PRI’s The World (can you tell what I listen to regularly?) ran a nice story on the efforts of some Islamic scholars to emphasize the religion’s emphasis on conservation. This runs parallel to similar efforts among Catholics and the American evangelical community. I’ve often pointed out to my students that I cannot identify a major religion that encourages its adherents to crap on the poor. Seems I can extend that argument to say that most religions, in some way or other, encourage their adherents to use the world wisely*.
*There are significant objections to environmentalism in some parts of the evangelical community, but most of these objections are not pitched against the idea that we should use the environment wisely. Instead, they are political arguments concerned that a focus on environmental issues will draw people away from an attention to core theological ideas.
I wasn’t aware that anyone said we shouldn’t use the world wisely? The argument surely is over what use is “wise”?
Religions are generally designed for the mass market. Since the majority of people are poor, they talk about how great it is to be poor, how the poor are spiritually richer, how unwise it is to aspire to be rich yourself, and don’t interfere with mundane power relationships but keep your eyes firmly fixed on heaven. The aim is the maintenance of social order. They are, in many cases, an elaborate advertisement for the Divine Right of Kings, or variants thereof.
Hey, wait, who’s the lefty on this blog? 🙂
There are a few groups who think the rapture is coming, and so it doesn’t matter how we use the environment. And then there are others who sort of warp the idea of dominion over nature to mean that if we do it, God wanted us to do it and it is OK (some of the evangelical community build this argument out of the idea of predestination – or a less rigid version of it that falls under a general concept of “God’s plan”). But by and large, you are right – I have difficulty finding mainstream groups who think tearing the environment up is a good idea.