Spirituality

Friday's presentation as well as the readings from the book show one thing very clearly: religion supports environmental stewardship. In my group, we covered the material by Barry Freundel, Patrick Dobel, and Mawil Y Izzi Deen (Samarrai). These articles (and my group) discussed the role of Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) and their different ethics towards the environment. Each religion has teachings and scripture related to environmental stewardship in some form or another. For example, one of the basic tenets of Catholicism is stewardship for God's creation. The other religions have similar messages. In addition, Hinduism as well as Pagan religions all have basic tenets that describe care for the environment. What I find interesting, however, is that this seems to be unknown, or underplayed in society.

One would think that religious groups would take a strong stance on the destruction of the environment happening all around us. On the contrary, religion seems to have taken a quiet back seat. To my understanding, there have been no great undertakings by any religious group to address the problem of environmental destruction. While the religions lay out practices that are environmentally friendly in their nature, organized religion as an organization is not preaching about environmental stewardship to any grand degree. The current environmental crises facing the world today would be a great way for religion to promote a sustainable world, and spread their message to more people by working for the environment. For example, Catholicism teaches to care for the lowly of society. This teaching could easily be applied to environmental justice but this simply isn't happening (at least on a grand scale). Social justice is often a subject the church speaks on but it is never put in an environmental light.

In addition to religious groups, the presenters also discussed personal spirituality and gave us a chance to practice and develop our own spirituality outdoors. One thing that was very important about this lesson was that it was done outside. Often times, nature and our ethics and spiritual beliefs about nature are done from behind a wall without being in nature and experiencing the great power it possesses. Experiencing nature is an important part of developing spiritual beliefs about nature. To make decisions for or about something, we must have a personal relationship with it; this relationship can only be gained through experience and not simply through knowledge.