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Loving Nature: Ecological Integrity and Christian Responsibility
The ecological crisis is a serious challenge to Christian theology and ethics because the crisis is rooted partly in flawed convictions about the rights and powers of humankind in relation to the rest of the natural world. James A. Nash argues that Christianity can draw on a rich theological and ethical tradition with which to confront this challenge.
260 pages, Paperback
First published November 19, 1991
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June 26, 2024
AN INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDY IN CHRISTIAN THEOLOGICAL ETHICS
James A. Nash (1938–2008) was an ecotheologian who was Executive Director of the Churches’ Center for Theology and Public Policy; he served in many educational and political positions within the United Methodist Church, working for environmental protection.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 1991 book, “The challenge of ethics is to examine our inherited values rationally, to revise or eliminate these values coherently in accord with empirical data and ultimate commitments, and to make choices that are consistent with our transformed values. This book represents a struggle to follow this normative process from a Christian perspective. But this ecological autobiography also warns readers that the pre-ethical prejudices from my early story undoubtedly continue to shape my theological, ethical, and political views.” (Pg. 17)
He continues, “A crisis[is] a decisive situation which challenges us to choose and to change… That seems to me to be clearly the character of the ecological crisis. As a response to this crisis, this book attempts to chart some Christian ethical and political directions for a new course… This book is an interdisciplinary study in Christian theological ethics. My main purposes are to develop at least the rudiments of an ecological ethic grounded in Christian theology, and to show some of the major implications of this ethic for the formation of patterns of behavior and public policies in our time.” (Pg. 19-20)
He explains, “What are the characteristics and traits that are conducive to the goal of ecological integrity and that, therefore, we ought to cultivate? The answers are what I call the ‘ecological virtues.’ They are the patterns of personal and social perspective and behavior that, if followed, can make ecological integrity a reality… The nine ecological virtues are as follows: 1; SUSTAINABILITY is living within the bounds of the regenerative, absorptive, and carrying capacities of the earth, continuously and indefinitely… 2. ADAPTABILITY… is the accommodation to those forces and constraints of nature that cannot be changed… 3. RELATIONALITY is the acute sensitivity to the fact that everything is connected with and has consequences for everything else… 4. FRUGALITY connotes thrift, moderation, efficiency, simplicity of life-style, and stringent conservation… [It is] the antithesis of consumerism and prodigality… 5. EQUITY… [is] justice in the distribution of the world’s goods and services, so that all human beings have the essential material conditions for human dignity and social participation… 6. SOLIDARITY is… the moral response to the reality of human interdependence… 7. BIODIVERSITY… is the extension of solidarity to the whole biosphere… 8. SUFFICIENCY … means that solutions must be proportionate to the intricacies and magnitude of the problems… 9. HUMILITY is the self-realistic virtue… that recognizes the limitations on human knowledge, technological ingenuity, moral character, and biological status.” (Pg. 63-66)
He acknowledges, “Christianity is no monolith… The ecological complainants should remember that there are Christian-influenced cultures and culture-influenced Christian churches, but there is no such thing as a Christian culture. The norms of the faith and the practices of the culture are always at least in tension. Remembering this reality will help to prevent simplistic causal theories about Christian values being decisive influences on cultures.” (Pg. 79)
He suggests, “In a sense, the church does need ‘new’ theological and ethical bases for sustaining ecological integrity. This need, however, does not entail abandoning or replacing Christianity’s main themes. Rather, it requires extensions and reinterpretations of these main themes in ways that preserve their historic identity and that are also consistent with ecological data. The next two chapters are an effort to show the significant ecological potential in some central Christian convictions.” (Pg. 92)
He points out, “by the formation of humans and other creatures from the same substance, the humus… Humans are representatives of the earth, interdependent parts of nature---and this totality is what God became immersed in through association with the Representative of Humanity in the Incarnation. The ecological implications of this interpretation of the Incarnation are significant, and have long been recognized in some segments of the Christian church. The Incarnation confers dignity not only on humankind, but on everything and everyone, past and present, with which humankind is united in interdependence … it sanctifies the biophysical world, making all things and kinds meaningful and worthy and valuable in the divine scheme. It justifies ‘biophilia,’ the affiliation with and affection for the diversity of life forms.” (Pg. 109)
He observes, “The natural world has been a prime place for encounters with the grandeur and glory of God. The major reason may be that nature in the raw is relatively unencumbered … with humanly created artifacts, and, thus, contributes to a feeling of being present in the midst of God’s comparatively pure creativity. It arouses a cosmic consciousness, a sense of intimacy, a numinous feeling of creaturely awe in the presence of awe-full majesty…” (Pg. 113)
He asks, “What are ecological sins? No single or simple definition will do, because of the complexity and subtlety of relationships between humans and the rest of nature. Several overlapping definitions will give the flavor or ecological sin (and sins). Ecologically, sin is the refusal to act in the image of God, as responsible representatives who value and love the host of interdependent creatures in their ecosystems, which the Creator values and loves. It is injustice, the self-centered human inclination to defy God’s covenant of justice by grasping more than our due… It is acting like the owner of creation with absolute property rights. Ecological sin is expressed as the arrogant denial of the creaturely limitations imposed on human ingenuity and technology, a defiant disrespect or a deficient respect for the interdependent relationships of all creatures and their environments established in the covenant of creation, and an anthropocentric abuse of what God has made for frugal use.” (Pg. 119)
He states, “the resurrection hope… need not be---and for some of us, cannot be---taken as literal truth, with an empty tomb, mysterious appearances, bizarre visions, and apocalyptic scenarios, but it must be taken as symbolic truth. The Resurrection … points to the basic perception of reality that gives the faith its cosmic integrity… The point of the resurrection symbol is…. that the Representative of the Cosmos, became the pledge or promise of the full redemption to come.” (Pg. 131)
He summarizes, “I propose the following general rights … as the just claims of nonhuman species and their members: 1. The right to participate in the natural competition for existence… 2. The right to satisfaction of their basic needs and the opportunity to perform their individual and/or ecosystemic functions… 3. The right to healthy and whole habitats… 4. The right to reproduce their own kind… 5. The right to fulfill their evolutionary potential with freedom from human-induced extinctions… 6. The right to freedom from human cruelty… 7. The right to redress through human interventions, to restore a semblance of the natural conditions disrupted by human actions… 8. The right to a fair share of the goods necessary for the sustainability of one’s species.” (Pg. 186-188)
This book is one of the most important written by an ecologist with a Christian perspective. It will be “must reading” for anyone interested in Christianity and Ecology.
James A. Nash (1938–2008) was an ecotheologian who was Executive Director of the Churches’ Center for Theology and Public Policy; he served in many educational and political positions within the United Methodist Church, working for environmental protection.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 1991 book, “The challenge of ethics is to examine our inherited values rationally, to revise or eliminate these values coherently in accord with empirical data and ultimate commitments, and to make choices that are consistent with our transformed values. This book represents a struggle to follow this normative process from a Christian perspective. But this ecological autobiography also warns readers that the pre-ethical prejudices from my early story undoubtedly continue to shape my theological, ethical, and political views.” (Pg. 17)
He continues, “A crisis[is] a decisive situation which challenges us to choose and to change… That seems to me to be clearly the character of the ecological crisis. As a response to this crisis, this book attempts to chart some Christian ethical and political directions for a new course… This book is an interdisciplinary study in Christian theological ethics. My main purposes are to develop at least the rudiments of an ecological ethic grounded in Christian theology, and to show some of the major implications of this ethic for the formation of patterns of behavior and public policies in our time.” (Pg. 19-20)
He explains, “What are the characteristics and traits that are conducive to the goal of ecological integrity and that, therefore, we ought to cultivate? The answers are what I call the ‘ecological virtues.’ They are the patterns of personal and social perspective and behavior that, if followed, can make ecological integrity a reality… The nine ecological virtues are as follows: 1; SUSTAINABILITY is living within the bounds of the regenerative, absorptive, and carrying capacities of the earth, continuously and indefinitely… 2. ADAPTABILITY… is the accommodation to those forces and constraints of nature that cannot be changed… 3. RELATIONALITY is the acute sensitivity to the fact that everything is connected with and has consequences for everything else… 4. FRUGALITY connotes thrift, moderation, efficiency, simplicity of life-style, and stringent conservation… [It is] the antithesis of consumerism and prodigality… 5. EQUITY… [is] justice in the distribution of the world’s goods and services, so that all human beings have the essential material conditions for human dignity and social participation… 6. SOLIDARITY is… the moral response to the reality of human interdependence… 7. BIODIVERSITY… is the extension of solidarity to the whole biosphere… 8. SUFFICIENCY … means that solutions must be proportionate to the intricacies and magnitude of the problems… 9. HUMILITY is the self-realistic virtue… that recognizes the limitations on human knowledge, technological ingenuity, moral character, and biological status.” (Pg. 63-66)
He acknowledges, “Christianity is no monolith… The ecological complainants should remember that there are Christian-influenced cultures and culture-influenced Christian churches, but there is no such thing as a Christian culture. The norms of the faith and the practices of the culture are always at least in tension. Remembering this reality will help to prevent simplistic causal theories about Christian values being decisive influences on cultures.” (Pg. 79)
He suggests, “In a sense, the church does need ‘new’ theological and ethical bases for sustaining ecological integrity. This need, however, does not entail abandoning or replacing Christianity’s main themes. Rather, it requires extensions and reinterpretations of these main themes in ways that preserve their historic identity and that are also consistent with ecological data. The next two chapters are an effort to show the significant ecological potential in some central Christian convictions.” (Pg. 92)
He points out, “by the formation of humans and other creatures from the same substance, the humus… Humans are representatives of the earth, interdependent parts of nature---and this totality is what God became immersed in through association with the Representative of Humanity in the Incarnation. The ecological implications of this interpretation of the Incarnation are significant, and have long been recognized in some segments of the Christian church. The Incarnation confers dignity not only on humankind, but on everything and everyone, past and present, with which humankind is united in interdependence … it sanctifies the biophysical world, making all things and kinds meaningful and worthy and valuable in the divine scheme. It justifies ‘biophilia,’ the affiliation with and affection for the diversity of life forms.” (Pg. 109)
He observes, “The natural world has been a prime place for encounters with the grandeur and glory of God. The major reason may be that nature in the raw is relatively unencumbered … with humanly created artifacts, and, thus, contributes to a feeling of being present in the midst of God’s comparatively pure creativity. It arouses a cosmic consciousness, a sense of intimacy, a numinous feeling of creaturely awe in the presence of awe-full majesty…” (Pg. 113)
He asks, “What are ecological sins? No single or simple definition will do, because of the complexity and subtlety of relationships between humans and the rest of nature. Several overlapping definitions will give the flavor or ecological sin (and sins). Ecologically, sin is the refusal to act in the image of God, as responsible representatives who value and love the host of interdependent creatures in their ecosystems, which the Creator values and loves. It is injustice, the self-centered human inclination to defy God’s covenant of justice by grasping more than our due… It is acting like the owner of creation with absolute property rights. Ecological sin is expressed as the arrogant denial of the creaturely limitations imposed on human ingenuity and technology, a defiant disrespect or a deficient respect for the interdependent relationships of all creatures and their environments established in the covenant of creation, and an anthropocentric abuse of what God has made for frugal use.” (Pg. 119)
He states, “the resurrection hope… need not be---and for some of us, cannot be---taken as literal truth, with an empty tomb, mysterious appearances, bizarre visions, and apocalyptic scenarios, but it must be taken as symbolic truth. The Resurrection … points to the basic perception of reality that gives the faith its cosmic integrity… The point of the resurrection symbol is…. that the Representative of the Cosmos, became the pledge or promise of the full redemption to come.” (Pg. 131)
He summarizes, “I propose the following general rights … as the just claims of nonhuman species and their members: 1. The right to participate in the natural competition for existence… 2. The right to satisfaction of their basic needs and the opportunity to perform their individual and/or ecosystemic functions… 3. The right to healthy and whole habitats… 4. The right to reproduce their own kind… 5. The right to fulfill their evolutionary potential with freedom from human-induced extinctions… 6. The right to freedom from human cruelty… 7. The right to redress through human interventions, to restore a semblance of the natural conditions disrupted by human actions… 8. The right to a fair share of the goods necessary for the sustainability of one’s species.” (Pg. 186-188)
This book is one of the most important written by an ecologist with a Christian perspective. It will be “must reading” for anyone interested in Christianity and Ecology.
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August 23, 2007religion,nonfiction,philosophy
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