**4. Abrahamic religions**

Probably no religion is completely conducive to ecological sustainability, and no religious position is completely antithetical. Due to the 'Dominion Mandate'suggested by Genesis 1:26-28, however, the Abrahamic religions are scripturally handicapped vis-à-vis a non-anthropocentric understanding. In his 1967 article, 'The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis', historian Lynn White, Jr. blamed Western Christianity in particular for causing the worldwide ecological crises. His hypothesis is that 'What people do about their ecology depends on what they think of themselves in relation to the things around them'. 10

*Especially in its Western form, Christianity is the most anthropocentric religion the world has seen. [ … ] Man shares, in great measure, God's transcendence of nature. Christianity [ … ] not only established a dualism of man and nature but also insisted that it is God's will that man exploit nature for his proper ends.<sup>11</sup>*

In consideration of humanity's alleged hegemony, Islam shares a similar concept of human domination, namely *Quran* 2:30 states Allah as saying, 'I am setting on the

<sup>7</sup> Sideris & Whalen-Bridge [9].

<sup>8</sup> Barbour [10]

<sup>9</sup> Young [11]

<sup>10</sup> White [12], p. 1205).

<sup>11</sup> Ibid.

earth a vicegerent [*khalijah*.]' The Abrahamic concept is summed up as the teaching that humans are distinct from nature and have therefore a divinely sanctioned right to exploit nature.

With the understanding that the Abrahamic God has given humanity dominion over nature, the control of the natural world through technology has become an essential given for the West. There are, of course, strenuous denials of White's thesis that appears to endorse unlimited transhumanist transformation due to man having been created in the image of God (*Imago Dei*). The Vatican in particular has condemned the Promethean notion that humans have complete rights over their biological forms. However, the lines between the human and the machine, between the human and the environment and between technology and the environment have become operationally blurred by what White considers to be the predominant interpretation of the Genesis mandate.

Abrahamic Christianity at its strongest anti-ecotheological stance is most likely to be witnessed in much of modern-day evangelical and televangelical forums. What has become known as the 'religious right', especially in America, refutes climate change and considers that a free-market approach is sufficient for environmental care.<sup>12</sup> The Cornwall Alliance, founded in 2005, claims to be committed to a balanced Biblical view of stewardship but argues that the environmentalist movement is a threat to society. The 'Green Dragon' is regarded as evil and must die: accordingly, God does not consider natural wilderness areas as either good or hospitable to man.13 Many church leaders, both Catholic and Protestant, have judged 'eco-theology' to be undermining Christianity's central teachings.<sup>14</sup> While the eco-theologian Larry Rasmussen has located other possibilities, the environmental debate appears to be reduced primarily to the dominion versus stewardship binary. Nevertheless, Rasmussen contends that

*Both the Jews and early Christians understood 'image of God' and 'dominion' as a message of cosmic dignity that affirmed human agency and responsibility.<sup>15</sup>*

A growing Christian theologian response is that appropriate dominion requires caring for creation. In this more positive response, the favoured model has become one of stewardship, although many prefer to speak of humans as Earth trustees. Echoed here is perhaps Martin Luther King, Jr.'s declaration concerning Christ's urging his followers to love their enemies and explaining that 'Far from being the pious injunction of a utopian dreamer, this command is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilisation'. 16

And turning for a moment towards Sikhism which is frequently understood as a dharmic faith that seeks release from the cycle of transmigration, in essentials it may be seen as an amalgamation of both Hinduism and Islam. Its belief in a monotheistic Waheguru or God places it in many respects under the umbrella of Abrahamic spirituality. Nevertheless, and much like Islam which honours creation as the gift of Allah, Sikhism is openly concerned with the preservation, restoration and enrichment of the

<sup>12</sup> *Vide* Landrum et al. [13].

<sup>13</sup> See also, Hickman [14].

<sup>14</sup> Nash [15].

<sup>15</sup> Rasmussen ([16], p. 233).

<sup>16</sup> Cited in Holland [17].

#### *Religion and the Environmental Crisis DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.104002*

environment that God has created. Consequently, with such conservationist concerns as well as such phenomena as the Evangelical Environmental Network (originally founded in 1993) that counters the Cornwall Alliance, there is within Abrahamic religiosity serious misgivings about the human dominion (the Dominion Mandate) of classical and enlightenment Judaism and Christianity. In short, Christianity, along with Judaism and Islam, is being called to respect the world because it is God's creation, and this idea of responsibility carries with it a task that is specifically human—not a task that is incumbent on any other earthly creature, but is specific to human beings—that of caring for the earth. Additionally, as the Belgian theologian Edward Schillebeeckx puts it: 'On the basis of a proper belief in creation we cannot foist off onto God what is our task in the world'. <sup>17</sup> Heythrop College Lecturer in Theology Martin Poulsom signals the issue most accurately:

*If, or perhaps, given the current state of affairs, when men and women neglect their responsibilities, bringing the ecosystem close to the point of disastrous collapse, they cannot expect God to solve all their problems for them.<sup>18</sup>*

Poulsom concludes that in sum 'faith in creation could make all the difference to the participation of Christians, Jews and Muslims in the current debates about the world and its future'. Consequently, despite Genesis 1:28 and Christian and Islamic eschatological stress on an afterlife, there is a potential with the Abrahamic traditions to address the current environmental threats to the planetary natural balance that may be interpreted to be in conformity to its spiritual understandings.
