This Sacred Earth

This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment
ed. by Roger S. Gottlieb
Routledge, 1996
673 pgs
ISBN 0-415-91233-4

In his anthology "This Sacred Earth," Roger Gottlieb presents a diverse and insightful compilation of writings relevant to and emerging from the nexus of religion and nature. This volume, published by Routledge in 1996, serves students and teachers well for an introduction to what Gottlieb and others are calling "ecotheology."

Gottlieb, a Professor of Philosophy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, brings this sensibility that has emerged in the last few decades to the fore, but does not neglect its roots in indigenous and classical cultures nor does he overlook its first articulation in the Nineteenth Century in writers and activists like Thoreau and Muir.

This 673 page book's first of seven parts is a rhapsody in green: Gottlieb teases us with short excerpts of powerful and lyrical nature writing. This section ranges from the sharp, brilliant polemic of Thoreau in a passage from "Walking," to a breathtaking glimpse of "rolling arctic tundra" from Barry Lopez's "Arctic Dreams." My favorite is a tender piece form the tough prophet and scientist Rachel Carson, a memory of a moonlit beach walk with her young nephew in search of ghost crabs. My students are provoked by the closing piece in this first section, Stephanie Kaza's reflection on the wood of the crucifix, "House of Wood." These excerpts are too short; they are not adequate representations of these fine writers and thinkers. They do serve to stimulate interest in reading more from the books from which these passages are taken.

Part II takes the reader into another realm of great literature and religious sensibility, back thousands of years and around the globe. Organized under the subtitle "How Traditional Religions Viewed Nature," Gottlieb supplies creation myths from Native North and South Americans, Pacific Islanders, Hindus and Greeks as well as selections from the Bible, the Tao Te Ching and other scriptures. I found the ancient Hindu "Parade of Ants" legend to be particularly insightful for the modern context. Also noteworthy is Michael Kioni Dudleys "Traditional Native Hawaiian Environmental Philosophy," as it helps students see beyond the resort hotels into a profound traditional culture of respect for the earth. The articles on Islamic and African views are sluggish and better choices might have been made to represent these important positions.

The third section starts with Lynn White's famous essay "The Historic Roots of our Ecological Crisis." This clarion call, first published in Science Magazine in 1967, woke up many in the churches, occasioned great debate and set in motion a transformation in Western religious thought and action regarding theological anthropology and the environment. Appropriately, the rest of the essays in this section are, in a sense, midrash on White. They include an important statement by John Paul II from 1990, as well as groundbreaking statements from American Baptists and Evangelical Lutherans.

Part IV picks up from there in the sense of examining this new anthropology from a feminist point of view. Rosemary Radford Reuther sets the keynote which is followed by several provocative pieces. Very accessible to students and extremely powerful is Terry Tempest Williams "The Clan of One Breasted Women,"which moves from the childhood memory of a mushroom cloud over the desert to the syndrome of breast cancer among the women in her family to an act of civil disobedience at a Nevada test site. Part V presents the leading edge of formal thought in ecotheology, the sensibility called "deep ecology." This brief forty page section is centered on intense essays by Thomas Berry and Joanna Macy, but is introduced in an intriguing way that was quite helpful to my students: Edna St. Vincent Millay's "The Fawn"and an Albert Schweitzer essay, "Man and Creature."A very clear article in this section that sparked much debate in my classroom is "Trees, Forestry and the Responsiveness of Creation" by Walsh, Karsh and Ansell.

Gottlieb's sixth section, "Religious Practice for a Sacred Earth," is an invaluable compilation of liturgies and worship resources. I have used much of this section in the field with my students, including pieces by Thich Nhat Hanh, Black Elk and John Seed. A four-page National Council of the Church of Christ liturgy moves nicely from responsive prayers of confession to closing pledges of commitment. There is also a useful collection of materials on the Jewish tradition of blessing, as well as a piece by Marina Lachecki on "The Blessing of Water." The final part of the anthology is called "Ecology, Religion and Society"and begins with Roger Gottlieb's own fine attempt at critical synthesis "Spiritual Deep Ecology and the Left: An Attempt at Reconciliation." This long last section includes an "Earth First" piece by Bron Taylor, an interview with Cesar Chavez about farm labor and pesticides and more statements from religious leaders along with papers from environmental summit meetings. One true jewel not to be overlooked in this mix is Melody Ermachild Chavis "Street Trees." In the tradition of great nature writing, this piece challenges and inspires with a lyrical quality usually used to describe wide open spaces, not city sidewalks, gardens and steadfast curbside trees. Gottlieb has an ambitious introduction to the book, as well as an introduction to each section. In these paragraphs, he not only previews the parameters of the debate, but also gives the reader insight into how he himself teaches these materials. I also had the good fortune to hear Prof. Gottlieb speak at the 1999 American Academy of Religion convention in Boston; it was evident there that he knows what he is talking about when it comes to teaching.

Other features of the book include a decent bibliography and a helpful list of organizations, religious and environmental, for more information and action connections. Also, each section is prefaced with a page or two of quotes and scriptural citations from such as Dostoyevski, Hildegaard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Winnebago and Lakota tribesmen, the Koran and Hasidic rabbis. These poetic and profound reflections serve the teacher well as invocations for class discussions or in the field. The spirit they invoke is well nurtured by Gottlieb's anthology, a spirit that may be stated as the editor does at the end of his introduction: "I hope this text may fuel our awareness of what needs to be done--even as it also helps remind us of our simple joy in the divinity of the earth."

James D. McGarry
St. Ignatius College Prep
San Francisco, California

return to Religion and Ecology resources