probable effects rather than on the kind of substance. Thousands of commonplace and relatively benign objects become trash and only emerge as concerns when they move from kitchens and docks to the ocean floor. However, the definition of waste as

Christian Ethics of Waste, Contaminants, and Emerging Pollutants  241 something out of place or a form of disorder11 does not tackle the fundamental issue that many substances becoming vicious pollutants arises from productive and necessary activities like farming. Further, the motives for translocating materials are central to limiting releases into marine systems. Therefore, a potential approach is to identify the purpose of the materials, how they enter marine systems, and the type of threats they generate relative to human and ecosystemic health. Table 1 classifies pollutants first by whether humans have intentionally introduced the hazardous material or chemical reaction and, second, by whether the manufacturers designed it to kill or capture in the first place. This categorization distinguishes intentional lethal agency from materials or substances intended to enhance the productivity of living systems, produce energy, or remain benign through their life cycle. As Table 1 demonstrates, the danger an object or substance poses to human and ecosystemic health or the ultimate magnitude of its impact are not necessarily closely correlated to intent. Many of the most problematic forms of waste or contamination are unintentional introductions into the oceans and bays, such as fertilizer in run-off. A second possible classification is where and how the impacts occur. Kimberly Patton points out that the release of modern industrial marine pollution assumes that the seas, in their massive size, impenetrable depths, and constant motion, can neutralize poisons and carry away all forms of waste.13 Table 1  Intentional versus collateral or unintended releases by type of agency (the list is not inclusive of all possible hazards).12 Substances and materials

Intentional

Primarily Collateral

Impacts

Pesticides; antibiotics; anti-fouling treatments; military ordinance; fishing lines, nets, and traps; dredges and drilling rigs

Radioactive fallout; release of sediments, hydrocarbons, and toxic metals; fisheries bycatch

Kill non-target organisms; bioaccumulation; biomagnification; habitat degradation

PCBs; nanoparticles; flame retardants; plastics; complex organic chemicals

Kill non-target species; habitat degradation; bioaccumulation; biomagnification

I. Intentional lethal agency Intended to kill or immobilize marine life or people

II. Productive agency Substances enhancing industrial processes, transfer through the distribution of products

(Continued)

242  Susan Power Bratton Table 1  (Continued) Substances and materials

Intentional

Primarily Collateral

Impacts

Food production or enhancing living systems (marine and terrestrial)

Translocated species; fish food/pens; fertilizers; antibiotics and pharmaceuticals, pesticides; GMOs (genetically modified organisms)

Fish waste; diseases; eutrophication; release of cultured genes; invasive species; toxins; antibiotic resistance

Harmful algal and microbial blooms; habitat degradation; decline of wild stocks; bioaccumulation; biomagnification; antibiotic-resistant disease variants

Release of radioactivity, carbon dioxide, methane, and mercury

Changes in atmospheric and oceanic geochemical processes; habitat alteration

Power and energy generation

III. Intentional disposal of unwanted materials or energy Disposal or removal from human spaces

Disposal of sewage, garbage, pharmaceuticals, nutrients, nuclear waste, derelict ships, construction and industrial debris, and ordinance

Materials from storm drains including plastics, chemicals, nutrients

Eutrophication; harmful algal blooms; habitat degradation; bioaccumulation; biomagnification

From power generation and industrial plants

Release of warmwater, PAHs, PCBs, petroleum by-products, carbon dioxide, solvents, sulfuric acid, brine, and plastics

Mercury; PAHs; trace toxicants; microplastics; greenhouse gases

Modification of atmospheric and geochemical processes; habitat degradation; bioaccumulation; biomagnification

As Table 2 indicates below, the intentional versus collateral nature of contaminant introduction is not independent of whether the significant impacts occur locally or the consequences are pan-oceanic. By-products and collateral release dominate the broader scales of distribution. The most egregious forms of collateral marine pollution disperse over vast areas, including carbon dioxide, generating not just climate change but ocean acidification.

Christian Ethics of Waste, Contaminants, and Emerging Pollutants  243 Table 2  General patterns of significant impact by distance from the point of origin and whether intentional or collateral (note these scales overlap)14 Distance From the Source Intentional of Entry Into Marine Systems

Collateral

Local high impact, within a harbor, reef, and channel

Fish waste; bycatch Tributyl tin; sulfuric acid; pharmaceuticals; fish farm waste, brine; freshwater; warm water; construction and industrial debris; sediment and dredge spoil

Within a watershed, shoreline, estuary, region, gyre, and gulf

Fishing traps, nets, and lines; sewage; pharmaceuticals; PCBs; PAHs; and aquacultural species

Ocean or worldwide

Plastics; debris; fishing nets Carbon dioxide; radioactive and lines; flame fallout; plastics and retardants and related nanoparticles; complex toxicants flushed from organic compounds that industrial plants are airborne, resistant to decay or binding in sediments

Micro-plastics; debris; fertilizers; petroleum compounds; bycatch; and invasive species

Who Is My Neighbor? Historically, humans have been careless about the free release of effluents into rivers and marine systems because these waters are not owned property. A legal question thus arises as to who has the standing to protest their degradation. International commissions regulate the high seas or international waters. These bodies are often slow to act or lack the authority to stop pollutants at the source. However, from a Christian perspective, the ethical challenge is defining who is my neighbor, not who owns the ocean (Romans 13:8–9, Luke 10, Matthew 3:44). The basic answer, of course, is any human who traverses or harvests the seas or benefits from such harvest. Some cultures, such as those of the Pacific Islands, have more significant immediate stakes than others. Yet, all the earth’s ecosystems depend on the oceans to absorb greenhouse gases and perform multiple functions regulating climate. As Table 2 demonstrates, marine pollution has become increasingly global and collateral, extending the geographic definition of neighbor. A second way to address this puzzle is to determine: who and what are God’s concerns? Much damage caused by lethal agents is to non-commercial marine species, food webs, and endangered or declining taxa. Puffins, for example, get caught in abandoned ghost nets. This situation leads to the question of God’s intent for the creation and the gift of life. Christian environmental ethicists have already commented extensively on the basic principles of maintaining biodiversity. Two concepts are exceptionally applicable in the case of marine pollution. The first is

244  Susan Power Bratton that the clean water of the hydrological cycles comes directly from God, and it is divine intent to provide clean water for flora and fauna and maintain the earth’s habitats. This water is the continuing fruit of God’s providence and labor. Humans should no more interfere with God’s marine fruits than they do with the production of a neighbor’s barley field. For example, Psalm 104:10–14 discusses the hydrologic cycle and praises God’s provision of water. As Psalm 109 reports, the second concept is that God enjoys all those sea creatures as elements in a creative masterpiece. The escape and spread of contaminants disrupt God’s providential care for all living and threaten God’s relationship with the very grateful waters and aquatic creatures. The Responsibilities of Intentional Lethal Agency The first category of intent is the debris or contaminant that originates from intentional lethal agency––technologies intended to kill, harm, or capture humans or other organisms. The introduction of damaging materials into marine systems and their harmful properties are by design. This includes various fishing gear, weapons of war, and biocides, such as pesticides and antibiotics. The technological purpose may not be objectionable, such as removing fouling organisms like algae and bryozoans from the hulls of ships. Difficulties arise when the gear, ordinance, or chemicals remain in marine ecosystems for extended periods, enter the food chain, or continue to kill, such as ghost traps and nets no longer managed by fishers. As fishing gear or anti-fouling paint may be critical to an individual’s source of livelihood, a question arises as to whether the individual’s right to utilize an economically viable technology takes precedence over any collateral damage that technology may cause. To turn to Biblical models, the first characteristic of these wastes and contaminants is they become an environmental hazard when their lethal agency extends outside the sphere of the original target. Second, many cause difficulties because they transition from supervised to unsupervised. The Hebrew scriptures generally hold the agent introducing the risk responsible for the damages caused, including in cases where the purpose is agricultural. Exodus 22:6 advises: “When fire breaks out and catches in thorns so that the stacked grain or standing grain or the field is consumed, the one who started the fire shall make full restitution.” This case incorporates intentional field burning to remove stubble or weeds––a legitimate agricultural activity. However, the damage caused by an escaped fire is a counterforce limiting food production. If a lethal agent spreads unintentionally beyond its intended target, that does not relieve the person who employed it from responsibility. The fire is an analog of ghost nets and biocides in their drift from their initial targets and escapes from supervision. The ghost nets kill fish that could be caught and processed by another fisher, thereby depleting commercial fish production. The Hebrew scriptures assign more severe penalties where human life is at stake, including the life of a fetus. Exodus 21:22–24 addresses a case where individuals intentionally engaged in harmful agency have struck a bystander: “When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage, and

Christian Ethics of Waste, Contaminants, and Emerging Pollutants  245 yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined what the woman’s husband demands, paying as much as the judges determine. If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” This text addresses the potential for continuing post-event health impacts on the mother. The Hebrew codes are less concerned about the individuals who voluntarily engage in fighting and recover fully (see Exodus 21:18–19). These passages suggest prioritizing the reduction of biocides concentrating toxins in human food chains. Similarly, antibiotics cause the evolution of pharmaceutical-resistant “super-bugs,” thereby further “weaponizing” disease-causing microbes. When the state organizes warfare against humans, Deuteronomy 20:19–20 directs military personnel not to destroy the productive components of the landscape. Although the text has become the basis for the generally applied environmental principle of bal taschit or “do not destroy,” it explicitly instructs the troops to constrain vegetation removal to those trees necessary for siege works. Combatants must leave those trees standing that can be immediately useful after hostilities cease. Implying the trees have worth in themselves, Deuteronomy asks: “Are the trees in the field human beings that they should come under siege from you?” An essential feature of the passage is that God expects the commanders to control their soldiers. Even under the stress of a prolonged engagement, the combatants should exercise discretion in the damage inflicted. Passages containing instructions for the treatment of captives and keeping a camp free from impurity (e.g., Deut. 23: 12–13) similarly assume that combatants can respect religious codes by acting accountably and exercising prudence and vigilance. The first two Biblical examples are instrumental in their concern for human life and livelihood. The third on warfare considers living organisms to have value in themselves, while future worth to the victors is also a consideration. From a Christian perspective, deploying intentionally lethal gear and substances entails responsibilities to constrain their impacts to appropriate targets and spaces and supervise them until they can cause no further harm. Although the Biblical texts focus on damages to individual people, the text concerning the miscarriage expresses elevated concerns for the victims incapable of defending themselves, reproductive potential, and the security of families. Bans on dumping have extended to surplus ordinance, although military exercises and warfare continue to deposit explosives and their by-products in the seas. US regulations have banned anti-fouling paints laced with tri-butyl tin, while copper and other toxicants remain in use. In the case of intentional lethal agency, a high degree of responsibility must rest with the industries, their management, and the agencies that regulate them. Ethically appropriate professional responses include developing less damaging or alternative technologies, banning methods causing high levels of bycatch or habit degradation, confining technologies spatially, and holding users responsible for any collateral damage caused by their gear or chemical applications. Interestingly, this is a sphere where the commercial fishing industry has been attempting mitigation of impacts via designing new technologies that lower bycatch. Fisheries managers have been developing regulations that decrease the number of nets, lines,

246  Susan Power Bratton and traps left adrift or untended. For example, restricting the number of boats in the US-Canadian halibut fishery and simultaneously lengthening the season have reduced the motivation to abandon nets and lines.15 Distributors and purchasers are also accountable, if secondarily. Ethically responsible citizen actions include not purchasing products produced by technologies degrading ocean ecosystems or fishers’ livelihoods. Consumers should support tight international and regional regulation of intentionally lethal technologies. Accountability and Productive Agency The opposite of intentional lethal agency is the application of technologies to improve agricultural or aquacultural productivity or produce energy. Actions intended to promote human welfare become destructive and undermine flourishing in marine ecosystems by releasing wastes or excess materials that cause harmful algal blooms, coral bleaching, and other forms of ecosystemic degradation. A relevant case appears in Exodus (22:5), where the intent is to harvest food or to maintain draft animals for one’s benefit: “When a man causes a field or vineyard to be grazed over, or lets his beast loose, and it feeds in another man’s field, he shall make restitution from the best in his own field and in his own vineyard.” Although this might appear to be farming to farming, it could also be interpreted as a conflict between herding and vineyard management – that is, between two economic sectors. If a greedy neighbor decides to let his free-range livestock decimate an adjoining estate, he must compensate for the damages––with the best produce available. In today’s terms, this makes farmers and golf course managers responsible for causing red tides decimating fisheries, and poisoning manatees. The fact that farming is a food source does not justify harm to the resources of others. A second example, and one that asserts intent via negligence, is the case of the goring bull or ox in Exodus 21. I have previously proposed this as a model concerning unintentional indoor pollution.16 Sometimes identified with “laws of property,” this passage is a “law of agency” or a “law of livelihood.” An ox is not maintained for lethal agency but is necessary to pull plows and carts or provide beef. Exodus 21:28 advises: “When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall not be liable.” If the ox becomes a lethal agent, it counters its productive value, and the community symbolically eliminates it via stoning rather than one person nullifying the threat. The owner cannot benefit from the accident by preparing the carcass for consumption. If the owner, however, knows the animal is inclined to gore and ignores the hazard, the owner’s life is forfeited. Exodus 21:29 advises:” If the ox had been accustomed to gore in the past, and its owner has been warned but has not restrained it, and it kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.” The owner can ransom his own life by paying a sum set by religious courts. The Hebrew laws demanded a cash payment to masters for injury to their male or female servants, but compensation extended also to the case of one ox injuring

Christian Ethics of Waste, Contaminants, and Emerging Pollutants  247 another. Exodus 21:35–36 states: “If someone’s ox hurts the ox of another, so that it dies, then they shall sell the live ox and divide the price of it; and the dead animal they shall also divide. But if it was known that the ox was accustomed to gore in the past, and the owner has not restrained it, the owner shall restore ox for ox, but keep the dead animal.” Exodus 21:33 holds someone who digs a pit responsible if a neighbor’s ox or donkey falls into it and dies. The guilty party must pay for the deceased animal but may claim the carcass. The codes do not directly set deadlines for action. However, delay or argument will result in a rotting mess rather than useable hide and flesh if an animal’s body can be recovered. The codes promote both timely prevention of accidents and immediate reparation of damages. A productive oceanic ecosystem, such as a coral reef or a kelp forest, subject to anthropogenic degradation, is analogous to a living creature falling into a pit. Today, confusion over the responsibilities of productive agency contributes to the most wicked and recalcitrant marine environmental management dilemmas. Among them are the expanding dead zones at river mouths, the death of corals due to warming events and ocean acidification, and the sea-level rise threatening to drown coastal cities and island cultures. Although professionals, including farmers, land managers, and energy companies, must take the lead in changing productive practices, the problems are so embedded in the economics of industrialization that ordinary citizens should also pursue alternative technologies and improved containment of wastes. The greater society should assist farmers and fishers who lack the funds and resources to adopt more sustainable methods. Renovating the industrial conceptualization of productive agency should be among the highest Christian ethical priorities. Disposal of Unwanted Materials or Energy The third category is the intentional disposal of unwanted materials, substances, or even excess energy in the form of heat. The legislative trend has been to ban atsea disposal of garbage, fly ash, and chemical-laced industrial effluents. In the 19th century, pouring untreated sewage into an estuary caused local cholera outbreaks. Today, mercury released into Arctic rivers concentrates hundreds of miles away and many steps up the food chains in marine mammals hunted by the Inuit. Initially identified as benign or non-toxic, materials like plastics have proven to be physical hazards, such as strangling sea turtles when ingested. Supposedly harmless waste can also accumulate or release toxicants, such as microplastics releasing organic chemicals or accumulating heavy metals or petroleum compounds.17 The legislative trajectory has thus shifted from regulating local, direct environmental impacts to reducing interregional or global outcomes that are primarily collateral. Biblical models can confuse what constitutes adequate waste disposal. A constricted reading of Deuteronomy 23:12–14, which directs the Israelites’ armies to bury their waste outside their camps, could erroneously argue ocean dumping is acceptable. The Biblical motive for moving waste outside the camp is: “Because the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp, to save you and to give up your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy, that he may not

248  Susan Power Bratton see anything indecent among you, and turn away from you.” We tend to view the oceans as outside “the camp,” yet humans swim in the seas and take food from their waters. The New Testament offers many images of Jesus, the Disciples, and the multitudes meeting by the sea of Galilee (land-locked though it is) or entering the water (including sinking Peter and shipwrecked Paul). Imagining God walking our beaches or standing waist-deep in our bays to baptize provides a more realistic concept of the camp boundaries. Further, mass release of waste into marine systems is far more likely to spread disease than scattered burying of human waste in soil, which promotes accelerated biodegradation. The estuaries and bays should be “Pure enough to baptize.” From a Christian perspective, intentional oceanic disposal of materials or substances known to be dangerous to humans or marine biota or containing diseasegenerating microbes is a form of violence against one’s neighbors. The best course of action is to prohibit such disposal and require effective treatment or recycling of by-products and wastes. In most cases, the community producing the waste should bear the additional cost of disposal alternatives. Christian support for scientists studying the sources of the materials, or for regulations reducing allowable national shares of the annual inputs, could assist in reducing and ultimately eliminating the growing volume of anthropogenic marine debris and microplastic contaminants. Responsibilities of Innovation The question of whether it is ethically justifiable to wait for widespread and evident damage in the case of newly patented chemicals, materials, or technologies returns to the Biblical instructions concerning a goring ox. The ethical quandary centers on whether Christians are responsible for keeping up with science and technological innovation. To make an analogy with chemicals not previously identified as environmental pollutants, just as any bull can gore and any donkey can destroy a neighbor’s garden, anthropogenic materials introduced into the oceans will impact natural ecosystems. Documenting an emerging pollutant via toxicological science is like a report that a bull has already injured someone. The owner must immediately take the hazard seriously and protect other community members. A model where the bull must kill ten people before it is restrained is not justifiable. The intent of the Levitical codes makes it clear that acting in a timely fashion is a responsibility to the rest of the community. Keeping up with environmental toxicology and chemistry is difficult for the Christian public. Materials like nanomaterials or microplastics have properties making them difficult to casually observe. Having Christians who are scientists, engineers, attorneys, and entrepreneurs communicate scientific outcomes and related policy issues to the church is critical. The entire community is responsible for staying informed about the general categories of risk emerging pollutants cause and supporting research and legislation tracking the fates and impacts of dangerous chemicals and commercial products. The call is for cultivating active community building, not just passive respect.

Christian Ethics of Waste, Contaminants, and Emerging Pollutants  249 Constructive Virtues and Community Limitations From a Christian perspective, the action initiating the release of waste or pollution affects who is responsible for responding and which virtues are most applicable to mitigating the impacts. In the case of intentional lethal agency, the industries and government branches deploying the technology should take primary responsibility for reducing harm to humans, non-target organisms, and non-target spaces. In the case of productive agency with no intent to harm marine organisms, the responsibility encompasses the entire nation or culture due to the centrality of food and energy production in disrupting marine systems. In the case of intentional disposal of unwanted materials, substances, or energy, the local source of the materials should bear the primary responsibility for containment. The essential virtues are prudence, vigilance, accountability, and community building. For Christians, impurity is initiating and expanding lethal agency within human communities and marine ecosystems while denying or eschewing responsibility for the consequences. However, the importance of scale in oceanic systems complicates the application of virtue ethics. Farmers losing excess nitrogen fertilizer in the Mississippi watershed rarely know the fishers facing the offshore dead zone past the river’s delta. Many coastal populations have commendable commitments to their communities and are willing to take personal risks to assist neighbors suffering through storms or stranded at sea due to engine failure. Yet, they are also reticent to betray their friends violating regulations and often prioritize immediate local needs above national and international long-horizon agendas. Various industries similarly protect their management cultures and economic interests. Where prudence, vigilance, and accountability center on the recognizable, local, and tangible, virtue ethics “light” can cause more harm than good. The lawyer’s question in Luke 10––“Who is my neighbor?” ––remains a foundational ethical task. The complexities suggest that negotiated metrics determining allowable levels of releases per stakeholder (including institutions, businesses, and governments) and human and ecosystemic health standards must guide the application of Christian virtues. The passages cited from the Hebrew scriptures all outline definite cases and identify situations requiring timely and specific actions. The sanctions are equally concrete. The application of metrics to the relevant industries and government entities is already the norm, even if perpetually falling short of standards that will ensure human and ecological health and flourishing. The expectations for Christians as world citizens (and as consumers) remain vague and relative. Ultimately, equating accountability with church membership and promoting a “warm and fuzzy” community will not be enough to reverse the spread of harmful algal blooms and coral diseases or recover depleted fisheries. Acknowledgments I thank Nathan Carson and Steven Bouma-Prediger for initiating and shepherding the October 2021 conference in Yosemite and their persistence in solving unexpected problems, from the onset of the COVID pandemic to heavy rain and snow in the Sierras.

250  Susan Power Bratton Notes 1 See, for example, Norman Wirzba. Food & Faith: A Theology of Eating (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). 2 Gary Nabhan. Jesus or Farmers and Fishers: Justice for All Those Marginalized by Our Food System (Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2011). 3 Robert Bullard, Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990). 4 Catherine Knight, New Zealand’s Rivers: An Environmental History (Canterbury, NZ: University of Canterbury Press, 2016). 5 Kelly Alley, On the Banks of the Gaṅgā: When Wastewater Meets a Sacred River (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005), 75–93; David Haberman, River of Love in an Age of Pollution: The Yamuna River of Northern India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006); Susan Bratton, Religion and the Environment: An Introduction (Abingdon, UK: Routledge Press, 2020), 32–36, 146–164. 6 Kimberly Patton, The Sea Can Wash Away All Evils: Modern Marine Pollution and the Ancient Cathartic Ocean (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), loc. 1722–1858. 7 Bratton, Religion and the Environment, 148. 8 Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (Abingdon, U.K.: Routledge, 2003). 9 Patton, Sea Can Wash Away, locs. 642–674, 878–892. 10 Bruce Metzger and Roland Murphy, eds., The New Oxford Annotated Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). 11 Mark Bradley, “Approaches to pollution and propriety,” in Rome, Pollution and Propriety: Dirt, Disease and Hygiene in the Eternal City from Antiquity to Modernity, ed. Mark Bradley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 11–42. 12 Michel J. Kaiser, Martin Attrill, Simon Jennings, David Thomas, David Barnes, Andrew Brierley, Nicholas Graham, Jan Hiddink, Kerry Howell and Hermanni Kaartokallio, Marine Ecology: Processes, Systems, and Impacts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020); Gary Griggs, Coasts in Crisis: A Global Challenge (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017); Christopher Frid and Bryony Caswell, Marine Pollution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017); Judith Weis, Marine Pollution: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); Martin Solan and Nia Whiteley, eds., Stressors in the Marine Environment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016); Martin Solan, Rebecca Aspden and David Paterson, eds., Marine Biodiversity & Ecosystemic Functioning: Frameworks, Methodologies, & Integration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 13 Patton, Sea Can Wash Away. 14 Same references as note 12. 15 Ray Hilborn and Ulrike Hilborn, Overfishing: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 37–39. 16 Susan Bratton, “Penning the goring bull: The ethics of pollution,” in Ecology and Religion: Scientists Speak, eds., Keith Werner and John Carroll, 113–133 (Quincy, IL: Franciscan Press, 1998). 17 Julie Decker, The Plastic Ocean (London: Booth-Clibborn, 2014).

References Alley, Kelly. On the Banks of the Gaṅgā: When Wastewater Meets a Sacred River. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005. Bradley, Mark. “Approaches to pollution and propriety.” In Rome, Pollution and Propriety: Dirt, Disease and Hygiene in the Eternal City from Antiquity to Modernity, edited by Mark Bradley, 11–42. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Christian Ethics of Waste, Contaminants, and Emerging Pollutants  251 Bratton, Susan P. “Penning the goring bull: The ethics of pollution.” In Ecology and Religion: Scientists Speak, edited by Keith Werner and John Carroll, 113–133. Quincy, IL: Franciscan Press, 1998. ———. Religion and the Environment: An Introduction. Abingdon, UK: Routledge Press, 2020. Bullard, Robert. Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990. Decker, Julie. The Plastic Ocean. London: Booth-Clibborn, 2014. Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. Abingdon, UK: Routledge Press, 2003. Frid, Christopher, and Bryony Caswell. Marine Pollution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Griggs, Gary. Coasts in Crisis: A Global Challenge. Oakland: University of California Press, 2017. Haberman, David. River of Love in an Age of Pollution: The Yamuna River of Northern India. Oakland: University of California Press, 2006. Hilborn, Ray, and Ulrike Hilborn. Overfishing: What Everyone Needs to Know. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Kaiser, Michel J., Martin Attrill, Simon Jennings, David Thomas, David Barnes, Andrew Brierley, Nicholas Graham, Jan Hiddink, Kerry Howell, and Hermanni Kaartokallio. Marine Ecology: Processes, Systems, and Impacts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Knight, Catherine. New Zealand’s Rivers: An Environmental History. Canterbury, NZ: University of Canterbury Press, 2016. Metzger, Bruce, and Roland Murphy, eds. The New Oxford Annotated Bible. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Nabhan, Gary. Jesus or Farmers and Fishers: Justice for All Those Marginalized by Our Food System. Minneapolis, MN: Broadleaf Books, 2011. Patton, Kimberly. The Sea Can Wash Away All Evils: Modern Marine Pollution and the Ancient Cathartic Ocean. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Solan, Martin, and Nia Whiteley, eds. Stressors in the Marine Environment. Oxford: Oxford: University Press, 2016. Solan, Martin, Rebecca Aspden, and David Paterson, eds. Marine Biodiversity & Ecosystemic Functioning: Frameworks, Methodologies, & Integration. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Weis, Judith. Marine Pollution: What Everyone Needs to Know. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Wirzba, Norman. Food & Faith: A Theology of Eating. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

20 Reconciling the Food Chain with the Great Chain of Being: A Philosopher’s Reflection on Raising Sheep for Meat Gregory S. Poore A few years ago I introduced myself to students the first day of class and mentioned that I raise sheep. The inevitable question was asked: “So what do you do with the sheep?” I replied, “We eat them. They’re meat sheep.” A young lady, visibly upset at this disclosure, was in disbelief. She blurted out, “That’s like eating your own children!” I gently asked if she ate meat—fried chicken, hamburgers, and so forth. She did. I then pointed out that we weren’t that different in our meat eating, except that I knew where my meat came from and that the animals lived a good life and died a painless death. She was unimpressed. For the entire semester, I had the distinct sense that she beheld me with moral horror. I would like to reflect on what I think is, or at least should be, a matter of universal interest: the ethics of eating animals. My concern is specifically with the ethics of eating domestic animals, ones raised to be eaten, though some of what I say also applies to the ethics of eating wild animals that are hunted. My reflections will involve some abstraction. I am, sometimes for better and often for worse, a philosopher, both by nature and by professional training. But I will also reflect as a shepherd, as someone who raised and cared for sheep for over five years. Before moving for work several years ago, my family and I lived on a small farm. The other permanent residents of the property included a cat, a very old dog, a flock of chickens, a flock of sheep, and Bo, a livestock guard dog that lived with the sheep. I raised Katahdin hair sheep, a meat breed. My flock consisted of anywhere from roughly ten to two dozen sheep, the number fluctuating with spring lambing and winter slaughter. I did not get sheep as an experiment in the ethics of eating animals. But raising sheep forced me to face and wrestle with this topic. I have always been a lover of God’s creation, particularly his living creatures. I also eat God’s creatures. I have generally enjoyed doing so, and have generally done so with a clear conscience. But my conscience is sometimes unsettled. Much of this unsettledness has stemmed from my knowledge of my own ignorance. Is my conscience clear because I know what I am doing? Or is my conscience clear only because I do not know—have decided not to know—what I am doing? In our contemporary consumption of meat, many remain, in the words of Wendell Berry, “in exile from biological reality.”1 Abstraction obscures the ethics of eating animals. On one hand, in the abstract it is easier to demonize eating DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-39

Reconciling the Food Chain with the Great Chain of Being  253 animals. For many people today, removed as they are from the practices of agriculture and animal husbandry, animals in the abstract look like Bambi the deer and Wilbur the pig. On the other hand, it is easy to justify eating animals in the abstract. We know in the abstract that meat comes from animals—animals perhaps not too dissimilar to those we keep as pets. But we remain personally and experientially removed from the entire process by which God’s living creatures become sanitary hamburgers and chicken tenders on our plates. In the abstraction of a fast-food drive thru, no one thinks of, much less sees, the light going out of any living creature’s eyes. We do not really understand and appreciate the cost at which we eat. And if we are honest, most of us like it this way. We find it disquieting and unsettling when something or someone brings too vividly to mind the reality of what we are chewing between our teeth.2 We find it particularly disturbing when we recall rumors of the purported horrors involved in “factory farming” and the inhumane practices that allow us to enjoy our meat cheaply. Here as elsewhere in the moral life, willful ignorance raises a red flag. If we must eat our meat in ignorance, is our eating a guilty pleasure? The answer, for many of us much of the time, must be “yes.” Our cheap meat comes at great cost. Animals are frequently raised and slaughtered in inhumane conditions. Surely it is wrong thus to treat God’s creatures, creatures that he takes delight in, that he made for his own good pleasure, and that he entrusted to us as his stewards. The guilt of eating such meat is compounded by considerations such as the environmental impact of factory farming, the healthfulness of the meat it produces, and the desensitizing and brutalizing effects upon those whose labor makes it possible, such as those responsible for killing animal after animal, day after day.3 Knowing these things, I think we cannot with clear conscience eat such meat before our Maker. If we attempt to ignore these realities, our ignorance is culpable. These considerations are important. Living out their implications is both complex and difficult. But they are not the concern of this paper. Such considerations are incidental to the practice of eating meat: They arise due to the manner we raise and slaughter animals. They are not inherent in the practice of eating meat any more than, say, child labor is inherent in wearing t-shirts. What I wish to consider is the ethics of eating meat when the animals are raised and slaughtered in a humane and conscientious fashion.4 I argue that when animals are thus raised and slaughtered, there need not be anything morally problematic with eating such animals. I will proceed by considering the ethics of my own practice of raising, slaughtering, and eating sheep as humanely and conscientiously as possible, for it is best known to me. What should we make of it? I clearly have blood on my hands; it is literally there from the moment that, grasping a lamb’s lifeless body, I slit its throat to bleed it. Before proceeding, we need to make three things clear. First, the clean hands of those who order meat at a restaurant do not guarantee moral impeccability. If the blood of one of God’s creatures on my hands is morally problematic, we must remember that, morally speaking, blood can be passed between sanitary and sterile hands. Either directly or indirectly through a chain they do not comprehend, eaters of meat pay money for animals to be raised, slaughtered, butchered, cooked,

254  Gregory S. Poore and served on a plate. If there is something morally problematic in these practices, the eater’s lack of physical proximity does not automatically absolve him or her of moral responsibility. By analogy, morally speaking, blood is on the hands of not just a hit man, but whoever hires him. Second, while we do have a moral obligation not to murder humans, we do not have a moral obligation not to kill animals.5 I do not think moral obligations define the extent of the moral life, so this point does not settle the ethics of killing and eating animals. We will have to take up other moral considerations shortly. But that we have no obligation not to kill animals is a substantive and preliminary point, and it deserves some motivation even if a full defense lies beyond the scope of this paper. That killing animals can be wrong is undeniable, as when it is done cruelly or pointlessly. But I do not believe it is inherently wrong. Animals are created by God with a fundamentally lower ontological status than humans, and therefore lack the dignity and sanctity of humans.6 The theological basis of this distinctly human dignity and sanctity is the imago Dei.7 Humans, and only humans, are made in the image of God.8 This is at least part of the reason why God forbids murder but allows humans to kill animals for food—provided they show proper respect for the animals and their Maker by not eating “flesh with its life, that is, its blood” (Genesis 9:3–6).9 Animals have value, but they lack the dignity and sanctity of humans created in the image of God. As Jesus says, “you are of more value than many sparrows” (Luke 12:7). Or even more to the point, “Of how much more value is a man than a sheep!” (Matthew 12:12). I am of course speaking here as a Christian, but this general understanding of the world is not uniquely Christian. It is the idea of what is sometimes referred to as the Great Chain of Being.10 God exists over all. He is all-perfect. He is absolute Goodness. God exists in an unqualified, absolute sense. Lesser, created beings exist, and are good, but their goodness, and thus existence, is hierarchical. Contra Peter Singer, to look upon animals as less than ourselves is not “speciesism,” analogous to racism and sexism, but rather rightly to understand the respective places of ourselves and animals in the hierarchical order of creation.11 As Augustine put it, God “created man’s nature as a kind of mean between angels and beasts.”12 Earlier I said that moral obligations do not define the extent of the moral life. This brings us to our third preliminary point. An obsession with moral duties and obligations, or what is technically referred to as deontology, has dominated modern Western moral philosophy. Recent decades have seen a growing revival of interest in moral virtue, or what is sometimes referred to as virtue ethics. An emphasis on virtue balances an exclusive preoccupation with deontology. It reminds us that the moral life isn’t just about what we do but also about who we are. And it expands our moral horizon with the varied and nuanced language of the virtues. To know that an action is not wrong—that is, not contrary to moral duty—is important and helpful. But the field of the morally permissible is broad and varied. Not all that is permissible is virtuous. Virtue calls us to a higher and more exacting—and I might add, often more exciting—standard than duty demands. I may not be morally obligated to bring a welcome basket to the new family in the neighborhood; I will not have done anything wrong if I don’t. But the generous and hospitable call

Reconciling the Food Chain with the Great Chain of Being  255 of love draws us beyond this moral minimum to be and to do that which is morally excellent. As important as they are, moral obligations do not constitute the whole of the moral life. This means that even if killing and eating animals is permissible, or not contrary to moral obligation, we are not relieved of moral reflection. Virtue involves rightly recognizing and responding to the goodness of God’s creation as we respect both our fellow creatures and our common Creator. While animals are not made in the image of God, they are made by God. Animals may lack the dignity and sanctity of humans, but they are part of the creation God declares “very good” (Genesis 1:20– 25, 31). Our Lord assures us in Luke 12:6–7 that “you are of more value than many sparrows,” yet this suggests that sparrows have value: we may sell five sparrows for two pennies, but “not one of them is forgotten before God.” God cares about and cares for his nonhuman creatures.13 Virtuous image-bearers must do likewise. These reflections force us to ask: Even if my practice of eating lamb is not morally wrong, a violation of moral obligation, is it morally subpar, less than fully virtuous? Would it be morally better if I did not raise, slaughter, and eat meat sheep? Let us consider some possible points of moral deficiency. 1) Is there anything morally questionable in my practice of raising meat sheep, considered in itself? I do not see what it could be. My sheep lived a good life on fresh pasture. From the sheep’s subjective perspective, they seemed perfectly content. They ate when they wanted, slept when tired, and contentedly chewed their cud in the shade. Objectively speaking, I think their life was a good one for sheep, even though they were incapable of appreciating some of this goodness, and even though they disliked and resisted some of it, such as medical care. 2) Is there something morally questionable with the act of eating meat in itself? Once the animal has been rendered into meat, I do not see what might be morally subpar with eating that meat, considered in isolation from the preceding process. Perhaps my inability to see a moral issue at this point is due to a lack of virtue on my part, seared meat-eater that I am. But I think not. Consider, for instance, the story that in 1951 the Explorers Club purportedly served for dinner mammoth that was discovered frozen in a polar icecap. I fail to see anything morally questionable with the dinner. Admittedly, it is possible to eat meat—to eat anything—in an unthankful spirit, in a manner that is gluttonous, in a wasteful fashion, and so forth.14 These are important considerations, and when deeply reflected on they are difficult and weighty. But again, they are incidental to the ethics of eating meat. That one can eat meat viciously—that one can eat anything viciously—is undeniable. The question is whether the practice of eating meat is itself somehow morally suspect, morally subpar. Plausibly, if there is something morally questionable about eating an animal that is raised humanely and consumed in grateful moderation, either it lies in the killing of the animal or is connected to the killing of the animal. From there, it might spread to the raising of an animal to kill it, and the eating of an animal which was killed in order to be eaten. At this point I had better explain what is involved in slaughtering a lamb. I will focus on my own practice as a case study in humane and conscientious slaughter.

256  Gregory S. Poore My lambs die a humane death, at least if I do my work skillfully, which I take pains to ensure. They also die what is, I believe, a good death for a lamb, even though such considerations never arise for them. I lead a lamb destined for slaughter out of the sight of the rest of the flock. By this point it is mostly grown. As it willingly follows me, it has no comprehension of, much less apprehension about, its impending death. The .22 rifle tucked under my arm and the knife at my side mean nothing to it. It remains calm and peaceful, standing on the same five-and-a half acres it was conceived on and has known ever since birth. It is at home. As the lamb lowers its head and nibbles at some food, I carefully and patiently aim at the base of its brain, ensuring just the right point and angle of impact for the bullet. A sharp “bang!”, muffled by the proximity of the rifle’s barrel to the sheep’s head, momentarily shatters the silence. The lamb crumples to the ground, instantly rendered as limp and lifeless as an inanimate object. I quickly check the body for signs of sensibility, and finding none, draw my knife and bleed the carcass. Occasionally, the legs and body involuntarily spasm, the nerves coming to terms with the reality of death. By the time the flow of blood has stopped, so have the spasms. The hardest part of the task now done, I proceed to the long and strenuous work of processing the lamb. 3) Does my practice of slaughtering the lamb cause either pain or suffering? Philosophical literature sometimes distinguishes pain and suffering.15 Very briefly and roughly, pain is an unpleasant physical sensation; it is, for instance, the mere physical sensation of a stubbed toe or a thorn prick. Suffering, by contrast, requires higher-order cognition. It is sometimes argued that suffering requires some level of self-awareness, and also involves a conceptual grasp of reality. Animals clearly can experience pain. Whether they have the capacity for suffering is contested. This is a complicated issue, involving both neuroscience and the impenetrability of the cognitive life of creatures very different from ourselves. To what extent we anthropomorphize the experience of animals is difficult to determine. If animals can experience not only pain but suffering, this will expand the range of concerns for those who wish to treat animals humanely and virtuously. I believe some animals, such as sheep, can experience genuine suffering, at least in a rudimentary and conceptually impoverished sense. What could support this conclusion? If an animal is in pain, it is hard to discern if it is moreover suffering. The purported signs of suffering—say, the whimpering of a dog with a thorn in its foot––could be merely signs of pain. From an outside perspective, it is hard to know if we are mistaking signs of pain for evidence of suffering. To infer an animal is suffering, we need a case where it is experiencing no physical pain—or ideally it is even experiencing pleasure––and yet it is visibly distraught. Since the animal’s distress is not due to physical pain, it is plausibly taken as a sign of suffering, at least in some rudimentary sense. Sheep sometimes exhibit such behavior, leading me to infer they can experience not only pain but suffering. Occasionally a ewe rejects one of her newborn twins and will not let it nurse.16 Sometimes such a ewe can be persuaded to accept the lamb as her own, but only with considerable convincing. Consider how this process often unfolds. I fasten the ewe in the barn so her head has limited motion. Blocking

Reconciling the Food Chain with the Great Chain of Being  257 the view of the ewe, I place the rejected lamb at her udder. At first the ewe may contentedly allow it to suckle. Normally ewes seem to find nursing pleasant, particularly if they have a full udder. But then she gets suspicious. Cocking her head as far as she can, she peers backwards and sniffs. She decides this is not her lamb and becomes visibly upset. She bleats, kicks her hind legs at the lamb, moves around to keep it from nursing, and as a last resort lies down to hide her udder. The ewe is distressed, but not in physical pain. Indeed, assuming her udder is full, the lamb nursing is physically pleasant or at least a relief. She seems to have a conceptual grasp of the situation, and she is not pleased with how she sees it. I consider this a straightforward example of animal suffering. To be clear, I am not saying all animals have the capacity to experience suffering. I have no reason to think that fish, for example, can experience anything like what I have been describing. Nor am I suggesting that all animals with some capacity to suffer can experience suffering in the same way or degree. While chickens may be able to suffer in a rudimentary sense, their suffering is likely qualitatively different from that of sheep. If we practice virtuous animal husbandry, we will treat different animals differently, not only respecting their characteristic natures and needs but being attentive to their capacity for pain and suffering. One final point: that an act causes an animal pain or suffering does not necessarily make it either wrong or vicious. A virtuous shepherd will patiently and persistently work with a ewe to accept a rejected lamb even if these efforts, at least initially, cause her distress. To return to our question: does my slaughtering a lamb cause either pain or suffering? And by extension, need the skillful slaughtering of animals for food be morally problematic for this reason? I do not think so. As noted in my aforementioned account, I slaughter a lamb away from the rest of the flock. They will neither be startled by the gunshot nor smell the blood. The lamb itself has no comprehension of, must less apprehension about, its impending death. It experiences no pain or suffering prior to slaughter, and at the point of death it literally has no time in which to experience pain or suffering. The bullet, traveling faster than the speed of sound, has struck the brain before the sound of the gunshot can reach the lamb’s ears and be transmitted to its brain. Based on the authority of those familiar with the best practices of humane slaughter, I do not think my lambs experienced any pain or suffering.17 If there is any suffering involved in the slaughter, it is the suffering I voluntarily undergo in my anticipation of the act. I remember well the first time I slaughtered a lamb. The night before I lay awake tossing and turning as I mentally rehearsed the plans for the morning. I knew my own lack of experience—that distance between a bookish knowledge and seasoned practical know-how. Coupled with this was an unsettling awareness of what a lack of skill and care might mean for the lamb. Subsequent experience and assurance of skill adequate to the task have lessened my mental anguish, but the anticipation of slaughtering a lamb still weighs on me as a burden. This reflects not a troubled conscience but a conscientious concern to respect the lamb by slaughtering it skillfully and well. I think there are two dimensions to this. The first applies to slaughtering animals in general and the second only to slaughtering animals one has raised. First is an awareness of the lamb as a

258  Gregory S. Poore creature of God. A lamb is not nothing, and killing a lamb is not inconsequential. While it can be permissible to kill God’s creatures, virtue demands doing so in a way that appreciates them for the creatures they are and respects their—and our— Creator. I do wonder whether this is possible on an industrial scale. Reflecting on the practices of his own farm, Joel Salatin notes, “Processing but a few days a month means we can actually think about what we’re doing and be as careful and humane as possible.”18 I moreover worry that giving someone a job of performing this task all day every day is inevitably dehumanizing and desensitizing. Based on the psychological impact of industrialized slaughter, Temple Grandin concludes, “Nobody should kill animals all the time.”19 In addition to being aware of the lamb as a creature of God, I am secondly aware of it as my lamb. Here as elsewhere in the moral life, relationships create ties and responsibilities that heighten and complicate the demands of virtue. To most people, the sheep in my pasture are practically indistinguishable. Each is “a sheep,” a specimen of its species. But I see each individually and know its distinct history and quirks. They moreover know me. They know my voice and will follow me in a way they will not follow others, even my wife. These are my sheep and I am their shepherd. A good and virtuous shepherd ensures his sheep are slaughtered humanely and respectfully, either by finding a reputable slaughterhouse or, in my case, doing the job oneself with care and skill. This makes the responsibility of slaughtering one of my own lambs doubly weighty. The burden of this responsibility creates some suffering for me. In conclusion, my practice of slaughtering lambs does not cause them pain or suffering, and the suffering I voluntarily undergo reflects a virtuous concern to slaughter them with skill and respect. 4) Is eating meat less than morally virtuous because it involves violence? One of the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5 is gentleness, which seems opposed to violence. Isn’t killing and eating animals violent? Here we must distinguish two senses of violence. Killing and eating animals is certainly violent in the sense that it involves violating the bodily integrity of an organism. Cutting up an animal’s body is violent in this sense. But it is not clear how morally significant this is. All eating involves or presupposes this type of violence. Leon Kass refers to this as “the great paradox of life, clearly embodied in the necessity of eating: Living form, to preserve life and form, threatens life and form. Eating is at once form preserving and form deforming.”20 In eating a carrot from my garden, I tear it from the ground, break off its top, peel off its skin, cut it into lengths, and chew it into pieces. I suggest that the truly moral issue of violence concerns not simply that we kill, dismember, ingest, and digest organisms, but rather how we do this, and in particular if we do it in a fashion that fails to appreciate them for the creatures they are. That this is so is suggested by the possibility of slaughtering an animal while being concerned about the experience of the animal, gentle in our treatment of it, and thankful for it. 5) Even if slaughtering and eating an animal need not be violent in a morally problematic sense, does it perhaps involve a failure properly to respect the animal? Slaughter cannot be “dehumanizing” to an animal, for it isn’t a human, but does

Reconciling the Food Chain with the Great Chain of Being  259 it involve objectifying an animal? Is it perhaps “de-animalizing”? Is it treating a living creature of God as a mere instrument to my own purposes, a mere means to the gratification of my desires? Again, it is certainly possible to raise, slaughter, and eat animals in such a greedy and vicious fashion. But as I think my own experience shows, these practices need not be de-animalizing. The lamb and my relation to it must be understood in context. I raised sheep for meat in the sense that if they did not produce meat, I would not have raised them. But I did not raise sheep simply for meat, or even for healthy and humanely raised meat. I raised sheep because I enjoy sheep and I enjoy shepherding them. I love God’s creatures and I delight in caring for them and being with them. These delights are magnified through raising sheep together, as a shared family undertaking. That I treat a lamb as a means is undeniable, but also, I think, unproblematic, for I am not treating it merely as a means, as a mere object. The joy I have taken in its existence and life up to the point of its slaughter has not been in envisioning it as meat on my plate, but rather in the lamb itself, in its life. That I derive pleasure from raising sheep is undeniable, but the presence of such pleasure does not mean I have turned them into mere instruments of pleasure, both gustatory and otherwise. I take pleasure in them, which is to say I appreciate and enjoy them as good creatures made and loved by God and entrusted into my hands as his steward. When I worry over a sick lamb, I am not anxious over whether I will have less meat in the freezer this winter. I am concerned about the well-being of the lamb, period. And when facing the actual slaughter of a lamb, my concern to slaughter it skillfully reflects a concern for the lamb, not as a mere means, but as an animal, as a creature of God with a life that, while lacking the sanctity of human life, is nonetheless valuable and must be treated as such. In raising, slaughtering, and eating sheep, I think I consistently respect them as animals. My approach to slaughtering lambs is aptly described by Wendell Berry, who puts it in sacramental terms: [We cannot] live harmlessly, or strictly at our own expense; we depend upon other creatures and survive by their deaths. To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of Creation. When we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament. When we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration. In such desecration we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness, and others to want.21 It is not wrong to break the body and shed the blood of a lamb or a carrot. But we can greedily objectify them, reducing them to mere things of instrumental value. Virtue demands receiving and eating God’s creatures as just that. This requires eating not in ignorance but with knowledge: knowledge of what we are eating, that it lived a good life, and that it died a humane death. Such responsible knowledge enables one to eat with understanding and with gratitude. A significant part of the pleasure of eating is in one’s accurate consciousness of the lives and the world from

260  Gregory S. Poore which food comes…. Eating with the fullest pleasure––pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance––is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience and celebrate our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living from mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend.22 When broken and consumed with such knowledge, skill, humility, and thankfulness, animals can be eaten while virtuously appreciating them for what they are and honoring the God who has entrusted them into our hands. In so eating, we value animals as neither less nor more than the animals they are. My reflections have been incomplete; there is more that needs to be said. But hopefully they have shown two things. First, eating animals can be morally vicious or even wrong. For many of us much of the time, our eating of meat may fall into one of these categories, including when we eat in willful ignorance. Second, eating animals can be compatible with virtue. The practice of eating meat can be part of humbly and thankfully accepting the place of both ourselves and animals in God’s Great Chain of Being, and it can be a part of caring for, enjoying, and respecting the creatures God has placed under our care. After warning about those who “require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth,” Paul reminds Timothy, “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer” (1 Timothy 4:3–5). Notes 1 Wendell Berry, “The Pleasures of Eating,” in What Are People For? (New York: North Point Press, 1990), 148. 2 According to Leon R. Kass, part of the function of table manners is “to augment, through symbolic deeds, the psychic distance between human eating and the violent destruction that all eating – especially meat eating – entails.” The Hungry Soul: Eating and the Perfecting of Our Nature (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999), 144. 3 Amy J. Fitzgerald, Linda Kalof, and Thomas Dietz, “Slaughterhouses and Increased Crime Rates,” Organization and Environment 22, no. 2 (2009): 158–184. 4 Arguments against eating animals tend to focus on the horrors of factory farming and industrialized slaughterhouses. For this reason many of these arguments do not apply to my thesis. For example, Michael Huemer’s Dialogues on Ethical Vegetarianism (New York: Routledge, 2019) touches on humane farms only in passing (78–79). 5 This implies a denial that animals have a moral right to life. This does not preclude the possibility that animals might have some other rights. For an influential argument that animals have a right to life, see Tom Regan, “The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 5, no. 2 (1975), particularly 205–214. 6 This distinction between humans and animals is an important biblical theme. See, for example, Psalm 8:3–8. 7 See Genesis 1:26–28; 5:1. The exact nature and meaning of the imago Dei is controversial. For an exploration and defense of the dignity of the human person, see Gilbert Meilaender, Neither Beast nor God: The Dignity of the Human Person (New York: Encounter Books, 2009). 8 The imago Dei answers a legitimate question raised by many in the animal rights movement, which is predominantly utilitarian: what distinguishes humans from non-humans,

Reconciling the Food Chain with the Great Chain of Being  261 given similar capacities for pain and perhaps suffering? See Reagan, “The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism,” 213. In Justice: Rights and Wrongs (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), Nicholas Wolterstorff acknowledges that animals have rights (369–370), but claims only humans have “moral rights” (372). Humans’ special worth lies in the conjunction of their being made in the image of God and their being specially loved by God (393, 360, and chapter 16). 9 All Scripture is taken from the ESV. 10 Arthur O. Lovejoy historically traces this idea in The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964). 11 Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, updated edition (New York: Harper, 2009), 6, 18. 12 Augustine, The City of God, trans. Marcus Dods, D.D. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2009), 12.22. See Psalm 8:3–8. 13 Psalm 147:9, Job 38:41; see also Proverbs 12:10. God even makes covenants with animals, as in Genesis 9:8–17. 14 For an excellent treatment of gluttony, see Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung, Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2020), chapter 8. 15 See, for example, Daniel Dennett, “Animal Consciousness: What Matters and Why,” Social Research 62, no. 3 (1995): 691–710, and Daniel Dennett, Kinds of Minds: Toward an Understanding of Consciousness (New York: Basic Books, 1996), especially chapter 6. 16 For the point of this argument, it is important that the ewe has not rejected the lamb due to it having a sharp tooth or because of any other associations with physical pain. It is rejected simply as not being her lamb. 17 An excellent treatment of the best practices of small-scale humane slaughter is Adam Danforth’s Butchering Poultry, Rabbit, Lamb, Goat, and Pork: The Comprehensive Photographic Guide to Humane Slaughtering and Butchering (North Adams, MA: Storey Publishing, 2014). 18 Quoted in Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (New York: Penguin Press, 2006), 233. 19 Temple Grandin, “Commentary: Behavior of Slaughter Plant and Auction Employees toward the Animals,” Anthrozoos 1, no. 4 (1988): 205–213. 20 Kass, The Hungry Soul, 54. 21 Wendell Berry, “The Gift of Good Land,” in The Gift of Good Land: Further Essays Cultural and Agricultural (New York: North Point Press, 1982), 281. 22 Berry, “The Pleasures of Eating,” 152–153.

References Augustine. The City of God. Translated by Marcus Dods, D.D. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2009. Berry, Wendell. The Gift of Good Land: Further Essays Cultural and Agricultural. New York: North Point Press, 1982. Berry, Wendell. What Are People For? New York: North Point Press, 1990. Danforth, Adam. Butchering Poultry, Rabbit, Lamb, Goat, and Pork: The Comprehensive Photographic Guide to Humane Slaughtering and Butchering. North Adams, MA: Storey Publishing, 2014. Dennett, Daniel. “Animal Consciousness: What Matters and Why.” Social Research 62, no. 3 (1995): 691–710. Dennett, Daniel. Kinds of Minds: Toward an Understanding of Consciousness. New York: Basic Books, 1996. DeYoung, Rebecca Konyndyk. Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2020.

262  Gregory S. Poore Fitzgerald, Amy J., Linda Kalof, and Thomas Dietz. “Slaughterhouses and Increased Crime Rates.” Organization and Environment 22, no. 2 (2009): 158–184. Grandin, Temple. “Commentary: Behavior of Slaughter Plant and Auction Employees toward the Animals.” Anthrozoos 1, no. 4 (1988): 205–213. Huemer, Michael. Dialogues on Ethical Vegetarianism. New York: Routledge, 2019. Kass, Leon R. The Hungry Soul: Eating and the Perfecting of Our Nature. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999. Lovejoy, Arthur O. The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964. Meilaender, Gilbert. Neither Beast nor God: The Dignity of the Human Person. New York: Encounter Books, 2009. Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin Press, 2006. Regan, Tom. “The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 5, no. 2 (October 1975): 181–214. Singer, Peter. Animal Liberation, updated edition. New York: Harper, 2009. Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Justice: Rights and Wrongs. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.

21 Justice, Biocentrism, and White Supremacy: John Muir’s Romantic Christian Ethics Russell C. Powell Introduction American environmentalism is slowly undergoing a long-overdue reckoning for its poor historical record on race. Consider the case of John Muir, the renowned nineteenth-century conservationist and founder of the Sierra Club. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in May 2020 and the national ferment over systemic racial injustice that swept the United States that summer, the Sierra Club announced it planned to reexamine Muir’s legacy and abiding influence. Muir denigrated Indigenous peoples as “dirty” and black Americans as “Sambos,” the Sierra Club acknowledged.1 He also propped up and amplified the voices of culturally prominent champions of eugenics like David Starr Jordan, the founding president of Stanford University, who Muir got to serve on the Sierra Club’s board of directors. In a public statement released in July 2020, Michael Brune, the Sierra Club’s then-executive director, wrote that, while Muir’s essays have “taught generations of people to see the sacredness of nature,” they “continue to hurt and alienate Indigenous peoples and people of color who come into contact with the Sierra Club.”2 I want to take Brune’s insight to connect the strength and weakness of Muir’s moral vision—that is, Muir’s promotion of nature’s sacredness together with his promotion of white supremacist ideology—as essential for understanding the moral complexity of Muir’s influential thought. Key to developing this understanding, I argue, are the two distinct ways Muir deployed the Romantic philosophical inheritance. After explicating these two ways in this chapter’s first section, where I rely on the work of the late pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty, I will then turn to illustrating how Muir’s Romanticism, inflected as it was with his unconventional Christianity, was the source of his greatest moral virtue: his biocentric concept of justice, which conferred moral standing on all forms of life. To do this, I will rely on Thomas Aquinas, the great twelfth-century Italian Dominican friar and systematician, whose thinking is helpful for clarifying a figure like Muir and his commitment to the sort of right relations the possession of the virtue of justice requires. Yet Muir’s greatest moral failure, and so his vice, also had its source in his Romanticism, which the final section of this paper explores. There I demonstrate that Muir’s romantic instinct to unduly privilege his intuitive insights hindered DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-40

264  Russell C. Powell his ability to be more critical of his implicit cultural biases against non-white peoples. This, in turn, compelled his participation in the maintenance of white supremacist cultural systems in his day. While Muir is rightly lauded for popularizing the revolutionary idea in American moral discourse that all lifeforms are worthy of respect, I conclude here by noting that Muir’s moral flaws are perhaps even more instructive to us today in the pressing work to preserve healthy environments whose benefits are equally distributed, regardless of anyone’s race or cultural heritage. Two Types of Romanticism Romanticism is famously hard to define. Is it a literary or philosophical tradition? A political movement? Merely a feeling? Scholars have conceived of Romanticism in each of these ways, to varying degrees of success.3 For my purposes, I assume that, however, we define Romanticism, John Muir was a bona fide romantic, by which I mean he prioritized intuitive (rather than rational) forms of knowing, responded to nature as a site of sacred value, and extolled his imagination in a way that flouted social and moral conventions. Muir was an heir of Transcendentalism (the American analog to British and German Romanticism) and influenced latterday romantics in the American environmental movement (Edward Abbey, Donald Culross Peattie, and Julia Butterfly Hill come immediately to mind). The late pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty wrote about Romanticism not so much to define it but as to evince its two key impulses.4 First, Romanticism is a commitment to imaginative progress, Rorty says. For figures like Wordsworth, Emerson, and after them Muir, imagination is the source of human freedom because it is the source of language. Human beings, long ago, began to be able to know things when we began conversing with marks and noises that corresponded with socially derived concepts. Nobody knew what “redness” was before our hominid ancestors began talking about differences in colors. It took the kind of imaginative genius that Romanticism champions, Rorty explains, “to suggest that everybody make the same noise at the sight of blood, of maple leaves in autumn, and of the western sky at sunset.”5 Romanticism nourishes this imaginative linguistic impulse as a source for expanding the parameters of intellectual and moral possibility. New forms of expression, whether through the poetry of Blake, the paintings of Turner, or the cinema of Brakhage, expand the horizon for new forms of knowledge and judgment. The greater potential for human freedom is entailed by imaginative conceptual expansion. Muir has long been hailed for his expansive vision of what and who is worthy of moral regard, clear evidence of his Romanticism as Rorty understands it. The most remarkable feature of John Muir’s moral vision is his biocentrism: his idea that humans are mere members of nature’s wide systems of interdependence rather than inherently superior to other forms of life. The more we acquaint ourselves with wild places, Muir believed, the more we realize the error of unduly prioritizing human interests to the exclusion of all else. “More and more,” Muir writes, “in places like [the Sierras], we feel ourselves part of wild Nature, kin to everything.”6

Justice, Biocentrism, and White Supremacy  265 This was in contrast to the habitual assumptions inculcated by nineteenth-century American industrial society. There, Muir thought, individuals were made to “become apathetic” toward all forms of life “that have no other apparent use than the use of beauty.”7 Hence Muir’s evangelical fervor to get his fellow Americans out of society and into wilderness—he thought it would save their souls. “Keep close to Nature’s heart,” Muir would say, “and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”8 Romanticism’s second key impulse, according to Rorty, is the impulse to nourish nondiscursive claims to truth. For romantics like Muir, intuitive insight was crucial, for by it we can know the natural world without resorting to rational inference. When Muir describes experiences of knowing nature intuitively, he describes moments where he cannot differentiate between his mind and the natural object (or objects) before him. It is a direct acquaintance; his awareness of nature is complete. For example, in the winter of 1872, Muir recounted in his journal a rapturous day spent in the Sierra canyons being “speedily absorbed into the spiritual values of things.”9 Muir signals the quality of his unmediated epistemic connection to the world by writing, “See how willingly Nature poses herself upon photographers’ plates. No earthy chemicals are so sensitive as those of the human soul. All that is required is exposure, and purity of material.”10 The dissolution Muir describes here occasions a depth of knowledge—nondiscursive, intuitive knowledge—inaccessible to conscious reasoning. In these moments, “[Y]ou lose consciousness of your separate existence,” Muir says, and “blend with the landscape, and become part and parcel of nature.”11 Muir here embodies what Alan Hodder, describing American nature writers’ romantic proclivities, has called “mindful naturalism,” which consists of an ecstatic loss of self wherein any sense of separate human identity apart from the larger world becomes inconceivable.12 Another example where we see this idea operating is in the poet Robinson Jeffers’ exploration of fishing in the poem “Salmon-Fishing” as a crucible of humans’ inherent relationality with non-­ human nature. Yet another example is Mary Austin’s rhapsodizing about her walks through the woods, complete with her own photographic metaphors: “You walk a stranger in a vegetating world; then with an inward click the shutter of some profounder level of consciousness uncloses and admits you to sentience of the mounting sap.” One final example is Edward Abbey’s conception of a “hard and brutal mysticism” fit for hard, brutal desert landscapes in which “the naked human self merges with a nonhuman world.”13 In each of these cases, consciousness must be set aside or otherwise overcome to approach the deeper meaning of things—what is ineffable, beyond words. Discursive (or conceptual) knowledge pales when compared to unvarnished intuitive insight: “One day’s exposure to mountains is better than cartloads of books,” Muir writes, echoing Wordsworth’s call to “quit your books” and get outside to where real knowledge resides: “One impulse from a vernal wood/May teach you more of man,/Of moral evil and of good,/Than all the sages can.”14 Muir, like Wordsworth, also found in nondiscursive knowledge a distinctive and incorrigible type of moral knowledge. Immersed in wilderness, Muir believed

266  Russell C. Powell we need not draw practical inferences to know we are amid sacred value, or to know that the destruction of nature’s sacred value would be horrendous. Genuine aesthetic judgments of this sort are not reasoned but intuited. Stand before any of Mariposa Grove’s towering sequoias in Yosemite, Muir would say. We know these trees are sacred intuitively, instinctively, noninferentially. “No words can do anything like justice” to Yosemite’s sequoias, Muir writes.15 We need not make recourse to formal reason to deduce that it would be horrendous if these trees were lost or destroyed. Rorty believes Romanticism’s impulse to privilege nondiscursive knowledge goes too far. If all knowledge is socially derived by virtue of its being wholly dependent on discursivity—if, in other words, we know things only by availing ourselves of concepts, as Rorty contends, and concepts emerge from social practices—then there can be no such thing as private epistemic justification. “There is no such thing,” Rorty puts it, “as simply recognizing the truth when you see it—suddenly recollecting what you have always known, deep down inside.”16 Knowledge is made, not found. It is something we share with others by virtue of the concepts we inherit, institute, and innovate upon, not something we realize alone. Moral judgment, furthermore, is also not a matter of acknowledging truths we know intuitively (like, say, the irreducibility of sequoias to their use-value) without having to give satisfactory reasons for calling something right, true, or good. This is just to say: private insight does not exempt us from having to deal in socially constructed concepts. Morality, like general knowledge construction, is an inherently public enterprise. At no point are we absolved from being held accountable for the things we claim to know. The best and worst of Muir’s moral vision—the most consequential of his virtue and vice—become intelligible when we consider how these two key impulses of Romanticism were expressed in his thought. The best of that moral vision I have already noted: it is Muir’s extensive vision of what counts as being worthy of possessing moral standing. In the subsequent section I note some salient points of Thomas Aquinas’s account of the personal virtue of justice in order to further illuminate Muir’s biocentric perspective, which did so much to broaden public debates in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century America on the moral standing of nonhuman interests. Along with his Romanticism, Muir’s unconventional Christianity also animated his expansive conception of moral worth. Yet Muir’s participation in the maintenance of white supremacy, the worst of his moral vision, also sprang from his Romanticism, namely in his tendency to elevate his private, intuitive insight over the epistemological imperatives of public justifiability, which I return to address in this paper’s final section. Biocentrism, Justice, Respect: Muir’s Greatest Virtue Muir’s Romanticism grounded his biocentric, nonanthropocentric convictions. A hallmark of Romanticism is the idea that value is immanent, its properties perceptible and concrete. The twentieth-century literary critic M.H. Abrams called this “natural supernaturalism,” or the idea that in Romanticism nature is not just replete

Justice, Biocentrism, and White Supremacy  267 with value but sacralized; it is enchanted.17 Muir would have agreed. Echoing his romantic antecedents, he wrote that, as we venture into wilderness: We at once find ourselves among eternities, infinitudes, and scarce know whether to be happy in the sublime simplicity of radical causes and origins or whether to be sorry on losing the beautiful fragments which we thought perfect and primary absolute units; but as we study and mingle with nature more, the pain caused by the melting of all beauties into one First Beauty disappears, because, after their first baptismal submergence in fountain God, they go again washed and clean into their individualisms, more clearly defined than ever, unified yet separate.18 Muir sometimes drew on his evangelical upbringing to articulate the quality of his zeal for wilderness: “Heaven knows that John Baptist was not more eager to get all his fellow sinners into the Jordan than I to baptize all of mine in the beauty of God’s mountains,” he scrawled in his journal.19 Muir’s moral vision was grounded in his idiosyncratic Christianity. He never renounced the evangelical faith he inherited outright, but instead drew on critical biblical traditions to question the anthropocentric assumptions of popular nineteenth-century American evangelicalism. “Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation?” Muir wrote in his travel journal in 1867, sounding like Qoheleth, the speaker in Ecclesiastes, or otherwise like Jesus, who questioned why people worry when God takes such good care of the birds of the air and the lilies of the field (Matthew 6:25–30).20 “What creature of all that the Lord has taken the pains to make is not essential to the completeness of that unit—the cosmos?” Muir continues: “The universe would be incomplete without man; but it would also be incomplete without the smallest transmicroscopic creature that dwells beyond our connectible eyes and knowledge.”21 These words, published in 1914, evince Muir’s romantic predilections insofar as we see in them his instinct to imagine new vistas of moral possibility through novel forms of linguistic expression. Note Muir’s sense that it is not only humans who are worthy of moral regard; even the “transmicroscopic” creatures dwelling beyond all we might conceive deserve standing in our moral considerations. Muir’s imaginative expression, which his popular essays put into wide public circulation, helped create new landscapes upon which moral thought could roam and explore, including the imperative to acknowledge nonhuman interests in our moral considerations. Considered in light of Thomas Aquinas’s account of justice as a personal virtue, Muir’s biocentrism can be counted among the virtues he possessed. For Aquinas, justice is a virtue of the will, or a stable disposition grounded in a reasoned conception of the good.22 The virtue of justice is crucial to an individual’s moral personality. It disposes us toward the comprehensive good of others and of communities while also holding in balance the good of ourselves. Aquinas identified the object of justice as the jus, the right, which he understood in terms of rendering to another that which is their due. “Justice is a habit,” he writes, “in accordance with which someone, through a constant and perpetual will, renders his right to each one.”23

268  Russell C. Powell Generally speaking, justice may be oriented toward the common good of society, but as a personal virtue, justice specifically disposes one rightly toward individuals. In contrast to Plato, who believed justice consists of the right ordering of the capacities of the soul, Aquinas thought justice perfects an individual by bringing them into right relation with others. The proper aim of justice is not to promote one’s own inner harmony or personal integrity, but to dispose one to act rightly toward other people. Justice, in this way, is distinguished as a virtue by its orientation, that is, toward others and not the agent’s own well-being.24 Importantly, Aquinas sees justice as paradigmatically exercised through actions involving exchanges in accordance with the norm of equality. Aquinas’s commitment to the view that all humans are equal informs his belief that the ideals proper to equality should have some bearing on every aspect of our social interactions and exchanges.25 Aquinas often relied on Aristotle’s conception of justice, yet an important place where he differs from Aristotle is in denying the claim that some humans are natural slaves.26 Slaves, too, are human beings, Aquinas argues, in full possession of reasoned, free judgment. Aquinas thus stretched the contemporaneous parameters of who was assumed to be worthy of moral regard, thereby repudiating any distinction between true and false or pseudo-humans. All human beings possess moral standing, according to Aquinas, and moreover, are worthy of equal consideration in the distribution of social benefits and burdens. Indeed, while the virtue of justice often requires more than extending equal regard and distribution to all parties involved in social exchanges, it will never require less. Muir, too, stretched the parameters of moral regard of his time, as we have seen, by extending regard to individual nonhuman lifeforms. But more than that, Muir extended moral regard to entire ecosystems, landscapes, and biomes as well. Aquinas would have disagreed with this part of Muir’s moral vision. Creatures lacking sentience do not require the type of moral regard humans do, Aquinas believed.27 Muir, however, thought all forms of life had standing in the “world’s great family.”28 “When we try to pick out anything by itself,” Muir famously wrote, “we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”29 All beings deserve moral regard simply by virtue of their belonging to the web of life. When I describe Muir as “biocentric,” I do not mean to suggest he was committed to axiological egalitarianism, or the idea that all lifeforms’ interests deserve equal moral consideration. Aquinas similarly did not believe the norm of equality required treating people identically regardless of circumstance. Justice, after all, does not render everyone the same consideration, but what they are due. Because the legitimate rights and needs of different people vary, justice requires treating people differentially. Equity is preferred to a facile equality. Still, Muir’s nature writings and journals are nothing if not representative of a deep biocentric consciousness. For the philosopher Paul Taylor, biocentrism conduces to an attitude of respect for nature, a character trait necessary for exemplifying “those virtues that enable [a person] to deliberate correctly about what action ought to be done and to carry out the decision resulting from that deliberation,” namely with regard to one’s relationship to the natural environment.30 To possess a biocentric respect for nature like Muir is to refine and stabilize one’s character

Justice, Biocentrism, and White Supremacy  269 so as to reveal a certain kind of human excellence—mindful of nature’s interests, solicitous of its needs, protective of its survival. According to Aquinas, it is not as if the just person cares about justice alone, but the virtue of justice qualifies the orientation of the will toward a certain ordering of virtuous acts.31 Muir can be thought to have possessed a semblance of the virtue of justice insofar as he habituated certain duties, obligations, and responsibilities one should consider in relation to the natural world when rendering its due. The respect-based sense of justice Muir had for nature diverges in certain critical aspects from Aquinas’s account of justice, most notably in what Muir would recognize as Aquinas’s anthropocentric conception of equality and the question of what makes something worthy of moral regard. Nevertheless, Muir’s orientation toward nonhuman nature expresses a habitual disposition toward justice to the extent that it fulfills a standard of respect for all forms in the interconnected web of life. White Supremacy and Conceptual Bias: Muir’s Greatest Vice Muir’s habit to consider and act on behalf of the interests of nonhuman members of the biotic community shows just how much he stretched the modern concept of justice, as well as the virtuous character of his disposition to render what was right to all members of the ecological community. It is all the more curious, then, that Muir did not extend a similar respect and regard to his non-white neighbors in places like Yosemite Valley. In perhaps the starkest example in all his published work, Muir regards the Modoc people of California as unfit to inhabit the Sierra landscape, writing, “[M]ost [Modoc] Indians I have seen are not a whit more natural in their lives than we civilized whites. … The worst thing about them is their uncleanliness. Nothing truly wild is unclean.”32 Writing this in 1869, Muir demonstrates no cognizance of the systematic domination Indigenous peoples experienced in California in the middle- to late-nineteenth century. While Muir developed that awareness later in life, such as during his various trips to Alaska in the 1890s where he traveled and lived with various Indigenous communities, his words about California’s Indigenous peoples nevertheless served to bolster the white supremacy prevalent in nineteenth-century America, especially in the American West.33 Rorty’s worry over Romanticism’s support for claims to nondiscursive access to truth helps to clarify just what went wrong in Muir’s white supremacist assumptions, as well as how they can be distinguished from his virtuous biocentrism. Recall Muir’s claims to possess a direct access to objective reality through his intuitive sense, instantiated by his describing how nature “poses herself” on the human mind like light imposes itself on plates in a camera to create a photograph. Here, Muir likely had the photography of Carleton Watkins in mind, whose wetplate photographs of Yosemite were some of the first to promote the valley’s magnificence to American audiences. In the nineteenth century, photography gained a reputation for being more objective than landscape painting, which contained the painter’s subjective impressions, most famously in the work of William Keith and Albert Bierstadt, whereas photographers like Watkins and later Ansel Adams were thought to capture the bare facts of where their lenses pointed. Muir likewise

270  Russell C. Powell employs the metaphor of photography to connote the dissolution of his subjectivity. Making no inferences and applying no concepts, Muir’s nondiscursive, intuitive knowledge, he believed, was the product of his mind simply receiving things as they truly are. Crucially, Muir’s white supremacist assumptions were derived in the same manner in which he derived the knowledge from nature he presumed to have intuited. Both assumptions, in fact, developed from noninferential aesthetic judgments. While Muir intuited that “one touch with nature makes all the world kin” from his feelings of thoroughgoing sympathy with the nonhuman world, he also intuited that Indigenous peoples appeared as if, he wrote, they “belong to another species.”34 Intuitions about race, like intuitions about nature’s sacred value, are formulated by social practices and the concepts they involve. However we conceive of the intuition and its power, it is imperative we acknowledge that it does not give us unsocialized, unconceptualized access to knowledge or value. We may not rationally infer, say, that the redwood standing before us in Mariposa Grove is beautiful or majestic, but we nevertheless employ concepts like “beautiful” and “majestic” when we claim to possess an intuitive knowledge of the redwood, its value, and what it means to us. Moments when we arrive at (or receive, as Muir might say) intuitive, noninferential knowledge often involve experiences of awe and wonder, so entail some difficulty when we attempt to express them verbally. But our intuitions are not ineffable. They are constituted by the concepts our mind draws on to conceive them. Moreover, intuitive knowledge of the kind Muir claimed to possess is not infallible. Our concepts often carry certain biases and prejudices based on how they are used in discursive activity. We are biased, for example, to think of “redness” when we think of blood, to return to Rorty’s example from before. A “bias” in this sense is a prejudice insofar as it is a pre-judgment, a noninferential assumption developed from a habitual practice of thinking about blood in a certain way. In 1869, when Muir was intuiting the Modoc Indians to be “unclean” or “dirty,” and therefore unworthy of respect, he was similarly deploying conceptual biases endemic to the discursive practices of white supremacy Muir’s early-career writing helped to maintain.35 It is in this way, Rorty says, that Romanticism’s penchant for privileging nondiscursive truth claims “becomes the enemy of progress,” and so also of human freedom. By “[elevating] private insight over public justifiability”36 white supremacy is accepted, even if it cannot be publicly justified. Thankfully, the popular moral imagination has progressed beyond the point where such value judgments are reckoned acceptable. We are right to see that Muir’s intuitions of Indigenous peoples’ cultural worth were not direct insights, but assumptions of certain deluded discursive biases masquerading as intuitive truths. As Muir matured and became more intimately acquainted with Indigenous peoples such as those with whom he traveled in Alaska, the sharp edges of his racial biases dulled. Muir’s friendship with the Tlingit guide Toyatte (about whom Muir wrote, “[N]ever under any circumstances did I ever see him do anything, or make a single gesture, that was not dignified”), and the fact that Muir was adopted by a Tlingit tribe during his 1880 trip to Alaska and was given the name “Ancoutahan,”

Justice, Biocentrism, and White Supremacy  271 or “adopted chief,” offer support for concluding that Muir evolved in his thinking on Indigenous life and cultures.37 Nevertheless, Muir’s early white supremacist views represent a vicious strain in crucial parts of his work. Having not widened the circle of his moral regard to include Indigenous peoples, Muir’s commitment to justice can at best be said to be incomplete. While his biocentrism is worthy of imitation, Muir’s flawed views on race should inspire us to improve on his example in our work to preserve and sustain a healthy environment whose benefits are available to all. Notes 1 John Muir, Nature Writings, ed. William Cronon (New York: Library of America, 1997), 186; John Muir, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf, ed. William Frederic Badé (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1916), 51. 2 Michael Brune, “Pulling Down Our Monuments,” Sierraclub.org, July 22, 2020, https:// www.sierraclub.org/michael-brune/2020/07/john-muir-early-history-sierra-club. 3 Principal examples include Harold Bloom, The Visionary Company: A Reading of English Romantic Poetry (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1961); M.H. Abrams, Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1973); and Isaiah Berlin, The Roots of Romanticism, 2nd ed. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2013). 4 My engagement with Rorty’s work on Romanticism draws mainly from two essays in his Philosophy as Cultural Politics (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2007), “Pragmatism as Romantic Polytheism” (pgs. 27–41) and “Pragmatism and Romanticism” (pgs. 105–19). I also draw from Rorty’s 2004 Page-Barbour Lectures, published in the brief volume Philosophy as Poetry (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2016). 5 Rorty, Philosophy as Poetry, 14. 6 Muir, Nature Writings, 297. 7 Ibid., 497. 8 Samuel Hall Young, Alaska Days with John Muir (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1915), 216–217. 9 John Muir, John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir, ed. Linne Marsh Wolfe (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1979), 93. 10 Ibid., 95. 11 John Muir, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf, 212. 12 Alan Hodder, Thoreau’s Ecstatic Witness (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), 65–67. 13 Robinson Jeffers, The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers, ed. Tim Hunt (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 19; Mary Austin, The Land of Journey’s Ending (New York: The Century Co., 1924), 39–40; Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness (New York: Random House, 1968), 7. 14 Muir, John of the Mountains, 95; William Wordsworth, “The Tables Turned,” in The Poetical Works of Wordsworth (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1982), 83. 15 Muir, Nature Writings, 212–213. 16 Rorty, Philosophy as Poetry, 52. 17 M.H. Abrams, Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1973). 18 Muir, John of the Mountains, 79–80. 19 Ibid., 86. 20 Muir, Thousand-Mile Walk, 139. 21 Ibid.

272  Russell C. Powell 22 My understanding of Aquinas’s account of justice as a virtue is guided by Jean Porter and her crucial book Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016). 23 Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologiæ of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Latin-English Edition, vol. VII, Secunda Secundae, Q. 141–189 (NovAntiqua, 2014), II-II 58.11. Hereafter, citations from Aquinas’s Summa will be referenced by the acronym ST, together with the relevant volume, part, and chapter. 24 Aquinas, ST II-II. 57.1. 25 Aquinas, ST II-II 80. 26 For Aristotle’s account of “natural slavery,” which Aquinas disputes, see his Politics, trans. Carnes Lord (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), 11. For more on Aquinas’s reinterpretation of Aristotle’s concept of equality, see Porter, Justice as a Virtue, 129–131. 27 Aquinas, ST I-II 6.2, 13.2 28 Muir, Nature Writings, 179. 29 Ibid., 245. 30 Paul W. Taylor, Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), 88. 31 Aquinas, ST II-II 56.5. 32 Muir, Nature Writings, 285. 33 In saying Muir bolstered white supremacist cultural assumptions, I mean to say Muir participated in the general belief that white Americans constituted a superior race. There is no doubt that Muir’s racism against non-white Americans attenuated as he aged. Yet there is also no denying that his vocal participation in the culture of white supremacy in late-nineteenth-century America served to maintain a larger institutionally-perpetuated system for defending white people’s wealth, power, and privilege. 34 Muir, Nature Writings, 157. 35 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, in his influential book Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States, 2nd ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006), develops the concept of “white habitus,” which is a “racialized, uninterrupted socialization process that conditions and creates whites’ racial taste, perceptions, feelings, and emotions and their views on racial matters” (104; original emphasis). Having had little experience with non-white peoples in both Scotland and Wisconsin, Muir can be said to have carried certain assumptions of the sort of white habitus that was consequential to the maintenance of high levels of social and spatial segregation in the places he frequented and called home later in life. 36 Rorty, Philosophy as Poetry, 52. 37 See John Muir, Travels in Alaska (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1915), 248; 41. Aaron Sachs, in The Humboldt Current: Nineteenth-Century Exploration and the Roots of American Environmentalism (New York: Penguin Books, 2006), provides the most balanced analysis of the evolution Muir underwent in his thinking on Indigenous peoples. While at times, Sachs says, Muir esteemed indigenous tribes like Alaska’s Aleuts, Inuits, Tlingits, and Chukchis as those “who taught him his most important lessons about living with nature” (313), Sachs is also clear-eyed about the fact that, despite Muir’s fleeting admiration for certain qualities of the tribes with which he came into contact, he “was not free of the racism that so dominated his culture” (327).

References Abbey, Edward. Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness. New York: Random House, 1968. Abrams, M.H. Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature. New York: W.W. Norton and Co, 1973.

Justice, Biocentrism, and White Supremacy  273 Aquinas, Thomas. The Summa Theologiæ of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Latin-English Edition, vol. VII, Secunda Secundae, Q. 141–189. NovAntiqua, 2014. Aristotle. Politics. Translated by Carnes Lord. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013. Austin, Mary. The Land of Journey’s Ending. New York: The Century Co, 1924. Berlin, Isaiah. The Roots of Romanticism. 2nd ed. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2013. Bloom, Harold. The Visionary Company: A Reading of English Romantic Poetry. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1961. Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States. 2nd ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006. Brune, Michael. “Pulling Down Our Monuments.” Sierraclub.org, July 22, 2020, https:// www.sierraclub.org/michael-brune/2020/07/john-muir-early-history-sierra-club. Hodder, Alan. Thoreau’s Ecstatic Witness. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001. Jeffers, Robinson. The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers, edited by Tim Hunt. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001. Muir, John. A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf, edited by William Frederic Badé. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1916. ———. John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir, edited by Linne Marsh Wolfe. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1979. ———. Nature Writings, edited by William Cronon. New York: Library of America, 1997. ———. Travels in Alaska. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1915. Porter, Jean. Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016. Rorty, Richard. Philosophy as Cultural Politics. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2007. ———. Philosophy as Poetry. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2016. Sachs, Aaron. The Humboldt Current: Nineteenth-Century Exploration and the Roots of American Environmentalism. New York: Penguin Books, 2006. Taylor, Paul W. Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986. Wordsworth, William. The Poetical Works of Wordsworth. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1982. Young, Samuel Hall. Alaska Days with John Muir. New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1915.

22 The Virtue of Intersectionality in Environmental Ethics Kevin J. O’Brien

“There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives. Malcolm knew this. Martin Luther King, Jr. knew this. Our struggles are particular, but we are not alone.”1

Introduction On August 24, 1955, a 14-year-old Black boy named Emett Till encountered a 21-year-old white woman named Carolyn Bryant in a grocery store. The details of their interaction are disputed, but witnesses report that he whistled. She took offense, and four days later Bryant’s husband and his half-brother kidnapped, beat, and killed Emmett Till. They left his body in the Tallahatchie River, where it was found three days later. Till’s mother arranged a public, open-casket funeral because she “wanted the world to see.” Thousands viewed his mutilated body, and the case drew national attention. However, the two men who admitted to taking Till were acquitted and freed less than a month later.2 The story of Emett Till’s lynching was a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement and a great deal of activism since. It remains a terrible part of the history of white supremacy in the United States that demonstrates the ways blackness, whiteness, masculinity, and femininity have been constructed to endanger Black people. Till’s fate also reveals something about the way U.S. culture treats disabled people. He had a speech impediment caused by polio infection and had learned to whistle as a way to relax his throat when he had trouble speaking. She “believed that the whistle leading to her son’s death had been the result of an attempt to free his voice, rather than a wolf whistle directed at a white woman.” Thus, Till’s death may well have resulted from Carolyn Bryant’s ignorance of the fact that he was disabled.3 Still another connection comes from the climate activist and author Mary Anaïsse Heglar, who notes that Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast the day after the fiftieth anniversary of Emmett Till’s murder, and that “the anniversary was the biggest story in Mississippi before the storm.” She connects the violence of Katrina to the violence of white supremacy, noting that “hurricanes start off the coast of Africa and gather strength as they cross the Atlantic, following almost exactly the route of slave ships.” She also suggests that linking Katrina and Till’s murder offers DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-41

The Virtue of Intersectionality in Environmental Ethics  275 a powerful call for climate action: “I thought of Emmett and his open casket, as I watched New Orleans and the coasts turn into open graves.”4 This chapter argues that such connections between seemingly disparate events, experiences, and issues are vital for environmental ethics. I will suggest that this type of thinking, intersectional analysis, should be understood as a virtue. Recognizing that environmental issues intersect with race, gender, ability, class, indigeneity, and many other markers of identity is essential for any just response to environmental degradation. So, ethicists should work to develop the habit of intersectionality, helping people to avoid the vices of drawing sharp distinctions or assuming easy connections. Discussions of intersectionality require careful attention to identity and positionality, and so I should note that I come from the United States, a context in which my identities are privileged. I am a white, cisgendered male, descendent from colonizing peoples. I was raised Christian in a culture where Christianity is considered the norm. I am neuro-typical and able bodied and I have been middleclass my entire life. Recognizing that there are limits to what can be experienced by someone with my background, I seek in this paper to rely mostly on texts by people from more marginalized identities. Furthermore, I address my normative arguments in this paper to other privileged people. Every reference to “we” or “us” refers to people of privilege in the industrialized world, and I claim no authority over any other audience. We, privileged people, need to learn from Emmett Till, from Hurricane Katrina, and from many other people and events about the intersections at the roots of environmental degradation. Intersectional Analysis Activist and scholarly discourses around race and gender tend to emphasize that every person’s experience occurs at meeting points of multiple identities and that those identities are shaped by social structures of power. This is intersectional analysis, which assumes that any constructive fight for justice must involve coalitions between people from different social locations who pay careful attention to the power structures defining and influencing their identities. While such analysis goes back centuries, the term “intersectionality” is credited to legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw. In 1989, she published “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex,” in which she centered the experience of Black women in the U.S. to demonstrate that discrimination and injustice compound when people have multiple marginalized identities. So, she argued, the injustices inflicted on women and Black people cannot be adequately understood, much less addressed, in isolation from one another. The intersectional experience of Black women “is greater than the sum of racism and sexism;” the uniqueness of Black women’s oppression can only be grasped when we understand that multiple oppressions overlap and that multiple constructed identities shape every Black woman’s experience.5 Crenshaw further argues that intersectional analysis can build “strength, community, and intellectual development” by drawing attention to diversity

276  Kevin J. O’Brien within identity groups as well as between them. This mitigates the temptation among activists to “split one’s political energies between two sometimes opposing groups,” to choose between, say, standing with women or people of color. The goal is instead an “intersectional empowerment,” work that finds connection across and between identities while also respecting the differences between them. To recognize that women are defined not only by their gender but also by their race, religion, ability, and citizenship is to create a more inclusive movement for women’s liberation. To recognize that a movement led exclusively by Black men cannot fully understand or advocate for Black women and non-binary people is to move toward a more inclusive approach to racial justice. All identities “are in fact coalitions, or at least potential coalitions waiting to be formed.”6 While Crenshaw advocates broad acceptance of intersectionality across many identities, she also emphasizes that the experiences of Black women are particularly instructive in the U.S. context because Black women have been so marginalized in the nation’s social and cultural structures. The same logic also informs the Black Lives Matter movement. As co-founder Alicia Garza explains, Black lives “are uniquely, systematically, and savagely targeted by the state.” So, she argues, the work of justice requires “active solidarities with us, Black people, unwaveringly, in defense of our humanity.” Garza understands that other groups are also oppressed and that every human life is valuable; but she insists that it is morally and strategically important to acknowledge particular threats to particular Black lives. Furthermore, Garza argues, violence against Black people is symptomatic of a deep and pervasive problem, and so protecting Black lives benefits everyone. “When Black people get free, everybody gets free.”7 Other authors have supplemented attention to race and gender with indigeneity, class, sexuality, ability, nationality, age, religion, and myriad other identities. Each of these identities represents a complex set of social dynamics and personal experiences. A key principle in most intersectional thinking is therefore that the experience of any marginalized group is best understood by members of that group themselves. This means that the work of intersectional analysis is incredibly complicated, requires broad coalitions, and can never be simplistically finished. Such ongoing complexity begins to suggest common ground with moral virtues. Theologians Grace Si-Jun Kim and Susan Shaw have helpfully applied intersectional analysis to the project of Christian ethics. They argue that the focus on marginalized peoples’ experiences calls for attention to theological particularities. Good thinking about the divine, they argue, “makes room for the specific, the idiosyncratic, the overlooked and marginalized that may be speaking in God’s still, small voice.” Thus, the task of theology is to foster humility and caution, to “destabilize fixed notions of theological truth by offering multiple and competing statements.”8 In sum, intersectional analysis insists that socially constructed identities matter, that the powers behind the construction of those identities must be critiqued, and that people from marginalized identities have particular insight into the realities of oppression and the work of justice.

The Virtue of Intersectionality in Environmental Ethics  277 Intersectionality and Environmental Ethics The first argument of this chapter is that intersectionality is a key concept for any privileged person who seeks to understand and respond to the moral challenges of environmental degradation. This point is made well by the womanist theologian Delores Williams, who observes that the Black women’s bodies and the natural environment are both too often marred by “the sin of defilement,” which she defines as “wanton desecration.”9 The quintessential example of this sin is the treatment Black women suffered under chattel slavery, when they were routinely raped and tortured by white men who believed themselves to be owners and who violently asserted power over Black women and those who sought to protect them. That is the sin of defilement.10 Williams identifies the same oppressive system in environmental degradation. Like the violent mistreatment of enslaved women, deforestation and extinction are justified as a “God given right,” defensible because they offer “greater profits, comfort, and leisure for more Americans.”11 To understand environmental degradation as defilement draws explicit attention to the fact that sexism and racism are contributing to fundamental, unprecedented changes to earth’s systems. Patriarchy and white supremacy construct a world in which women’s bodies can be defiled, people of color must serve those who believe themselves to be white, and the defilement of the “earth’s body” is justified by “the benefit of a few people with money.” As Williams writes: “the assault upon the natural environment today is but an extension of the assault upon black women’s bodies in the nineteenth century.”12 This is not merely an analogy between environmental degradation and white supremacy. Instead, it suggests that the sins of slavery literally continue in contemporary treatment of the nonhuman world. The intersection is historical and real. We continue to live within social structures that justify wanton desecration, and most of us who are socialized as white and male have learned to ignore it. Our inability to reckon with the racist violence of the past makes us ill-equipped to recognize the extension of that violence in mining, deforestation, pollution, and climate change. Only by learning to recognize oppressive systems broadly can we develop a realistic understanding of contemporary environmental realities. Only by standing against the defilement of women and people of color can we effectively resist the defilement of the atmosphere. Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg also advocates an intersectional approach to environmental issues. As she traveled across Europe and North America speaking about climate change in 2018 and 2019, she repeatedly insisted that any effective response to climate change requires an intersectional focus on equity.13 She also spoke from her identity as a young person, claiming authority based on the marginalization of that identity. For example, when speaking to a group of European Leaders, she decried the lack of political action on climate change by saying “you’re acting like spoiled, irresponsible children” and spoke on behalf of her generation to assert, “we have started to clean up your mess and we will not stop until we are done.”14 Thunberg also claimed authority based on her identity

278  Kevin J. O’Brien as someone on the Autism spectrum, arguing that her own commitment to telling the truth about the state of the world comes from the gift of her neurodivergence. Thunberg suggests that climate change has the potential to unify movements for justice in a harmonious coalition. She offers an image of social movements gathered and centered by climate change, picturing feminism “standing outside one door stamping its feet” while “humanism, anti-racism, the animal-rights movement, those who fight for refugees, or against mental illness” each stand by their own doors. “The climate movement has a key that fits all the doors,” creating an opportunity for intersectional thinking that learns from each movement and brings them together in a common cause.15 Greta Thunberg and Delores Williams provide tools to understand environmental degradation as an intersectional issue. Williams explains how the roots of the systems that led to rampant and unchecked anthropogenic climate change are intertwined with the roots of white supremacy, sexism, and many other forms of injustice. Thunberg articulates a model of climate activism that requires a coalition of people from diverse identities combining perspectives, recognizing that injustices are best addressed where they intersect. The Virtue of Intersectionality The second argument of this chapter is that intersectionality should be understood as a virtue within environmental ethics. Thomas Aquinas defines a virtue as “a good habit, productive of good works.”16 While morality is often characterized by lists of rules to be obeyed and tasks that need to be completed, the virtue tradition instead focuses on habits, on the daily practices that shape people over time. Our virtues are formed by what we repeatedly do. When we have good habits, we do good things. Thinking about virtue means thinking about how ethics develops slowly, over time, and how there are always opportunities to cultivate good habits and therefore do good in the world. So, for example, the classical virtue of justice is not about applying written laws with exactitude, nor about achieving a perfect society of complete equity. Rather, it is about the daily habits of treating others fairly, of weighing and balancing questions of distribution and representation. The more we cultivate these habits, the better equipped we are to understand and react well when we encounter injustice. Justice is a virtue because it is cultivated over a lifetime. I argue that intersectional analysis should also be understood as a virtue. Contemporary discourse too often presents intersectionality as a list of conversational and political rules that must be performatively followed if one does not want to be “cancelled.” But intersectionality is neither that simple nor that absolute. Noticing, learning from, and acting on intersectional identities and power dynamics cannot be reduced to a set of deontological rules. The work of building connections across diverse identities is never completed. Intersectional analysis is a habit to be cultivated, one that requires constant revision and steady practice to make us better people. It is, in other words, a virtue. A habitual approach to intersectionality is demonstrated in the way eco-womanist Melanie Harris writes about the death of Eric Garner. In July of 2014, a police

The Virtue of Intersectionality in Environmental Ethics  279 officer in Staten Island pinned Garner to the ground in an illegal chokehold and refused to relent, even when Garner spoke his final words, “I can’t breathe.” Harris notes that, as a scholar of environmental ethics, she “took a step back” when she learned of Garner’s death. Attending to this death and the developing Black Lives Matter movement, she began to develop a larger view of environmental work. She began to see “the work of justice being done in the green movement,” identifying intersections between the challenges of police violence and environmental degradation. This new habit of attention led Harris to note the underreported fact that Garner suffered from asthma “as a consequence of the environmental health hazard of air pollution,” and that this asthma contributed to the lethality of the chokehold in which he died. Garner was killed “not only because of racially motivated violence, but also because the air in his community robbed him of a normal quality of life.” 17 Harris does not assert that Garner’s death must be understood in a single way or from a single identity. Instead, she narrates the story of her own developing intersectional perspective, demonstrating how she cultivated a habit by identifying connections between white supremacy and environmental degradation. She calls on her readers to do the same, to “see the connections between social justice and environmental justice, and to hear these important earth stories.”18 I believe she is describing the formation of a virtue, an intellectual predisposition to identify connections between injustices and a moral practice of learning from the diverse experiences of marginalized peoples. The frequent appeal to the word “justice” in the previous paragraphs might lead some to suggest that what I am proposing is best understood as a tweak to a classical virtue rather than a new virtue of its own. Perhaps intersectionality is simply a part of and necessary condition for the virtue of justice? This is a reasonable position, and the virtue of justice certainly requires attention to the issues I’ve been discussing.19 However, I advocate for treating intersectionality as a new, independent virtue in deference to contemporary discourse on the subject. Advocates for intersectionality emphasize that mainstream legal, philosophical, and theological traditions have missed issues of identity and power in their discussions of justice. Traditional views have too quickly assumed that only one kind of people matter in defining and enacting justice. For example, Kimerlé Crenshaw writes that “race, gender, and other identity categories are most often treated in mainstream liberal discourse as vestiges of bias or domination.” By contrast, she insists that “the social power in delineating difference need not be the power of domination; it can instead be the source of social empowerment and reconstruction.”20 This is not just a defense of intersectional analysis; it is also an assertion that such analysis departs from inherited ideas of justice. Put another way, while justice attempts to blindly treat everyone the same, intersectionality depends upon clear-eyed understanding of how diverse peoples have widely different experiences. So, the best path toward that cultivation is to treat intersectionality as its own virtue, compatible with justice but never reduced to it. Christian ethicists Sarah MacDonald and Nicole Symmonds have observed that “virtue and liberation are rarely bedfellows,” in part because “virtue ethics foregrounds individual selfhood and character formation.”21 Recognizing

280  Kevin J. O’Brien intersectionality as a virtue redresses this, foregrounding the ways that character and morality are shaped by socially constructed identities and cultivated when one learns from the identities of others.22 Another defining feature of a virtue is that it strikes a balance between two vices, which Aristotle understands as habits that “exceed and … fall short of what is required in emotion and action.” While a virtue “finds and chooses the median,” a vice involves too much or too little.23 The vice of deficiency related to intersectionality is the habit of missing connections, of focusing on a single identity or issue and assuming that it is entirely distinct from others. The vice of excess is the habit of simplistic universality, assuming connections without first exploring and learning from the differences between peoples and their experiences. The next two sections explore those vices in more detail. The Vice of Missing Connections When we lack intersectional vision, we approach environmental issues without attending to identity and power, denying that environmental and social problems share roots and therefore focusing exclusively on distinguishing and choosing between issues. This is a vice of deficiency. This is demonstrated in the work of Danish statistician Bjørn Lomborg, who came to prominence in 1998 with the release of The Skeptical Environmentalist. There he asserted that “it is important for us to see the environment as an important—but only one important—part of the many challenges we must handle to create an even better world.”24 While not denying that climate change and other environmental issues matter, Lomborg has asserted throughout his career that they are neither the most urgent nor the most consequential of contemporary issues. Since his first book, Lomborg has worked closely with economists to assess the relative value of investments in particular challenges, resulting in a list of the “top priorities for the world.” At the top of this list are education, health care, employment, and reducing corruption. Near the bottom are protection for forests and rivers and reductions in CO2 emissions.25 The details of that analysis are beyond my scope, but the assumption behind them is a good example of the vice of missing connections. Lomborg assumes that climate change, deforestation, and pollution are issues that can be cleanly distinguished from human health and education. This leads him to call for a change in global priorities: “Our extraordinary focus on climate also means we have less time, money, and attention to spend on other problems. Climate change frequently sucks out the oxygen from almost any other conversation about global challenges.”26 Consider Lomborg’s assertions in contrast to Thunberg’s claim that climate change offers a way to integrate concerns for mental health, racial justice, and animal rights. She assumes that environmental and social issues are intersectional, that we understand each issue better when we find connections between them. He assumes that each issue should be treated as a distinct monad to be evaluated on its own. She assumes solutions come from coalitions; he assumes solutions are a zerosum game. In my terms, Thunberg demonstrates intersectional analysis; Lomborg demonstrates a deficiency of it.

The Virtue of Intersectionality in Environmental Ethics  281 Lomborg’s views are not only dangerous because he calls for less attention to problems as urgent as climate change, but also because he ignores important facts. For example, he responded to the 2018 Camp Fire in California by asserting that we should simply “Make sure that people don’t put themselves in harm’s way by building homes in high-risk areas.”27 This is a valid plan as far as it goes, but it ignores that poorer people will be driven from their homes when wealthier people relocate; that refugee crises are being created by deforestation and fires across the world; that millions of non-human lives are lost in every expansive wildfire; that tremendous amounts of CO2 are released into the atmosphere as hundreds of thousands of acres burn each year; and that burning forests therefore contribute to sea level rise, ocean acidification, and a list of other challenges. Fires in California intersect with many other social and environmental issues. To treat them otherwise is to ignore reality. It may be quantitatively efficient to look at each challenge as a discrete entity, but that it not the way the world works. Bjørn Lomborg seems admirably committed to advancing the well-being of poor people, women, and other marginalized groups. But he does not seem terribly interested in learning from such marginalized peoples about their plight, the systems that created it, or what they would like to see done to redress their oppression. By missing connections, he misses the lived realities of human beings from diverse experiences. He would benefit from intersectional analysis, the commitment to learning from diversity and seeking to address multiple problems at once. The Vice of Simple Universalization While the vice of deficiency fails to acknowledge intersections, the vice of excess assumes that intersections are so straightforward that distinctions and power dynamics become unimportant. This excess can be understood as an unbalanced interpretation of John Muir’s famous quotation that “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything in the universe.”28 The vice of simple universals learns only from the second clause of that sentence that everything is connected to everything else. It ignores the first clause and the fact that, in our daily lives, we encounter things distinctly, within a culture that makes those distinctions matter enormously. The differences between people and things, the disconnections exacerbated by social systems, matter most urgently to people who are marginalized. If privileged people treat intersectionality as a simple process and move quickly to broad universal statements, the marginalized peoples’ experiences are erased. An example of this vice can be found in many of the works of E. O. Wilson, a brilliant biologist and vitally important voice for conservation who demonstrated an unfortunate tendency to understand the world through a single lens. For example, Wilson’s 1998 book Consilience aspired for “the unity of knowledge,” and suggested that scientific perspectives were most foundational and had the clearest access to truth. Seeking a “sacred narrative” to organize and inspire human activity, he insisted that “material reality discovered by science” was entirely sufficient, as it “already possesses more content and grandeur than all religious cosmologies combined.”29

282  Kevin J. O’Brien Farmer and essayist Wendell Berry argues that Wilson misunderstands what religious knowledge is and how it is experienced by religious people. For Berry, Wilson “does not appreciate, because he cannot suspect, the possibility that religious faith may be a way of knowing things that cannot otherwise be known.”30 For Berry, this failure to acknowledge another way of knowing leads Wilson to overconfidence in science. Ethicist Lisa Sideris offers a similar critique of Wilson, who she sees as part of a movement that seeks “a grand narrative of cosmogenesis” based in scientific findings. Sideris worries that such perspectives oversimplify science and lead to anthropocentric perspectives that are overly sanguine about human dominance over the nonhuman world.31 Neither Sideris nor Berry dismisses the importance of science nor Wilson’s scientific accomplishments. However, both suggest that the world is more complicated than Wilson admits and that it is important to learn from diverse kinds of human experience and expertise. In my terms, Sideris and Berry seek a richer vision of the intersections between kinds of knowledge, a recognition that every person and every idea comes from specific contexts and deserves to be understood on their own terms. I would add that such deliberate intersectional analysis is more virtuous. It allows for attention to the specific experiences of people like Emmett Till and Eric Garner, experiences that I believe must be foundational in environmental ethics. Identities and experiences intersect in complex ways and are lived out in myriad expressions of human cultural identity. So, an intersectional approach to environmental ethics requires multiple narratives and problems. All creatures are shaped by cosmic and global realities, of course. But every creature is also always shaped by the social structures created and enforced more locally. It will never be simple to find universal claims and broadly-applicable truths. Conclusion: Toward Communities of Virtuous Intersectionality Wendell Berry elsewhere writes that “a community lives and acts by the common virtues of trust, goodwill, forbearance, self-restraint, compassion, and forgiveness. If it hopes to continue long as a community, it will wish to––and will have to––encourage respect for all its members, human and natural.”32 My suggestion in this paper has been that 21st-century communities must also develop another virtue to respect all members, a virtue that trains us to learn from each member’s experience of the structures under which all live, how they overlap and connect, and what could be done to make them better. As one more example of the virtue of intersectionality, consider the poet, librarian, and activist Audre Lorde. In a 1982 talk celebrating the legacy of Malcolm X, Lorde insisted that the work of liberation is complex, and that those who wish to change the world must “examine the dangers of an incomplete vision.” She suggested that the way to combat such incompleteness is to focus on the particular experiences of marginalized peoples. Black women, she wrote, “know what it is to be lied to, and we know how important it is not to lie to ourselves.” Black women “are powerful because we have survived, and that is what it is all about—survival and growth.”33

The Virtue of Intersectionality in Environmental Ethics  283 Lorde’s idea of community is an important addition to Berry’s, making it clear that we will only be able to “encourage respect for all” if we recognize the myriad and particular forms of injustice experienced by marginalized members of our communities. She makes it clear that one can only seek justice after recognizing the myriad and particular injustices experienced by the marginalized. She suggests the formation of virtuous habits by calling on her audience to notice and act upon connections between problems, attending particularly to the perspectives of oppressed people while humbly recognizing that all perspectives are necessarily limited. If intersectionality is a virtue, then there is much work to do to learn and practice it. It will take more attention to the voices of women, people of color, indigenous peoples, disabled peoples, non-binary peoples, and non-human animals and systems. A community that lives and acts by intersectionality will be open to the perspectives of every member and will assume that there are connections to be found, complexities to be learned, and work to be done when all come together as our full selves. It is easy to be overwhelmed as the climate changes, police violence continues, forests burn, refugees struggle, species die, and diseases spread. Intersectionality offers an alternative: rather than seeking to understand and to explain everything, we should instead listen to those who are suffering, learn from them, and help as we can. This is the work of environmental virtue. Notes 1 Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Trumansburg, NY: Crossing Press, 1984), 138. 2 See especially Timothy B. Tyson, The Blood of Emmett Till (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017). 3 Anne Finger, Elegy for a Disease (New York: Macmillan, 2006), 262. I learned of Finger’s work from Christopher M. Bell, Blackness and Disability: Critical Examinations and Cultural Interventions (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2011), 2. 4 Mary Annaïsse Heglar, “After the Storm.” Oct. 22 (2019): accessed Aug. 10, 2021, https://www.guernicamag.com/after-the-storm/. 5 Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics,” University of Chicago Legal Research Forum vol. 1989, no. 1 (1989), 140. 6 Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color,” Stanford Law Review vol. 43, no. 6 (1991), 1252, 1299. 7 Alicia Garza, “A Herstory of the #blacklivesmatter Movement” (2014): accessed Sept 19, 2019, https://thefeministwire.com/2014/10/blacklivesmatter-2/. David Pellow’s work in Critical Environmental Justice builds on these ideas, such as his claim that Black Lives Matter also calls attention to the fundamental limits of dominant political systems to respond to a problem like climate change: David N. Pellow, What is Critical Environmental Justice (Cambridge, UK and Medford, MA, USA: Polity Press, 2018), 66. 8 Grace Ji-Sun Kim, and Susan M. Shaw, Intersectional Theology: An Introductory Guide (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2018), 19, 42–43. 9 Delores S. Williams, “Back Women’s Surrogacy Experience and the Christian Notion of Redemption,” in After Patriarchy: Feminist Transformations of the World Religions, ed. Paula M. Cooey, William R. Eakin, and Jay B. McDaniel (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1991), 12. 10 Delores S. Williams, “Sin, Nature, and Black Women’s Bodies,” in Ecofeminism and the Sacred, ed. Carol J. Adams (New York: Continuum, 1993), 29.

284  Kevin J. O’Brien 11 Ibid., 24. 12 Ibid., 25. 13 For example: “We need to keep the fossil fuels in the ground and we need to focus on equity;” “equity…is absolutely necessary to make the Paris Agreement work on a global scale” and “Those who will be affected the hardest are already suffering the consequences. But their voices are not heard.” Greta Thunberg, No One is Too Small to Make a Difference (New York: Penguin, 2019), 14, 17, 57. 14 Ibid., 38. 15 Greta Thunberg, et al., Our House is on Fire (New York: Penguin Books, 2020), 131. 16 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae (New York: Blackfriars, 1964), I.II, question 55. 17 Melanie L. Harris, Ecowomanism: African American Women and Earth-Honoring Faiths (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2017), 76–77. 18 Ibid. 19 For example, see Steven Bouma-Prediger, Earthkeeping and Character: Exploring a Christian Ecological Virtue Ethic (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020), ch 4. 20 Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins,” 1242. 21 Sarah MacDonald, and Nicole Symmonds, “Rioting as Flourishing? Reconsidering Virtue Ethics in Times of Civil Unrest,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics vol. 38, no. 1 (2018). 22 While I recognize this chapter does not fully address all the implications and details of intersectionality as a virtue, I offer the preliminary analysis in the hopes that it will lead to productive discussion about how intersectionality fits into broader conversations of environmental virtue ethics. I am inspired in part by Jean Porter’s analysis of the “fruitful ambiguity” in virtue ethics that justifies a preliminary proposal that invites ongoing analysis. Jean Porter, “Virtue,” in The Oxford Handbook of Theological Ethics, ed. Gilbert Meilander, and William Werpehowski (New York: Oxford, 2005), 209. 23 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics., trans. Martin Ostwald (New York: Macmillan, 1962), 35 (bk II, ch. 1). 24 Bjørn Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 348. 25 See especially Bjørn Lomborg, How Much Have Global Problems Cost the World? A Scorecard From 1900 to 2050 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 26 Bjorn Lomborg, False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet (Basic Books, 2020), 12. 27 Ibid.,190. 28 John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books, 2016), 110. 29 Edward O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (New York: Knopf, 1998). 30 Wendell Berry, Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition (Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 2000), 28. 31 Lisa H. Sideris, Consecrating Science: Wonder, Knowledge, and the Natural World (Oakland: University of California Press, 2017), 1, 9. 32 Wendell Berry, Sex, Economy, Freedom, & Community (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992), 120. 33 Lorde, Sister Outsider, 135, 139.

References Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae. New York: Blackfriars, 1964. Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by Martin Ostwald. New York: Macmillan, 1962. Bell, Christopher M. Blackness and Disability: Critical Examinations and Cultural Interventions. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2011. Berry, Wendell. Sex, Economy, Freedom, & Community. New York: Pantheon Books, 1992.

The Virtue of Intersectionality in Environmental Ethics  285 Berry, Wendell. Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition. Washington, D.C: Counterpoint, 2000. Bouma-Prediger, Steven. Earthkeeping and Character: Exploring a Christian Ecological Virtue Ethic. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020. Crenshaw, Kimberlé. “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.” University of Chicago Legal Research Forum 1989, no. 1 (1989): 139–167. Crenshaw, Kimberlé. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review 43, no. 6 (1991): 1241–1299. Finger, Anne. Elegy for a Disease. New York: Macmillan, 2006. Garza, Alicia. “A Herstory of the #blacklivesmatter Movement.” (2014): Accessed September 19, 2019, https://thefeministwire.com/2014/10/blacklivesmatter-2/. Harris, Melanie L. Ecowomanism: African American Women and Earth-Honoring Faiths. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2017. Heglar, Mary Annaïsse. “After the Storm.” Oct. 22 (2019): Accessed August 10, 2021. https://www.guernicamag.com/after-the-storm/. Kim, Grace Ji-Sun, and Susan M. Shaw. Intersectional Theology: An Introductory Guide. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2018. Lomborg, Bjorn. False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet. Basic Books, 2020. Lomborg, Bjørn. The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Lomborg, Bjørn. How Much Have Global Problems Cost the World? A Scorecard From 1900 to 2050. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Trumansburg, NY: Crossing Press, 1984. MacDonald, Sarah, and Nicole Symmonds. “Rioting as Flourishing? Reconsidering Virtue Ethics in Times of Civil Unrest.” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 38, no. 1 (2018): 25–42. Muir, John. My First Summer in the Sierra. Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books, 2016. Pellow, David N. What is Critical Environmental Justice. Cambridge, UK; Medford, MA, USA: Polity Press, 2018. Porter, Jean. “Virtue.” In The Oxford Handbook of Theological Ethics, edited by Gilbert Meilander and William Werpehowski, 205–219. New York: Oxford, 2005. Sideris, Lisa H. Consecrating Science: Wonder, Knowledge, and the Natural World. Oakland: University of California Press, 2017. Thunberg, Greta. No One is Too Small to Make a Difference. New York: Penguin, 2019. Thunberg, Greta, Svante Thunberg, Beata Ernman, and Malena Ernman. Our House is on Fire. Penguin Books, 2020. Tyson, Timothy B. The Blood of Emmett Till. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017. Williams, Delores S. “Back Women’s Surrogacy Experience and the Christian Notion of Redemption.” In After Patriarchy: Feminist Transformations of the World Religions, edited by Paula M. Cooey, William R. Eakin and Jay B. McDaniel, 1–14. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1991. Williams, Delores S. “Sin, Nature, and Black Women’s Bodies.” In Ecofeminism and the Sacred, edited by Carol J. Adams, 24–29. New York: Continuum, 1993. Wilson, Edward O. Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. New York: Knopf, 1998.

Forebears Micheal O’Siadhail Handing on this life is our success — Countless generations down the line We can be the forebears they will bless For our seeing nature’s own design, Where in habitats all combine, Bound in the abundance of it all, One creation for the longer haul. Always in advancement’s hungry name Each year we’ve taken twice the earth can bear. All the biosphere for us is fair game, Fouling our own nest and half-aware, We espouse an easy laissez-faire; Endless quests for progress can’t stand still, Empty more than nature can refill. Enough, enough to be just thankful for This our world so whole and entire In its balanced state of self-rapport. God of love, God in the bush’s fire Hides a face in all we most desire — Life and light creation’s golden bough, Our own holy land is here and now.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-42

Conclusion

Oil spills, toxic wastes, acid rain, overflowing landfills, topsoil erosion, species extinction, scarcity of drinking water, destruction of the rainforests, desertification, smog, the global climate crisis—this is merely some of the long litany of woe we discover when we take the pulse of our home planet. We live in a time of unprecedented ecological degradation and thus we face an urgent need for individual, communal, and global efforts to take better care of our home planet. If we are to flourish, we must responsibly care for the earth and all its inhabitants and habitats. This book seeks to address this challenge by focusing not on moral duties or ethical consequences but on the virtues we must cultivate and embrace. The authors in this book provide us with knowledge on how to foster the flourishing of our home planet by becoming certain kinds of people. From a wide range of academic disciplines they describe the virtues we need to nurture and the vices we need to extinguish in order to be better caretakers of our home planet. Wonder and humility, self-control and wisdom, courage and hope, justice and love. Such are some of the habitual dispositions to act with excellence that our authors identify as most needed in our challenging time. Furthermore, as Bill McKibben notes in the foreword, this book reminds those of us who are Christians that there is a sturdy scaffolding of scriptural sources and a rich tradition of theological reflection to support the kind of change we need. The Bible begins (Genesis 1–2) and ends (Revelation 21–22) with rivers and trees and there are many other later writers (not only St. Francis of Assisi) who wax eloquent about the wonders of the world God has created and continues to sustain, and who remind us made-in-God’s-image humans that we are called to be earthkeepers. In other words, the Christian faith tradition, like most other religions, is a deep well of insight and inspiration on why we ought to care for creation, if only we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. But we followers of Jesus must not only read the Bible and learn about the ecological saints in our tradition, important as both of those are. We must also put our faith into practice. As McKibben gently reminds us, while the book you are currently reading has great worth as a scholarly document, its deeper worth will be determined by how much action it induces. What will we do to cultivate the ecological virtues we need so that we, individually and collectively, will contribute to the flourishing of God’s good earth? DOI: 10.4324/9781003346579-43

288 Conclusion Given the plethora of ecological problems mentioned earlier, however, there will be little or no action without hope. “What can one person do?” “What difference will it make?.” “The problem is too big, so why do anything?” These common questions, prompted by awareness of that long litany of woe, highlight the need for hope. One of the three theological virtues (along with faith and love) in the Christian tradition, hope is arguably one of the most important and yet most challenging virtues in our age. What is it that we do, exactly, when we hope? We imagine some good future we desire and believe is possible, and we act to make that future real. In contrast to optimism, hope requires that we do something to make that good future a reality. As David Orr has put it: “Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up.”1 We hope your reading of this book has been a catalyst for thoughtful reflection on the world in which we live. We hope this book has been a spur to action that will motivate you to effectively address the ecological challenges we face. We hope this book has inspired you to bear witness to God’s good future of shalom by striving to cultivate the virtues we need for the earth and all its creatures to flourish. Note 1 David Orr, Hope Is An Imperative: The Essential David Orr (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2011), xix.

Reference Orr, David. Hope Is An Imperative: The Essential David Orr. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2011.

Index

Note: Page references in bold denote tables and with “n” endnotes. 2001 A Space Odyssey (Kubrick) 80 Abbey, Edward 264–265 Abrams, David 205n3 Abrams, M.H. 266 accountability 10, 147, 246–247, 249 acid rain 25, 287 activism, environmental 8, 26 Adams, Ansel 269 adaptability 216 ad-tendere 45 aesthetic appreciation of nature 67 affection 27, 129, 131–132, 134 Africa 173, 274; ecological crises in 69; social crises in 69 African Americans 28, 30 After Virtue (MacIntyre) 75 Agassiz, Louis 34–35 Ali 81 Alice in Wonderland 77 aliens 79–80 Alley, Kelly 240 American ecosystems, garbage dumps in 51 American Evangelicalism 27 American Journal of Physics 173 American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists 36 ancient Israel 118, 119 Anderson, Ray 227 anger 2, 8, 212 Anglican liturgy 88 Anglo-Catholic: floral decoration and sung services 90; liturgical floral symbolism 89; ritualism 87; ritualists 87; sanctuaries 88; services 89; view of Sunday approaches 92; worship 87

anthropocentric: anthropology 123; attitudes 182; carelessness 96; common anthropocentric good 216; conception of equality 269; consciousness 87; convictions 266; environmental ethic 215; human identity 121; humanity 181; imagery 122; limits 4; pattern 121; perspectives 198, 282; pride 96; reduction of creation 96; selfunderstanding 120; tendencies 181, 188; vice 87, 118; violence 96; wisdom 117; worldview of Creation’s purpose 102 anthropocentrism 118; and cosmic liturgy 9; criticism of 87; and ecoflourishing 181; ethos of 196; human beings as rulers of creation 120; of Job 120, 122–123; as oppressive ideology 182; vice of 86–87 anthropogenic climate change 144, 278 anthropomorphism 88 apathy 212 Apostle Paul 34, 70, 128–136, 139, 143, 145; as boomer 128–130; and generosity 134–136, 134–136; root of the problem 128; as sticker 130–134 Aquinas, Thomas 68, 263, 266–269 Arendt, Hannah 210–213 Aristotelian virtues 212 Aristotle 134, 280 Arrhenius, Svante 171 The Atlantic 45 atmospheric CO2 170–171 attentiveness to land 213 Augustine of Hippo 148n16, 186, 254

290 Index Aurora (Robinson) 80–81 Au Sable Institute 38–39 Austin, Mary 265 autonomy 125n33; and receptivity 124; as vice 120, 121, 123 Avatar 77, 81–83 Avatar and Natural Spirituality 82 awe 169, 197, 201, 227, 270 axiological egalitarianism 268 Bauckham, Richard 71, 86 becoming inter-creational 183–188 Begbie, Jeremy 55 Behemoth 122; beholding 32–33, 39; at home 39 beholding: behemoth 32–33; behemoth at home 39; institution-building paradigm 38–39; matter, energy, and life 37–38 Bellah, Robert 216 belonging 64–65, 69–71, 95, 124, 162, 222, 229–230, 268 Benedicite 90–95 benevolence 8, 180, 214 Bernard, Claude 170–171 Berners-Lee, Tim 169 Berry, Thomas 106–107, 106–107, 106– 107, 180 Berry, Wendell 4, 4, 50, 50, 64, 64–65, 65, 128–129, 132, 134, 136, 172, 214, 230, 239, 252, 282 Beyond Stewardship (Warners and Heun) 6 Bible 17, 34, 43 biblical justice 102 biblical limits and flourishing 70–71 biblical prophecies 42, 107 Biblical prophets 41–48; gift of perception 41; messengers of God 41 Bierstadt, Albert 269 Big Bang 76, 107, 148n13 biocentrism 11, 263, 264, 266–269, 271 biodiversity 105, 164, 168, 216, 243 biology 2, 17, 18–21; cellular 37; marine 36; molecular 37; and religion 19 Biosfera (Vernadsky) 168 biosphere: atmospheric carbon dioxide 170– 171; Au Sable Institute 173; climate scientists and Evangelicals at Oxford 173–174; community flourishing in 172–174; discovery of 168; disruption 172; earth’s thermostat 171–172; free life 170; Matter, Energy, and Life course 173; NEPA—EIA Paradigm 174; overview 167–168; second

Copernican revolution 174–176; sought-out knowledge 169–170; Town of Dunn 173; uncanny denial and unique status 168–169; virtue ethics in 172–174; Waubesa Wetlands 173 Black Lives Matter movement 276, 279 black mystery 23–24 Black people: endangering 274; and injustices 275; violence against 276 blessings 53, 56–57, 120 “The Boat Course” 56 Bockmuehl, Klaus 55 Book of Common Prayer 56, 90 book of Job 117, 119; cursing of creation 121, 126n46; cursing of existence 120, 123; “dust and ash” 123; figurative language in 120–121; first divine speech in 122; human as ruler 121; imagery in 121, 122; metaphors in 120–121, 122; second divine speech in 122; use of “beasts” 121 The Book of Scripture 168 Bourne, Joel 5 Bowden, M. J. 27 Brady, Emily 204 Braiding Sweetgrass (Kimmerer) 229 Bristol Herald Courier 22 Brown, William 119 Brune, Michael 263 Brune, Randall 50 Bryant, Carolyn 274 Buddhism 12n23, 75–76, 184, 187 Bullard, Robert 239 Caldwell, Lynton Keith 168, 174–175 Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship 38 Calvin College 34, 36; “Center for Christian Scholarship” project 53 Cameron, James 81–82 Carr, Jeanne 101 Carson, Rachel 197 Cartesian dualism 195 Casey program 51–53 caution 70, 132, 134, 276 Celtic Daily Prayer 56–57 Chesapeake Bay 25 Chief Nipakkinya 160–161 Children of God (Russell) 81 Chou Dynasty 185 Chouinard, Yvon 227 Christian(s): antipathy of evolutionary ideas 106; ecological philosophy

Index  291 of work 208–218; ethics of contaminants in marine ecosystems 239–249; ethics of pollutants in marine ecosystems 239–249; ethics of waste in marine ecosystems 239–249; life 25, 52; living selfconsciously as 52; mysticism 51; Romantic 263–271; stewardship 6; virtues 63, 65, 68, 249; voices, diversifying 27–29 The Christian Century 45 Christian ecological virtue ethics 6, 9–10 Christian environmental movement 49, 51, 54 Christian Gospel 51 Christianity: American 26; as anthropocentric 86; colonial 27; linking land with animism and witchcraft 69; as root of problems 25–26; self-giving love 51; and wilderness 29–30; wilderness as demonic 25 Christianity, Wilderness, and Wildlife: The Original Desert Solitaire (Bratton) 25 Christianity Today 173 Christian Sunday 92–93 Chrysemys picta marginata 34 Chrysostom, John 186 church: church-based summer camps 25; of Corinth and Philippi 136; Corinthian 131, 133; Declaration on Global Warming for mobilizing the Church 174; denominations 38; ecological virtues within 128; elders 18; and eschatological vision 129–130; in Galatia 131; membership in 129–130, 240, 249; Spirit-enabled life of 131 Church of England 87 Civil Rights Movement 274 Clark, George David 10, 194, 235 Clarke, Arthur 79 Clausius-Clapeyron constraints 170 Clewis, Robert R. 196 climate change 4, 10, 46, 67, 78, 81, 199, 221, 223, 225, 280–281, 283; anthropogenic 144, 278; climatechange-induced droughts 104; global 144, 147, 170; political action on 277; social movements gathered/centered by 278 Clines, David 122 The Club of Rome 52 cogito ergo sum (Cartesian motto) 118

Collins, Michael 23 “Comeback for Snowy Plover” (Shaw) 46 A Common Sight (Rogers) 154 Communion meal 53, 55 community flourishing: in biosphere 172–174; and virtue ethics 172–174 community/ies: of hope 47, 47–48; Indigenous 4, 269; injustices 216; living/working/learning together as 56; preservation 159; Triune 95; of virtuous intersectionality 282–283; world as one 54 compassion 6, 8, 12n23, 147, 173, 185, 187, 204, 230, 282 conceit as vice 120, 121, 123, 124 conceptual bias 263–264, 269 Confucius 180 consciousness 81–83, 157, 179; anthropocentric 87; biocentric 268; contemporary 43; ecological 183, 188; human 51; personal 76; self-consciousness 196–197, 203 conservation 8, 26, 47, 100–105, 136, 197, 281 Consilience (Wilson) 281, 281 consolation, and fantasy 77–79 constructive virtues and community limitations 249 contaminants 239–249 “Contemplative Prayer, with Peony” (Shaw) 44 Copernicus, Nicolaus 175 cosmic liturgy 9, 9, 86, 86, 94, 94, 96, 96 cosmology 19, 106 courage 6–8, 188, 222, 224, 224, 227–228, 227–228, 230, 230, 287 Covid-19 pandemic 144, 147 cowardice 227 Crawford, Matthew 219n14 creation 54; as cosmic liturgy 94; fall and redemption 139–141; languages 117–120; liturgy 90, 90, 94–95, 94–95; as procession of worship 92; spirituality 6, 6; telos 64; worship 86–87, 92 creative vision 41–48 Crenshaw, Kimberlé Williams 275–276, 279 Critical Perspectives on Accounting 229 Cronon, William 198 cultivation of virtues 67 culturally constructed places 197–199 culture 5–6, 22, 36, 42, 45; culture-shaping influence 5; Indigenous 2, 155, 160, 202, 271; pre-colonial 27; Western 36, 36, 160, 162

292 Index Daggy, Tom 19 Daniel 41 Dark Green Religion (Taylor) 82 Darwin, Charles 104, 106–107, 110n38 Davis, Dwight D. 36 Davis, Todd 9, 16 Dawson, William R. 37 death 185, 252; cell 143; eternal spiritual 142; hope for escape from 79; individual 139; personal 79; physical 139, 142–143; and physical cosmos 143; reality of 102; spiritual 142 Deborah 41 de Chardin, Teilhard 107 decorum 180 deep time perspectives 101–108 deforestation 100, 104, 167, 168, 277, 280–281 Delio, Ilia 107 “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex”(Crenshaw) 275 demonic, wilderness as 25 demonic living organisms 26 demonization 26–27 Descartes, René 195 A Description of New Netherland (Van der Donck) 27 Desert Iguana 37, 40n4 De Vos, Peter 53 DeWitt, Cal 53, 66 Die revolutionibus orbium coelestrium (Gingerich) 175 Dillard, Annie 52 “Disarm” (Dvořák) 62 The Dispossessed (Le Guin) 81 disrespect 186 divine speeches in book of Job 121–123 Doak, Brian 117, 119 domination 81 Doughnut Economics (Raworth) 66, 229 Douglas, Mary 240 The Doxology 34 Duke, James B. 129, 134 Dumping in Dixie (Bullard) 239 Dvoøák, Laura Kathryn 9 Dykema, Eugene 53 Earth 17, 19, 22–24; as community encompassing all of creation 124; destruction of 96; misuse of resources of 87; planet with promise 23–24; principal control knob governing temperature of

170–171; thermostat control-point 171–172 Earth Day 49 earthkeeping 54; and Au Sable Institute 173; and climate control 172; and hearthkeeping 49–57; virtuous 10; work 11 Earthkeeping and Character (BoumaPrediger) 4, 6, 75 Earthkeeping: Christian Stewardship of Natural Resources (DeWitt) 38 earthkeeping community: diverse 4–6; need for 4–6; theologically informed 4–6 Easter 23, 89 Eastern Orthodoxy 92 Eckhart, Meister 51 eco-anthropology 9, 118; framework of 118–119 ecoflourishing 4, 11n7, 195–204; becoming human 180–181; becoming intercreational 183–188; becoming intercultural 181–183; collective 4; creation, fall and redemption 139– 141; death 142–143; development of the term 4; economic talk for 221–231; ethical responses 147; evil 145–147; good creation 140– 141; hope for 107; humankind’s rebellion against God 141–143; natural disasters 143–145; overview 139, 179–180, 221–223; perfect creation 140; value of virtue ethics 6–9 ecoflourishing ‘glocal’ dialogue: glocal communities 163–164; glocal testimony of environmental tragedy 161–163; Kuna ecoflourishing narratives 158–161; narratives of initiations 156–157; non-western voices 158–161; overview 155; The Turtle Story 160–161; urban transcultural narrative space 157– 158; Voices of Chernobyl 161–163 ecojustice 6, 30, 144, 239 ecological: challenges 3, 5–6, 8; dependence 214; injustices 4–5; justice 6–7, 209; limits 64; turn 6–11; virtue ethics 6, 9–10 ecological despair 2, 8–9, 77–79, 83, 101, 148n9, 226 ecological flourishing 6–7, 10, 164, 209, 213, 216–218; and Apostle Paul 128–136; biblical narrative of 2; economic fairy tales 223–227; and

Index  293 generosity 128–136; and human flourishing 4; true economic stories 227–230 ecological lament 6, 147 ecological love 214 ecological sensitivity 204 ecomodernism 67 “eco-modernists” 67 economic fairy tales: eternal economic growth 223–224; externalities 226; helplessness and hopelessness 226–227; human nature 224–225; ownership 225–226; rational choosers and bad apples 224–225 “economic person” 224 economics/economy 2, 4–5, 54, 70, 80, 129–130; British imperial 96; capitalistic 214; classical 224; and ecology 227–228; exploitation 185; exploitative industrial 134; fairy tales 10, 223–227; feminist 224; gift 196, 202–203; of God’s kingdom 70–71; talk for ecological flourishing 221–231; true economic stories 227–230 The Economist 45 “eco-pragmatists” 67 eco-theology 25–26 Edwards, Denis 90 egalitarianism 268 Ehlers, Vern 53 Eliphaz 121, 122 Emerson, David W. 37 Emerson, Ralph Waldo 196 emotions 8–9, 12n21, 230, 272n35; negative 204; positive 201, 204 Emotions in the Moral Life (Roberts) 8 empathy 81, 88–89, 183–184, 183–184, 186, 186 Emplotting Virtue (Treanor) 64 encounters: primary 195–204; sublime 196–197 energy: and life 37–38; and matter 37–38 enjoyment 197, 216, 259 entropy 45 environmental: activism 8, 26; conservation 101; degradation 2; destruction or restoration 78, 102, 183, 215, 217, 222; humanities 5 Environmental Arts and Humanities Initiative 5 environmental ethics 2, 20–23, 63–64, 204; anthropocentric 215; intersectionality and 277–278;

limits-based approaches to 65–67, 65–67 Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) 174 environmental issues 11, 275, 277, 280–281 environmental justice 2, 11, 69, 222, 279 environmental movement 49, 51, 54 environmental virtue ethics (EVE) 3, 6, 64 “Environmental Virtue Ethics: Half the Truth but Dangerous as a Whole” (Rolston) 64 environmental virtues or vices 196, 203– 204; see also Ronald Sandler Epistle of James 68, 69 escape: from death in science fiction 79; and fantasy 77–79; through fiction stories 78 escape literature 78 eschatology 3, 128–131, 129, 136 ethics 5; environmental (see environmental ethics); social 2, 29; virtue (see virtue ethics); virtue-centred approach to 6–9 Ethics 23 euangelium 6 eucatastrophe 78, 83 Eucharist 87, 89, 93–95 Eucharistic theology 94 eudaemonia 67 eudaimonism 6, 7 evangelium 78, 83 evolution: alternative view of 107; contingency and non-directionality of 106; Darwin’s view of 104, 107; theories of 105 Evolutionary Conservation Biology 105 extraterrestrial life 79–80 Ezekiel 41, 42 faërie 77, 82 fairy tales 10, 78–79, 221–223; economic 223–224; Grimm’s 224; with happy endings 78 faith(s): nature-based 82; and science 106–107 The Family Is All There Is (Rogers) 191–192 fantasy 2, 8–9, 76–77; and consolation 78; defined 77; as escape literature 78; “On Fairy Stories” lecture 77; recovery/escape/consolation 77–78; and science fiction 78–83; stories 77–83 female prophets 41 Field Museum of Natural History 36

294 Index Finney, Carolyn 30 Five Ways to Forgiveness (Le Guin) 81 floral symbolism 89 Florida Everglades 19, 25 flourishing: biblical limits and 70–71; questions about 2; single comprehensive concept of 3–4, 3–4 Floyd, George 263 food chains 244; with great chain of being 252–260; human 245; in marine mammals 247 “The Food Course” 56 forbearance 132, 134, 134, 173, 173, 230, 230, 282, 282 Forebears (O’Siadhail) 286 forest fires 101, 104, 108n6 forgiveness 173, 230, 282 fossils 103, 106 Fox, George 28 Francis, Pope 185, 230 Franklin, Benjamin 29 free will 180 Fretheim, Terence 90 Friendly Association for Regaining and Preserving Peace with the Indians by Pacific Measures 28 Frontiers Well-Defended: An Essay, to Direct the Frontiers of a Country Exposed unto the Incursions of a Barbarous Enemy (Mather) 26 Gaia, goddess of the Earth 82 galaxies 19, 76, 94–95, 107, 143 garbage dumps 49, 51 Garden (O’Siadhail) 238 Garner, Eric 278–279 Garza, Alicia 276 Geerdes, Harold 38 “Geerdes Paradigm” 38 Gelassenheit 51 General Sherman Tree 104 generosity: Apostle Paul and 134–136; ecological flourishing and 128–136; as quality of character 6 Genesis 26, 102, 120 Genesis 1 70 Genesis 1:28 87 Genesis 2 54, 92 Genesis 3 92, 102 gentleness 186–187, 258 geology 2, 20, 92, 106, 109n9, 140 Giant Forest 104, 105 gift economy 196, 202–203, 229–230 Gingerich, Owen 175

Glacier National Park 50 glaciers 144; in Alaska 108; Sierra 100 global justice 183 gluttony 255 God: for all creatures 123; being and communion 55; creation 34, 64, 68, 128, 141–143, 168, 185–186, 252– 255; humankind’s rebellion against 141–143; prayers to 89; sequoia trees as temples of 101 “God’s First Temples: How Shall We Preserve Our Forests?” (Muir) 103 “God’s Green Acres” 173 “The Golden Ratio & the Coriolis Force” (Shaw) 47–48 Goodyear pubescens 20 Gospel of Matthew 35, 187 gospels: Christian Gospel 51; “hermeneutic of the gospel” 132; John’s Gospel 70; mission 132; Paul’s gospel 129, 131, 133; proclamation 131–132 Gould, Stephen J. 106 Grandin, Temple 258 The Grand Rapids Press 33–34 Grand Rapids Public Museum 33, 33–34 gratitude 71, 184, 187–188, 204, 259–260 Great Awakenings 28 Great Smokies, field research in 25 Great Storm (1987) 169 Grebel, Evelyn 34 greed 63–64, 69, 81, 129, 161, 181, 212, 227 Green New Deal 228 Grey, Carmody T. S. 96 Gulf Islands 47, 56 Habakkuk 41, 43; prophetic vision 43 Habel, Norman 120 Habits of the Heart (Bellah) 216 haecceity 45 happiness 181; eternal 184–185; eudaemonia 67; as quality of character 6 Harris, Melanie 278–279 Harris, Miranda 47 Harris, Peter 47 Harry Potter series 77 harvest festivals 94–95 Haught, John 106, 107 Hawken, Paul 163 healing 80–81, 228 hearthkeeping and earthkeeping 49–57 heat-reflective aluminum blankets 104 Hebraic poetry 42, 42 Hebrew Bible 70, 117–119, 119

Index  295 Heglar, Mary Anaïsse 274 Heidegger, Martin 47, 51, 57n4, 57n5 Heilsgeschichte (salvation history) 119 herpetology 33–34, 36 The Herpetology of Michigan (Ruthven, Thompson and Gaige) 36 Hetch Hetchy, planned flooding of 108 Hill, Julia Butterfly 264 Hill, Thomas 67 Hinrichs, Herman 33 The Hobbit 77 Hodder, Alan 265 Holy Spirit 43, 71, 89 the Holy Spirit 43, 71, 89 holy trinity 55 holzwege 51 “Homes for Prayer” (Dvořák) 112–113 homo economicus 224 Homo sapiens 23, 80 honesty 147, 211 honoring Jesus Christ 89, 90 hooks, bell 64 hope 1, 6, 8, 47, 71, 75–83, 100–101, 109n8, 128–132, 136, 147, 224, 226, 288; as quality of character 6; as virtue 101, 105–108 Hopkins, Gerard Manley 45 Houghton, John 169 Houston, Jim 55 hubris 68, 121–124, 124, 147, 180 Huldah 41 human activity: limits on 67; planetary boundaries for 65–66 human beings: as members of earth community, not conquerors 124; responsibility of 70 humaneness 180 human identity 117; formation of 118; and non-human creations 118, 119 humankind’s rebellion against God 141–143 human salvation 91; see also salvation humility 64, 67–68, 70–71, 81, 86, 86, 96, 96, 102, 124, 124, 204, 211–212, 224, 260; nonanthropocentric 102; and selfrestraint 64, 68 “Humphrey’s Basin” (Willis) 116 hymns 28, 34 identity: and place relations 202–203; and reciprocity 202–203; speaking of human 119–121; transforming 117–124 imago Dei 254, 260n7, 260n8

imprudence 227 Incarnation 47 Indigenous: communities 4, 269; cultures 2, 155, 160, 202, 271; Kuna traditions 10; language groups 125n9; peoples 29, 263, 269–271, 272n37, 283; religion 30; thinkers/scientists 65; traditions 76, 155; tribes 272n37 individual character 64, 67, 208 ingratitude 186, 255 Inherit the Holy Mountain (Stoll) 26 injustices 8, 70, 71, 133–134, 212, 226, 278–279, 283; and Black people 275; community 216; ecological 4–5; institutionalized 3; and people with multiple marginalized identities 275; systemic racial 263; to women 214, 275 Institute for Environmental Studies 37 institutionalized injustices 3 institution-building paradigm 38–39 integrity 23, 120, 170, 175, 180, 183, 198, 216, 258, 268 Intentional Lethal Agency 244–246 interbeing 228–229 inter-creational 10; in the Abrahamic religions 185; becoming 183–188; fundamental premise for 185; and Judeo-Christian tradition 186; mutuality and reciprocity 187; religious foundation for 186 intercultural 10; becoming 181–183; ecological dimension 182–183; and human flourishing 182; interreligious dialogue in 183; as model of cultural interaction 183; promoting 183 interdependence 70–71, 125n33, 228–229, 228–229; of humans/non-human creations of God 86, 93, 94; interbeing 228–229; as social reality 231 interfaith/interreligious: dialogue 2, 183, 188; perspectives 11 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 169 intersectional analysis 275–276 intersectionality 274–275; communities of virtuous 282–283; and environmental ethics 277–278; intersectional analysis 275–276; vice of missing connections 280– 281; vice of simple universalization 281–282; virtue of 278–280

296 Index “In the Bleak Midwinter” (Rossetti) 86 In the Eye of the Storm (Houghton) 169 “In the Garden” (Davis) 59–60 An Introduction to Christian Environmentalism (Blanchard and O’Brien) 6 invasive species 25 Isaiah 41, 42, 71 Islamic Declaration on Climate Change 230 James, Sarah 228 James, Simon 200, 202 Jeffers, Robinson 265 Jeremiah 41, 42 Jesus Christ 51, 70–71; becoming one with 93; belonging to 71; honoring 89, 89, 90, 90; loving His creations 91; redemption of 91; restoring relationship between humanity/ creation 71; resurrection of 93; “the mind of Christ” 53 Job 9, 32–33, 39, 70, 94; anthropocentrism of 120, 122–123; character of 119; confession of 123; curse and lament of 120; non-anthropocentrism of 123; progeny of 119; selfunderstanding of 123, 124 John’s Gospel 70 John the Baptist 28 John the Revelator 43 Jordan, David Starr 263 journals, maintaining 44 Judah 42 Judaism 75–76, 81 junzi 180–181 justice 64, 142, 147, 204, 215, 216–217, 263, 266–269, 272n22, 287; biocentric concept of 263; classical virtue of 278; ecological 6–7, 209; environmental 2, 11, 69, 222, 279; global 183; incarnational community of 47; and knowledge 259–260; modern concept of 269; personal virtue of 266–269; as quality of character 6; racial 276, 280; restitutive 204; social 11, 230, 279; and wilderness 29 Just Work (Muirhead) 215 Kalugin, Nikolai 161–163 Kang, Chol-Gu 123 Kant, Immanuel 196–197 Kass, Leon 258

Katongole, Emmanuel 69 Keeling, Charles David 171 Keesmaat, Sylvia C. 133 Keith, William 269 kenosis 51 Keynes, John Maynard 222 Kim, Grace Si-Jun 276 Kimmerer, Robin Wall 202–204, 229 kingdom of God: abundance and scarcity 70–71; economy of 71; and Israelites 70; as place for flourishing of all of life 69 knowledge 259–260; ancestral 162; biological 79; bookish 257; discursive 265; empirical 5; intuitive 265, 270; moral 8, 265; nondiscursive 265, 265–266, 270; noninferential 270; observational 33; rational/cognitive 206n30; religious 282; socially derived 266; sought-out 169–170 Kohak, Erazim 3 kosmos 69 Kuna ecoflourishing narratives 158–161, 158–161 Kunz, Michael 9 Lacis, Andrew 170 laissez-faire 104–105 lament 2, 8, 10, 105–106, 120, 128, 147; ecological 7; meaningful 6 land: exploitation of 69; limits on ownership 70 land ethic 132 Land Stewardship Plan 38 languages 36, 41–42; creation 117–120; ecological 123; familiarity with 45; figurative 119–121; language of “fit” 215, 220n24; Latin American 159; ornamental 119; Thai 183; truth-telling and metaphorical 43; Western 159–160 The Last Child in the Woods (Louv) 78 Le Duc, Anthony 10 The Left Hand of Darkness (Le Guin) 81 Leopold, Aldo 124, 124, 197, 197 Leviathan 120, 122–123 li 180 life: carbon-based 142; creation, fall and redemption 139–141; and energy 37–38; extraterrestrial 79–80; and matter 37–38; necessary condition for a free 170; “world-and-life view” 36–37

Index  297 limits: anthropocentric 4; based approaches to environmental ethics 65–67; biblical limits and flourishing 70–71; conflicting stories 68–69; ecological 64; potential of virtue ethics to address limits 67–68; of virtue 63–71 Limits to Growth (The Club of Rome) 52, 65–66 Linde, Henry Vander 38 The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe 77 literary perspectives 155–164 liturgy: Anglican 88; cosmic 9, 86, 94, 96; creation’s 90, 94–95; poetic 94; redemptive 94 logging of forest trees 50–51 Lomborg, Bjørn 280–281 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth 34 The Long-Legged House (Berry) 50, 57n2 Lorde, Audre 282–283 The Lord of the Rings 77 love 67, 69–70, 81, 180, 224, 227–228, 230 love of nature 67 MacDonald, Sarah 279 MacIntyre, Alasdair 3 MacLean, Norman 218 Madadam (Atwood) 81 Magnason, Andri Snær 117 Mahâbhârata 187 Malthus, Thomas 66 marine ecosystems: accountability and productive agency 246–247; Christian ethics of contaminants in 239–249; Christian ethics of pollutants in 239–249; Christian ethics of waste in 239–249; community limitations 249; constructive virtues 249; disposal of unwanted materials/energy 247– 248; responsibilities of innovation 248; responsibilities of Intentional Lethal Agency 244–246; scientific concerns for 239–244 Marsden, George 53 Martin, Paul 202 Marx, Karl 210, 219n13 Mason, Emma 93 mass extinctions 107 Mather, Cotton 26, 27, 30 matter: and energy 37–38; and life 37–38 Matter, Energy, and Life (M.E.L.) course 37–38 Matthew 87

McKibben, Bill 287 meal-time blessings 53 meta-narratives 75 metaphysics 19, 21 Miller, Charles William 171 Milton, John 140 mindfulness 213 Mindscanis (Sawyer) 79 Ministry for the Future (Robinson) 80 Miriam 41 Mitchell, Edgar 23 Moo, Jonathan 140 moral evil 143, 145, 265 Morris, Simon Conway 107 mortal life, purpose of 71 Mountain West 17–24 Mouw, Rich 53 Muir, John 2, 8, 9, 11, 23, 64, 100–108; biocentrism 266–269; conceptual bias 269–271; deep time perspectives 101–108; greatest vice 269–271; greatest virtue 266–269; hopes for the future 108; justice 266–269; nature’s ecological/evolutionary processes 101; overview 263–264; respect 266–269; Romantic Christian ethics 263–271; romanticism 264–266; scientific discoveries of 100; seven voyages to Alaska 108; white supremacy 269–271 Muirhead, Russell 209, 215–216, 215–216 Museum of Natural History 37 mutuality 183, 187, 216 mystery 20, 23–24, 169, 260 Nabhan, Gary 239 Naipaul, Vidiadhar Surajprasad 158 narrative 64; biblical 2, 156; biblical creational narrative models 155; formative role of 64; glocal 155; glocal testimony of environmental tragedy 161–163; of initiations 156–157; Kuna ecoflourishing narratives 158–161; meta-narratives 75; non-Western voices 158–161; urban transcultural narrative space 157–158; in virtue ethics 64 Nash, Roderick 25, 25–27, 26, 27, 29–30, 29–30, 198–199 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) 174 National Park Service 25, 100

298 Index Native Americans 26; ceremonies of, related to Satan 27; demonization of 26–27; forest conservation by 104; obsessed with supernatural 29 natura 19 natural disasters 143–145; creation, fall and redemption 139–141; humankind’s rebellion against God 141–143 natural evil 143, 145 Natural History 23 natural places 197–199 natural supernaturalism 266–267 nature: beauty of 46; creating and destroying 103; degradation of 20–21; limits of the systems of 65; natural destructive processes of 104; and philosophy 22–23; as resource and garbage dumping place 49 nebulae 95 new creation 2, 9–10 New Testament 43, 43, 71 The New Yorker 45 Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle) 134 Nineveh 42 Noadiah 41 non-anthropocentric humility 102 non-anthropocentric leveling of species 104 nonmaleficence 204 non-Western cultural perspectives 10, 155–164 non-Western voices 158–161 notes, maintaining 44–45 oceans 4–5, 240–241, 243, 248 Oelschlaeger, Max 198 oikos 54 Old Testament 117–119 Olson, Sigurd 8 Olympic Mountains across Puget Sound 51 “On Fairy Stories” 77 On Stories (Kearney) 75 ontology: relational 195–204; substancebased 195 Oregon 50, 53, 54 Orr, David 288 Oryx and Crake (Atwood) 81 O’Siadhail, Micheal 10, 238, 286 other-than-human life: caring for 67; seeing Christ in 91; value of 65 Oxford English Dictionary (OED) 45 Packer, Jim 55 pantheism 82–83 Paradise Lost (Milton) 140 patience 227

Patton, Kimberly 240–241 Pauling spirituality 9–10 Peattie, Donald Culross 264 Pemberton brothers 29 Penn, William 28 Perdue, Leo 120 Peterson, Eugene 55 philosophy 19–22, 22–23; and nature 22–23 physics 18–19, 106 Physiological Zoology 37 physis 19 pigeons, commercial exploitation of 102 pilgrimage 28, 56, 107 Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Dillard) 52 place: culturally constructed 197–199; natural 197–199; relations 200– 203; sense of 200–202 place relations 200–202; and identity 202– 203; and reciprocity 202–203 planetary boundaries 65–66 Plantinga, Alvin 53 Plato 268 pleonexia 3, 3 poetic liturgy 94 poetic vision, practices of 44–45, 44–45 poetry: as extraordinary 45; reading aloud 45; for restoring order 45 poets 41–48 poiesis 47, 212 pollutants 4, 243; chemical 239; environmental 248; marine 240 Pope, Alexander 180 Pope Francis 69 population growth, uncontrollable 66 poverty 66, 133, 144, 226 preservation 34; community 159; ecological 163; of natural splendor 101; sequoia 103; and “wild” land 199 primary encounters 195–204 private epistemic justification 266 prophets: as “God-speakers” 43; magic of language of 44 propriety 180 Provan, Iain 55 prudence/practical wisdom 64, 68–70, 134 227–228, 230, 249 Psalm 26, 95 Psalm 8 143 Psalm 19 39 Psalm 104 244 Psalm 104:32 144 Psalm 109 244 Psalm 111 169 Psalm 145 95

Index  299 Psalms 70 Psalter Hymnal 34 Puget Sound 51 Puritan prototypes 26–27 Puritans 26, 27 quantum theory 19 Queen Snakes 33 racial justice 276, 280 Raffan, James 201–202 Rahner, Karl 188 Raworth, Kate 66, 228–230 receptivity 124, 125n33; and autonomy 124; as a virtue 124 reciprocity 184, 187, 196, 202–204; and identity 202–203; and mutuality 187; and place relations 202–203 reconciliation 71, 93 recovery, and fantasy 77–79 redemption: Christ’s 90–91, 94; and creation 139–141; at Easter 89; and fall 139–141; human 91; of mortal life 71 redemptive liturgy 94 Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars (Robinson) 80 Reformed tradition 53 Regent College 54–55 relational ontology 195–204 “Reluctant Prophet” (Shaw) 42 ren 180 renewable energy 67 respect 28, 65, 67, 86, 96, 120, 124, 124, 126n35, 173, 199, 204, 258–260, 282; mutual 203, 230; for nature 204, 268; passive 248; as virtue 124, 126n35, 266–269 respect for nature 204, 268–269 responsibility 10, 37, 41, 70, 145, 147, 159, 163, 175, 199, 225, 244–245, 248; collective 203; ecological 227; mandated 141; moral 254; primary 249 Resting on the Future: A Catholic Theology for an Unfinished Universe (Haught) 107 restitutive justice 204 restoration 78, 131, 215, 217, 222 restraints: consumption 70; need for 66–67 Revelation of John the Divine 43, 43 “Reversing Entropy” 45 rhythms/phrases 43, 45–46 Ricoeur, Paul 118

Rifkin, Ira 224 Rigby, Kate 88 ritual 180, 240 A River Runs Through It (film) 218 Roberts, Robert C. 8 A Rocha International 47 Rogers, Pattiann 10, 10, 154, 191–192 Rohr, Richard 44 Rolston, Holmes, III 64–65 Romanticism 27; 19th-century 27; British 264; in Europe 51; German 264; Muir’s 263; two types of 264–266 rootedness 10, 50 Rorty, Richard 263–264, 266, 270 Rossetti, Christina 9, 86–96 Rossetti’s Church of England 87, 90, 94 Rowling, J. K. 77 Rublev, Anton 55 Russell, Mary Doria 81 Sabbath 70, 92, 93 sacred living organisms 26 sacred music 28 Salatin, Joel 258 Salish Sea 51 salvation 34; history 91, 94, 119; human 91; Reformation/Catholic/ Protestant theologies 90 Sandler, Ronald L. 8, 204 San Rafael Mountain (Willis) 151 SARS-Cov-2 virus 144 Sartre, Jean-Paul 195 Sawyer Initiative (UCLA) 5 scarcity 287; food/water 223; future 70; and God’s kingdom 71; intensifying 226; “the dismal science” 224; time 223 Schmemann, Alexander 92–93 Schmidt, Karl P. 36 Schmidtz, David 7 Schwab, Klaus 228 science fiction 77; dyscatastrophe and hope 78–81; escape from death 79; as escape literature 78; extraterrestrial life 79–80; and fantasy 78–83; hope for healing the Earth 80–81 Scotus, Duns 45 Scripture 41, 43, 68, 69, 70 Seattle Pacific College 51 second Copernican revolution 174–176 See, Frederick 36 Seek and Find (Rosetti) 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96 self-acceptance 67 self-control 81, 147, 169, 175

300 Index selfishness 142, 144, 230 self-restraint 2, 64, 64, 67–68, 67–68, 68, 70, 70–71, 173, 173, 230, 230, 282, 282; and skill 257–260 sense of place 200–202 sense of wonder 77–78 sequoia conservation 103–105 sequoia groves (California) 100–101; destruction due to forest fires 101, 104; sacred value of 103 Séville, Isidore de 156 “Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community” (Berry) 214 shalom 3, 11 Shaw, Susan 276 Shenandoah Valley of Virginia 17–24; fights in theology and philosophy 19–22; landscape 17–18; philosophy 22–23; physics and biology 18–19; planet with promise 23–24; promised land 23–24; roots 17–18 Sherzer, Joel 159–161 Shiversong (Clark) 235 Sideris, Lisa 282 Sierra Nevada national parks 100–102; forest fires in 101 Simkins, Ronald 118 sin 102, 139–142, 277 The Skeptical Environmentalist (Lomborg) 280 skills 257–260 Smith, Katherine 201 social ethics 2, 29 social justice 11, 230, 279 Society of Friends 26, 26 Socrates 17 Soper, Kate 88–89 The Sparrow (Russell) 81 The Spirit of the Appalachian Trail (Bratton) 30 spirituality 5; creation 6; Pauling 9–10 spiritual-material dualism 69 spiritual pilgrimage 28 Spirituals 28 Spoelhof, William 36 Stafford, Tim 173 Steffen, Will 65 St. Francis of Assisi 86, 287 Still Life (Clark) 194 Stockholm Resilience Center 65 Stoll, Mark 26 stories: conflicting 68–69; fantasy 77–83; hopeful/providing hope 81–83; necessity of 75; of the universe 76 “strictly spiritual religion” 128

students: activities for Nature conservation 51, 52, 53; and faculty exchanges in natural places 52–53, 54; learnings from 55 sublime encounters 196–197, 204 substance-based ontology 195 suffering 257–258 sustainability/sustainable 8, 214, 216, 223, 227–228 Symmonds, Nicole 279 Syracuse University 49, 51 systemic racial injustices 263 Taoism 81 Taylor, Paul 268 temperance 64, 68, 132, 134, 134; cardinal virtue of 68; and Christians 68; as quality of character 6 Terminator 1 & 2 81 Test, Frederick H. 36 Thank God for Evolution (Dowd) 106 “the manuscripts of God” 34–35 Theokritoff, George 94 theology 19–22, 19–22 Theory of the Earth (Hutton) 106 thermoregulation 37, 66 The Turtle Story 160–161 “Think Little” (Berry) 50, 57n2 Thomas, Glyn 202 Thoreau, Henry David 196 Thunberg, Greta 221, 230, 277–278 Till, Emett 274 Tolkien, J. R. R. 77–78 “To what purpose is this waste?” (Rosetti) 87–88 traditional virtue ethics 3 trail-building 50 Travels in Alaska (Muir) 108 Trinity 93, 95 Triune community 95 true economic stories: ecology as economy 227–228; gift and belonging 229– 230; interdependence 228–229 truth-telling 222, 226–227, 230 Tsai, Chang 185 Turkel, Studs 210 Tu Weiming 181 Ukraine 10, 161 Union for Reform Judaism 230 Union Theological Seminary, Virginia 19 universe 76; creation of God 34; evolving in deep time 107–108; mathematical 19

Index  301 University of Georgia 25 University of Michigan 36, 37 University of Wisconsin-Madison 37–38 unlimited desire of human beings 71 unnatural disasters 144 urban transcultural narrative space 157–158 US endangered species list 25 Vancouver, British Columbia 54–55 Van der Donck, Adriaen 27, 29 Verduin, Leonard 36 Vernadsky, Vladimir 168 vice: autonomy as 120, 121, 123; conceit 120, 121, 123, 124; destruction of biological/ecological diversity 96; greed 63–64, 69, 81, 129, 161, 181, 212, 227; hubris 121–124, 147, 180; human beings dominating the Earth 87; of missing connections 280–281; of simple universalization 281–282; violence 96; see also specific types Victorian Britain, religious culture of 86 vigilance 10, 245, 249, 249 virtue: Aristotelian 212; Christian 63, 65, 68, 249; compassion 6, 8, 12n23, 147, 173, 185, 187, 204, 230, 282; constructive 249; for ecoflourishing 64; ecological challenges in terms of 3; and ecological justice 7; environmental 203–204; environmental ethics 277–278; faith 82, 106–107; generosity 6, 128–136; hope 101, 105–108; human/ecological flourishing, role in 2; humility 102; of humility 86, 96, 124; intersectional analysis 275–276; intersectionality 277– 280, 282–283; justice 142, 147, 216–217, 266–269, 272n22, 287; of limits 63–71; living harmoniously with Nature 117; love 2–3, 8, 23, 35, 36, 67–70, 101–102, 180, 228, 230, 288; moral/spiritual significance of emotions 8; Muir’s Greatest 266–269; mutual flourishing with more-than-humans 96; overview 274–275; personal and holistic 7; questions about 2; of receptivity 124; of respect 124; sophrosune 64, 64; temperance 68, 132, 134; value of 6–9; vice of missing connections 280–281; vice

of simple universalization 281–282; vigilance 10, 245, 249; wisdom 117; see also specific types ‘virtue-centered approach’ 6–9 virtue ethics 6–11; addressing limits 67–68; Christian ecological 6, 9–10; and ecological turn 6–11; environmental 3, 6; potential to address limits 67–68; traditional 3 virtuous intersectionality 282–283 Voices of Chernobyl (Alexievich) 161–163 von Balthasar, Hans Urs 86 von Humboldt, Alexander 65 Walsh, Brian J. 133 War of the Worlds (Wells) 79–80 Watkins, Carleton 269 Watt, James 25 Watts, Rikki 55 Waubesa Wetlands 173 Wells, Orson 80 Western Christianity 52, 87 Western culture 36, 160, 162 Whidbey Island 52 White, Lynn 86 White, Robert 10 White supremacy 263–264, 266, 269–271 The Whole Earth Catalogue (Brand) 50, 57n1 wild animal imagery in book of Job 121, 122 wilderness 29–30; and Christianity 29–30; colonial/federalist models of 28; imagery 28; and justice 29; living together in 52; as social construction 27; and Spirituals 28; white-focused 27–28 Wilderness Act 198 Wilderness and the American Mind (Nash) 25, 26 wilderness preservation: Christian contributions and misdirection in 25–30; diversifying Christian voices 27–29; Puritan prototypes 26–27; root of the problem 25–26 wildfires: in California 46; in Oregon 46 Williams, Delores 277–278 Willis, Paul 151 Wilson, E. O. 281–282 Wirzba, Norman 68, 92, 211, 239 Wisconsin Idea 37–38 wisdom 8, 22, 54, 68–70, 180–181, 181, 287; ancient 157; Biblical 55; dialogues 120–121, 123; earthly 69; “from above” 69; mental 187; practical 69, 134; as quality of

302 Index character 6; of spiritual/religious traditions 188; theological 55; as virtue 117 Wolfe, Thomas 156 Wolterstorff, Nicholas 53 women: Black 275–277, 282; enslaved 277; injustices to 214, 275; and reproductive labor 214 wonder 8, 20–21, 23, 77–78, 169, 203, 270, 287 Wood, William 27 Woodmancy waterfall 49, 54 Woolman, John 29 work: Christian ecological philosophy of 208–218; diversity of ecologically impactful 217–218; meanings of 209–215; overview 208–209; as production 212–213; as reproduction 213–215; as toil 209–212; toward an ethic of 215–217 Working (Turkel) 210 world as one community 54 worldview 109n14; ancient Israelite 118; anthropocentric 102; of Creation’s

purpose 102; divergent 184; fundamental dichotomy of 106; holistic 185; non-anthropocentric 109n14; philosophical 218; political 218; religious 187; theocentric 185; theological 218 World Wide Web (WWW) 169 worship: Anglo-Catholic 87–88; Catholic/ Prereformation worship practices 87; Christian 53, 56, 81; Church’s Eucharistic 94; creation’s 86–87, 92; silencing of 96 Wright, N. T. 131 writers: colonial 29; cultivating gift of perception 43; and readers 43 Yahweh 42, 126n48 The Year of the Flood (Atwood) 81 YHWH, divine speeches 121–123, 130 Yosemite Valley, destruction of 108 You can’t go home again (Wolfe) 156 Young, Edwin 37 Zane, Isaac, Sr. 28–29 Zwolinski, Matt 7