With Earth Day fast approaching (April 22), Americans might want to consider how environmentalism is becoming a new form of religion. They also might want to ask: Why is it OK to teach environmental religion in public schools, while the teaching of Judaism, Christianity and other traditional religions is not constitutionally permitted?
Environmentalism has, indeed, become an article of religious faith. As Joel Garreau, a former Washington Post editor, wrote in 2010, “faith-based environmentalism increasingly sports saints, sins, prophets, predictions, heretics, sacraments and rituals.”
Some argue that a religion must have a God, disqualifying environmentalism. Yet, as the great American psychologist and philosopher William James observed in his 1902 classic, “The Varieties of Religious Experience,” it is not necessary to “positively assume a God” in order to have a religion. James insisted that “godless or quasi-godless creeds” also can qualify as religions, which — given its devout belief system and the fervor of its adherents — clearly would include today’s environmentalism.
Paul Tillich, the greatest American theologian of the 20th century, similarly defined religion as a comprehensive belief system that seeks to answer questions of “ultimate concern” to human existence. For Tillich, it was characteristic of our time that “the most important religious movements are developing outside of (official) religion.”
The U.S. Supreme Court endorsed such an understanding of religion in the 1960s. In a 1965 decision in the case known as United States v. Seeger, involving the requirements for a conscientious objector exemption from the military draft, the Court ruled that the exemption should be applied equally to those who believe in a Supreme Being and those “with a sincere and meaningful belief which occupies in the life of its possessor a place parallel to that filled by the God” of religious believers.
Even as it adopts secular forms, environmentalism borrows to a surprising degree from Jewish and Christian history.
For example, it says in Deuteronomy that, for those who worship false idols, God “will send disease among you ... fever, infections, plague and war.... (and) will blight your crops.” In 2010, Al Gore similarly foresaw environmental sinners headed toward calamity on a biblical scale, facing rising seas, “stronger and more destructive” hurricanes and droughts “getting longer and deeper.”
In contemporary environmentalism, the largest religious debts are owed to Calvinism. It was John Calvin who wrote that God has “revealed himself and daily discloses himself in the whole workmanship of the universe.” For both Calvin and environmentalism, the natural world is the artwork of God, the Creation.
Man’s role is to conserve God’s work. Thus, the rituals of environmentalism celebrate reduced consumption — lowering the heat, driving fewer miles, using less water, living in smaller houses, having fewer children. Limiting human appetites, rather than satisfying ever-growing demands, is the environmental command.
As prominent an environmentalist as David Brower, who served as executive director of the Sierra Club for 18 years, has described human existence as a terrible “cancer” destroying God’s good Creation. Being environmentally “born again” was for Brower — and many other environmentalists — the only good answer to modern man’s environmental corruption and sinfulness.
The issue posed by environmentalism today for those who believe in the separation of church and state is the following: Does it make sense constitutionally to prohibit the teaching and embrace of Judaism and Protestantism in official public settings, while permitting the government establishment — as taught in the public schools — of this new secularized Protestantism: the religion of green, the religion of Earth Day.
• Nelson is a professor of environmental policy at the University of Maryland and a senior fellow with The Independent Institute, 100 Swan Way, Oakland, Calif. 94621; website: www.independent.org. He is the author of “The New Holy Wars: Economic Religion versus Environmental Religion in Contemporary America.”
Comments (36)
Add commentStop the planet I want to get off...
In the names of Zeus, Yahweh, Krishna, Thor and Scarlett Johansson, what is this doing in my local paper? There is so much low hanging, rotten fruit here that I don't know where to start. So, I'll just end with the end.
Nelson asks, "does it make sense constitutionally to prohibit the teaching and embrace of Judaism and Protestantism in official public settings, while permitting the government establishment--as taught in the public schools--of this new secularized Protestantism: the religion of green, the religion of Earth Day."
What sort of cockamamie pretzel-logic is this? Yes, professor, it would still make constitutional sense to keep State and Superstition separate even if your wishful thinking transmogrified Earth Day into a religion.
Mike
Transmogrified...
... Hmmm. Nobody believes in NOTHING. Even "atheists" have deified something in their lives. The list is innumerable. But, whether one embraces one God or gods many, there is always a default religion to capture ones faith- Secular Humanism: There is no power greater than Myself. Yup. That's right. Even so called atheists bow down to someone. Even it is to themselves. By denying the existence of any Supreme Being, one reverts to a defacto god- Me. Green and environmental religions? How about Druidism? Of course there is also a Judeo-Christian reference to those "whose god is their bellies". Secular Humanism. Defacto religion by self exhaltation.
Taking care and being aware
Taking care and being aware of our impact of earth is not a religion. I have a feeling some people would even be offended. Because you bring in right and wrong now qualifies the subject as religious?
This is just silly and pointless.
Wait...
does that mean it's also no longer okay to teach the Religion of Predatory Capitalism and Economics in school??
Or is that different somehow?
If we must have a religion...
I'd prefer that it's Environmentalism rather than one with pedophile priests, bearded ayatollahs issuing fatwas, or big, imaginary men in the sky pulling all the puppet strings.
I thought religions were
I thought religions were built on faith. Environmentalism is built on science and political activism.
Nice one PP.
Nice one PP.
weak sauce
I cant help but think with everything else going on this is just a second-string distractor. Really? Calvinist-enviro-nistas teaching in our public schools? Light the pyre.
It's peculiar to me that religion is redefined by some
as being virtually any passion held by cleanly shaven apes who also vote. Sports=religion; Education=religion; and even atheism now=religion! What did Bill Maher say? Oh yes, atheism is a religion like abstinence is a sex position.
This phenomenon is not unlike the addict who can't accept that there are people who do just fine without their drug of choice.
Like I said, stop the planet.
Mike
The article is a joke. The
The article is a joke. The author relies on a straw man: "some argue that a religion must have a God," he says, but no one argues this except for complete retards. There are many religions without gods, like Theravada Buddhism, Voodoo, and Shinto. Only someone completely insulated from other cultures would make this argument. Someone like Robert H. Nelson, apparently.
If Mr. Nelson were to make an honest argument, he would characterize religion as a spiritual code involving the supernatural, because that's what it actually is. But, of course, then he couldn't make a case for environmentalism as a religion.
Robert H. Nelson is either a bad man who lies in public, or a stupid man who neglects to fact check his own writing.
More foolishness
Linking extreme environmentalism with religion, nice. Now we we'll have more eco-terrorists who can claim they're doing god's work. I think I'll go out and sin by cutting off my car's catalytic converter. If my dog poops on the Dike trail, will he be a sinner also? Sent to the big kennel in the sky by the hand of god? It's gettin crazy here.
Alaskastu, nice, but you give religion too much respect!
"Bringing in right and wrong" should disqualify something as being religious. What I mean to say is there are better places to find morality than religion.
Mike
Kill the messenger!
You are all missing the forest for the trees. Have you checked out independent .org? It is another radical right wingnut website dedicated to "government is the problem and privatization is the answer" mouthpiece for corporate America.
The fact that the JE chose this article to reprint out the many hundreds of thought provoking essays out there proves that this Chamber of Commerce rag seeks to marginalize education, environmental awareness and open discourse in order to pursue their own ends.
What's next? privatization of the drinking water system so an out of country corporation can concentrate even more wealth from the AJ?
@Mike
The way you harp on religion makes me think somebody “pee’d in your wheaties” at some point. I’m not going to guesstimate where you’re coming from, though I will say this: “organized” religion does lend itself to open critique, but discounting all practitioners of religion as superstitious and wanting is as narrow-minded as the fundamentalist evangelical that damns you for missing last Sunday’s service.
Belief in a higher authority, and especially one that has a plan that involves you, should invoke the most compelling sense of right and wrong. But it’s rudder guidance – even the playbook, whichever one you choose or use (Gospels, Quran, Book of Mormon, Talmud, etc), is only rudder guidance. Because we have been endowed to choose. You can argue that your human intellect is sufficient to make the call yourself, but the believer has an edge because he never acts alone.
I realize this exposes the flanks to all sorts of “what abouts”, as in “What about Jonestown?” or “the Manson Family?” or that tried, true, and tired, “Crusades anyone?” This is morality we are discussing, and if there is an inherent sense of right and wrong in mankind, then religion is the result of rudder guidance compelling like-minded people to say, “This we believe…” Plenty of good people are drinking this holy kool-aid and you wouldn’t know they’re religious, except that they are good people.
Actually...
...the far-right conservative industry groups love socialism - socialism of costs, but privatization of profits.
Grendel, I'm interested in what is true
And religion is one of the most destructive pollutants plaguing humanity.
It really is a morally bankrupt enterprise. Carrots and sticks are not the tools of a moral population. Consider, what is more moral: doing something good because you fear punishment from your gods or doing something good, for goodness sake? Or how about the corollary, doing good to gain a celestial reward? One doesn't need to believe in moral absolutes to hold a moral position.
That carrot-stick morality argument is the vestigial evidence of a primitive time in human history when men and women feared volcanoes, floods and the moon.
Religion does not have the copyright on what is true. Far from it in fact.
Morality is next stronghold to be lifted from the clutches of faith and it can't come quick enough for me.
Mike
In the course of my life
the greater number of truly good and moral people who have crossed my path have not come from the those who rely upon their own moral compass but rather, as Grendel put it, those who have "rudder guidance".
@Mike, again
This I believe, my friend Mike: morality doesn't come from faith. Morality is the mind's conformity to what distinguishes good from not-good. I hesitate to say "from evil", because that may connote a Force of Evil, like Satan or some other boogie-man.
I agree that a rewards' driven concept of morality falls short -- it's unbecoming of God to say, "Do this or else." But that's just me, and I'm not a pusher; I'm a user. This I believe -- there's room enough in God's heaven for good people that have never known him, because if God is the greatest good, then where else would they go?
That's funny, ken, because I
That's funny, ken, because I have not come upon any great number of truly good and moral people over the course of my life, regardless of where they think morals come from.
@pp
maybe they cant get thru the filter settings
ken dunker II, anecdotal information is not compelling to me
There was a recent poll done in the UK just a month or two ago by one of the most internationally reputable polling agencies called, Ipsos MORI.
Background: the UK has a religious census every decade. The poll followed the official census a week later with very precise questions. The poll was directed only at people who checked the Christian box as their faith identity a week earlier.
For generations, clergy in British government defended their power saying they had mandates from the public. The MORI poll proved, repeat, proved otherwise. There are lots of facts to be gleaned that bodes poorly for religious claims, but regarding your anecdote, one question makes me question the strength of your position.
When asked where one turns to decide difficult moral issues, the majority said, their OWN innate sense of right and wrong. Only 10% said they turned to their religion. Just think about that. Keep in mind, this is from people who say they are Christian; this is not a poll of the general public for whom their religion is not known. Friends and relations were next; your so-called rudder of religion is literally in the gutter. I strongly suspect a poll like that in the US would demonstrate a similar, or at least not as faith-philic, attitude.
This poll has been a gargantuan embarrassment to the Christian leaders in the US and in Britain particularly, where without a separation of State and Superstition, clergy by right, have 20 or so seats in the parliament. Faith is dying there, Christianity in particular. Religion could be said to be primarily a third world problem now, with the exception of the US, and there are complex thoughts thrown about as to why this country drifted away from its secular roots. Good news, religion is dying here too.
Of course, all this makes sense. Humanity is outgrowing many of our species' infantile fears.
Mike
Environmentalism vs. Religion
Environmentalists, as a group, tend not to fly planes into buildings as radical Muslims do.
Environmentalists, as a group, tend not to covertly sexually abuse children on a mass scale (like the Catholic church does), then seek other environmentalists to cover up their crimes.
Environmentalists tend not to demand 10% of income from their colleagues under threat of eternal damnation if they don't.
This letter was a joke, and it actually made me laugh, linking environmentalism with religion. More regurgitation from right wing talk radio.
I applaud the Empire for occasionally posting ridiculous right wing editorials such as this. It gets the forum posters pumping and that is a good thing.
HAPPY EARTH DAY EVERYONE!
HUG A GAY TREE FOR BABY JESUS THIS WEEKEND!
I love Mike D
Let's get married. I like you.
If not, let's go hug some trees and tell Jesus jokes.
What did the Buddhist monk say to the hot dog vendor?...."Make me one...with everything."
Skeptical
The author is a professor, of environmental policy no less, at the U. of Maryland? That's hard to believe.
A God? No.
Churches? No.
A comprehensive belief system that answers questions of "ultimate concern"? No.
Environmental "sinners" to suffer exclusively? No.
Etc.
Nonsense!
Mike
Well, you got me there. Religion is waning in America but I do not take as much joy from this trend as you do nor will I, as agnostic as I am, browbeat or ridicule one's belief system as "superstitious" "infantile fears". As many wars and persecutions can be attributed to organized religion in the past, (and present) history is replete with heinous acts perpetuated against those of faith or simply different faiths. It is a human condition practiced in every country, every century and allows us 'humans' to place ourselves above others. Yes, the door swings both ways, but I will not be one to crack that door open.
So I will accede to your premise one does not need to be be 'moral' to be a good person. Morality is a teaching within a moral code (for example, according to a particular philosophy, religion, culture, etc.)
Rather, I would rephrase my comment to say one needs to be 'ethical'. Ethical choices are not between good and evil, but rather between two goods. Truth v. loyalty, individual benefit v. community benefit, short-term v. long-term, justice v. mercy. Ethics is not feelings. Sometimes doing the ethical thing is harder than doing the non-ethical thing. Ethics is not religion. Many people are not religious, but ethics applies to everyone.
Ethics is not following the law. Laws can become corrupt. Ethics is not following cultural norms. A culture can become corrupt and blind to ethical concerns (slavery in the U.S.).
But as advanced as the human species has become (as every culture has felt in every century in our development) I fear we are throwing out the baby with the bath water in exorcising religion from society.
Concerned Citizen
Ken,
As articulate and compassionate (and correct) as your last commentary may be, you will NEVER get Mr. Dzuiba to agree that there is any place in society for religion. He is a card carrying, flag flying atheist and proud enough of that "attribute" to verbally flog anyone who challenges him or asks him to provide anything that remotely resembles new information, rather he brings his tired and worn out diatribe to the table to parade ad infinitem.
Thank you for your comments. I appreciate them.
Here's a few for you, Jo
Here's a few for you, Jo (pardon if you've heard them before):
Why do the ladies love Jesus? Dude was hung like THIS.
I gave myself to Jesus… but now he never calls.
And...
Jesus saves… passes to Noah… he shoots, he scooooores!
@Colorado
why dont you take that turd-gurgler somewhere you wont make fool of yourself?
Who are you, king [filtered
Who are you, king [filtered word]? Why don't you lighten up? God has a sense of humor, even if you don't.
This article hits the nail right on the head
The SEACCies are all up in arms by this article, but to me it is right on the money.
The ideas which propel the enviro philosophy are based on weak, and far reaching speculations; by definition, faith-based environmentalism.
Thank you for an enlightening article.