A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and Our Planet's Future

by Roger S. Gottlieb

In a time of darkening environmental prospects, frightening religious fundamentalism, and moribund liberalism, the remarkable and historically unprecedented rise of religious environmentalism is a profound source of hope. In A Greener Faith , Roger S. Gottlieb chronicles the promises of this critically important movement, illuminating its principal ideas, leading personalities, and ways of connecting care for the earth with justice for human beings. He also shows how religious environmentalism breaks the customary boundaries of "religious issues" in political life. Asserting that environmental degradation is sacrilegious, sinful, and an offense against God catapults religions directly into questions of social policy, economic and moral priorities, and the overall direction of secular society. Gottlieb contends that a spiritual perspective applied to the Earth provides the environmental movement with a uniquely appropriate way to voice its dream of a sustainable and just world.
Equally important, it helps develop a world-making political agenda that far exceeds interest group politics applied to forests and toxic incinerators. Rather, religious environmentalism offers an all-inclusive vision of what human beings are and how we should treat each other and the rest of life.

Gottlieb deftly analyzes the growing synthesis of the movement's religious, social, and political aspects, as well as the challenges it faces in consumerism, fundamentalism, and globalization. Highly engaging and passionately argued, this book is an indispensable resource for people of faith, environmentalists, scholars, and anyone who is concerned about our planet's future.

Genres: Environment, Religion

304 pages, Hardcover

First published May 30, 2006

About the author

I am a professor of philosophy at WPI and have written or edited 17 books, on subjects ranging from political philosophy and ethics to the Holocaust and disability. My major focus for the last twenty years has been the moral, political, spiritual and religious meaning of the environmental crisis; and the role of religion and spirituality in modern life.
I've described the rise of religious environmentalism ('A Greener Faith'); and asked what spirituality can look like in an age of environmental crisis('A Spirituality of Resistance'). I've also shown how progressive religion and social justice movements can help and learn from each other ('Joining Hands').

Recently, I turned to fiction in a collection of short stories: 'Engaging Voices: Tales of Morality and Meaning in an Age of Global Warming'. This book uses fictional settings to explore the moral, political, spiritual, and emotional meanings of the environmental crisis; and also asks what it would take for us to learn to listen to and learn from those with whom we disagree.

In January 2013 my latest book came out: 'Spirituality: What it Is and Why it Matters'. This book examines the promises and perils of spiritual life as understood both within and outside of traditional faiths, explains the rise of the widespread spiritual detachment from institutional religion, and offers searching accounts of yoga, meditation, and prayer. There are also insightful studies of spirituality's relation to modern medicine, nature and the environmental crisis, and political activism.

Both 'Engaging Voices' and 'Spirituality' won Nautilus Book Awards in 2013; and 'Spirituality' was also called a 'Best Book of the Year' by the Spirituality and Practice

Reviews

[Courtney]

If we are to love our neighbor as ourselves, we had better think deeply about the ways our energy use damages his life by causing global warming, even if he lives eight thousand miles away.

I really wanted to like this book, but I just couldn't get into it. I had it home from the library for three months and only got through the first chapter. Perhaps sometime I'll be more in the mood for this read, but it most certainly was not this summer.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like Gottlieb's work. His way of thinking strikes me for its clarity, and it probably helps that I pretty much always agree with him. This book provides some useful review of religious environmental movements, although not as much as This Sacred Earth, and I find the sections in which he is sharing his own perspective most enlightening and valuable anyway. Still a great book, another 4.5 star text.

[Willy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Human dominion over the earth entails serious responsibility for it. ...

For the Dalai Lama ecological wisdom comes not from recognizing the holiness of nature of from seeing the world as God's gift. It emerges, rather, from spiritual virtues such as mindfulness and selflessness.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good set of thoughts about religion and environmentalism and how the two have a very close connection.

[Courtney Chappell · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an ok book. I also had to read it for my religion class. Gottlieb has some interesting passages, although most times I found it dull and uninteresting. It took me a while to get through.