Christian Panic

Christian Environmentalism amid Ecological Panic

Christianity, cited as the most culpable accessory to the ecological crisis facing the world does include an environmental component in its doctrine. To be Christian, is to have the most anthropocentric worldview whereby humanity has dominion over all parts of nature. This view tends to negate responsibility for nature and the environment under this perception, as opposed to a more equitable view of nature and humanity such as proposed by St. Francis of Assisi (Keen, 2002) hundreds of years ago. Christian stewardship (Kearns, 1997), eco justice and creation spirituality (Keen, 2002) are all part of the great debate that has overtaken all levels of Christians as they reconcile their faith with the environmental crises that is apparent each day throughout the world. Christian stewardship is an evangelical stance (Henderson, 2005) that represents the concept of safeguarding the dominion over which God gave dominance. Eco justice links ecological concerns with other mainstream Christian perspectives such as sharing resources and equality (Kearns, 1997), while creation spirituality attempts to place humans into the confines of creation and thereby responsible for what was created (Keen, 2002). All three stances are instrumental in inserting Christian environmentalism into the ecological debate (Kearns, 1997). While these three forms of Christian environmentalism represent conservative, mainstream, and liberal positions, they all have the common purpose of integrating a Christian perspective into the secular arguments and providing moral ethos and discipline to the looser and more scattered secularization of environmentalism.

After 1967, when this negative image of Christians was put forth in an essay by Lynn White (as cited in (Cowdin, 2008)), there has been a concerted effort on the parts of many Christian sects to become intimately involved in “greening” the world and establishing an eco-positive...