A series of ten conferences was held at the Center for the Study of World Religions (CSWR) at Harvard University from May 1996 until July 1998 sponsored by CSWR in collaboration with the Center for Respect of Life and Environment and Bucknell University. Each of these conferences explored particular intellectual and symbolic resources of a specific religious tradition regarding views of nature, ritual practices, and ethical constructs in relation to nature. The series was coordinated by John Grim and Mary Evelyn Tucker of Bucknell University in collaboration with Lawrence Sullivan, the Director of the CSWR. The papers from the conferences are being published in ten volumes by CSWR and distributed by Harvard University Press. The Buddhism and Confucian volumes are available, and the Christianity volume will be published in November. An ongoing Forum on Religion and Ecology will carry forward the work of the conference series.

The Alliance of Religion and Ecology
The environmental crisis is one that is well documented in its various interlocking manifestations of industrial pollution, resource depletion, and population explosion. The urgency of the problems is plain to see. The essential ingredients for human survival, especially water supplies and agricultural land, are being threatened across the planet by population and industrial pressures. With the collapse of the fishing industries and with increasing soil erosion and farm land loss, serious questions are being raised about the ability of the human community to feed its own offspring. Moreover, the widespread destruction of species and the unrelenting loss of habitat continues to accelerate.

Clearly religions need to be involved with the development of a more comprehensive worldview and ethics to assist in reversing this trend. Whether from an anthropocentric or a biocentric perspective, more adequate environmental values need to be formulated and linked to areas of public policy. Scholars of religion can be key players in this articulation process. Moreover, there are calls from other concerned parties to participate in a broader alliance to halt the loss of species, topsoil, and other natural resources. It is our hope to expand this alliance of scholars and activists by creating common ground for dialogue and creative partnerships in envisioning and implementing long-range solutions to some of our most pressing environmental problems. This is critical because the attitudes and values that shape people’s concepts of nature come primarily from religious worldviews and ethical practices. The moral imperative and value systems of religions are indispensable in mobilizing the sensibilities of people toward preserving the environment for future generations.

One of the greatest challenges to contemporary religions, then, is how to respond to the environmental crisis which some believe has been perpetuated by the enormous inroads of materialism and secularization in contemporary societies, especially those societies arising in or influenced by the modern West. Others, such as the medieval historian Lynn White, have suggested that the emphasis in Judaism and Christianity on the transcendence of God above nature and the dominion of humans over nature has led to a devaluing of the natural world and a subsequent destruction of its resources for utilitarian ends.¹ While the particulars of this argument have been vehemently debated, it is increasingly clear that the environmental crisis presents a serious challenge to the world’s religions. This is especially true because many of these religions have traditionally been concerned with the paths of personal salvation which frequently emphasize other worldly goals and reject this world as corrupting.

How to adapt religious teachings to this task of revaluing nature so as to prevent its destruction marks a significant new phase in religious thought. Indeed, historian of religions Thomas Berry suggests that what is necessary is a comprehensive reevaluation of human-earth relations if the human is to continue as a viable species on an increasingly degraded planet. This will require, in addition to major economic and political changes, different worldviews from those that have captured the imagination of contemporary industrialized societies that view nature as a commodity to be exploited. How to utilize the insights of the world’s religions is a task of formidable urgency. Fortunately, the formulation of a new ecological theology and environmental ethics is already emerging from within several of the world’s religions. Clearly each of the world’s religious traditions has something to contribute to this discussion.

The Call and the Response
It is with some encouragement that we note the growing call for the world’s religions to participate in these changes toward a more sustainable planetary future. There have been various appeals from environmental groups and from scientists and parliamentarians for religious leaders to respond to the environmental crisis. In addition, there has been a striking growth in monographs and journal articles in this area of religion and ecology. Several national and international meetings have also been held on this subject.

Goals of the Conferences
It is within this context that a series of conferences on Religions of the World and Ecology was held at Harvard University. The conferences had several key objectives, namely to stimulate original research and thinking, to encourage further educational initiatives, and to promote outreach in relation to religious institutions and policy centers with common concerns for environmental awareness and preservation. One of the primary goals of these conferences was to link scholars in the academic study of religion with the people, proposals, and institutions that are implementing ethical change with regard to the environmental crisis. More than 1,000 scholars and activists participated in the series creating an important network for future cooperative endeavors.

The Culminating Conferences
Three culminating conferences were held at the conclusion of the ten part Harvard series. The first was at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in September of 1998. The second was a press conference and symposium at the United Nations, and the third was a conference at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, both in October of 1998.

The culminating conferences aimed to create the grounds for further partnership of religion with other key sectors working toward implementing sustainable policies and practices to ensure the well-being of future generations. Clearly religions have a central role in the formulation of worldviews that orient us to the natural world and the articulation of ethics which guide human behavior. The size and complexity of the problems we face require collaborative efforts both among the religions and in dialogue with other key domains of human endeavor.

Religions need to be in conversation with other sectors, such as science, economics, education, and public policy, that have addressed environmental issues. Environmental changes will be motivated by these disciplines in very specific ways: namely, economic incentives will be central to adequate distribution of resources, scientific analysis will be critical to understanding nature’s economy, educational awareness will be indispensable to creating modes of sustainable life, public policy recommendations will be invaluable in shaping national and international priorities, and moral and spiritual values will be crucial for the transformations required for life in an ecological age.

The culminating conferences had, as one of their overall objectives, the establishment of common ground between disciplines for long-term solutions to environmental problems. Religions come as partners to these discussions, not as definitive agents of moral authority. To create a broader context for reformulating effective public policies on environmental issues, it will be helpful to set in motion three ongoing strategies.

The first strategy is to place disciplines in dialogue with one another respecting the different approaches and values embedded in each discipline. The second strategy is to create the grounds for disciplines to work in partnership toward common environmental concerns by recognizing the need for interdisciplinary cooperation on issues of sustainability. The third strategy is to form alliances for future collaborative projects that will mobilize both the ethical transformations and practical policies needed for reinventing industrial society on a sustainable basis.

At the culminating conference at the United Nations an ongoing Forum on Religion and Ecology was announced to pursue these strategies.

Forum on Religion and Ecology
The remarkable interest generated by the three-year series on Religions of the World and Ecology has called for some further thought on how to build on the concerns and commitments that were sparked by the participants in these conferences. The Forum will focus on several strategic objectives: 1) Research: To ground a field of study in religion and ecology within academia; 2) Education: To produce and disseminate curricular materials for classroom use as well as to make available information that will be useful to religious communities, seminaries, and other related institutions; 3) Outreach: To foster the religious voice in policy issues concerning the environment. We hope to encourage the intersection of the religions with key sectors such as science, education, economics, and public policy.

In addition the Forum will have various component parts that will serve to integrate this movement on both a theoretical and practical level over the next several years. The Forum will function as an umbrella to draw together key movements, individuals, and institutions working in this area. Partner organizations include the Harvard University Center for the Environment, the Harvard-Yenching Institute, the Center for Respect of Life and Environment, and the Department of Religion at Bucknell University.

Publications and Outreach
The proceedings of the conferences are being published by the Center for the Study of World Religions. The first two volumes, Buddhism and Ecology and Confucianism and Ecology, are now available through Harvard University Press. The next volume, Christianity and Ecology, will be available in November at the AAR. A synthesizing volume that will analyze and highlight what has been learned from the series and what ethical resources from the world’s religions will contribute to sustainable practices, will also be published.

The project has sparked future initiatives including conferences on Religions and Animals, scheduled at Harvard in May 1999, and the Epic of Evolution and the World’s Religions at the Whidbey Institute in Washington in July 1999. Other plans include fellowships for doctoral and postdoctoral research in religion and ecology as well as a lectureship in honor of Thomas Berry, one of the leading spokespersons in this field of study.

In addition, we plan to create a more comprehensive website to provide a global network for religion scholars and activists to post publications, news, curricula, and announcements of related roundtables, lectures, and other events. This will be part of the Harvard University Center for the Environment. The Forum welcomes relevant announcements and syllabi from AAR members. This website will complement the archival website at CSWR that contains all the thirteen conference programs and abstracts from the CSWR series.

Finally, the Forum intends to foster cooperation with international efforts to develop an Earth Charter that will be presented to the United Nations by the year 2002. This Charter was to be the preamble to Agenda 21 and other UN agreements adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. The process of formulating and adopting such an Earth Charter requires the input of the world’s religions. We have been working closely with Steven Rockefeller, emeritus professor of religion at Middlebury College, who has been directing an international drafting committee for the Earth Charter. The Earth Charter is intended to be a soft law document which will be enforced by a hard law document, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) International Covenant on Environment and Development.

To more effectively implement the project’s goals, more than sixty organizations and individuals in religion, economics, education, science, and public policy have already announced their willingness to affiliate with the Forum as dialogue partners.

Endnotes
 

Acknowledgements
The conference organizers wish to acknowledge the generous support of the following foundations and individuals:

The V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation
The Aga Khan Trust for Culture
Association of Shinto Shrines
Nathan Cummings Foundation
Dharam Hinduja Indic Research Center at Columbia University
Germeshausen Foundation
Harvard Buddhist Studies Forum
Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies
Harvard Divinity School Center for the Study of Values in Public Life
Jain Academic Foundation of North America
The Albert and Vera List Foundation
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Laurance Rockefeller
Sacharuna Foundation
Surdna Foundation
Theological Education to Meet the Environmental Challenge
The Winslow Foundation

This article originally appeared in the May 1999 issue of Religious Studies News.
Copyright © 1999 American Academy of Religion.
Reprinted with permission.