The most significant feature of Pope Francis\u2019 encyclical on environmentalism, \u201cLaudato Si,\u2019\u201d is not about climate change. It is that the document represents a sea change in Catholic \u2014 indeed, Western religious \u2014 thinking on the relationship between human beings and the earth. . . .<\/p>\n
Francis\u2019 analysis of environmental problems takes up only 28 out of the encyclical\u2019s 184 pages. The overwhelming majority of \u201cLaudato Si\u2019\u201d is, perhaps unsurprisingly, about theology. And while this material has been glossed over by the mainstream press, it is nothing less than a seismic shift in mainstream Christian thought about the human-nature relationship.<\/p>\n
First, Francis reads scriptural passages in ways that, while not new, have thus far been confined to liberal theology.<\/p>\n
In Chapter 2, he writes: \u201cThe creation accounts in the book of Genesis contain, in their own symbolic and narrative language, profound teachings about human existence and its historical reality. They suggest that human life is grounded in three fundamental and closely intertwined relationships: with God, with our neighbor and with the earth itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Note the radically anti-fundamentalist biblical hermeneutic (\u201csymbolic and narrative language\u201d) and the equation of the relationship between humans and the earth with the relationships between humans and one another and between humans and God.<\/p>\n
This is not merely a statement that environmental issues are important. This is a radical theological claim, that human life is centrally defined by the human-earth relationship. How you relate to the earth is as important as how you relate to God.<\/p>\n
When liberal religious environmentalists make such claims, they are accused of being \u201cpagan.\u201d But Francis is just getting started. In Chapter 3, he reads Genesis\u2019 controversial injunction that humans should have \u201cdominion\u201d over the earth in precisely the terms of liberal religious environmentalism: \u201cOur \u2018dominion\u2019 over the universe should be understood more properly in the sense of responsible stewardship.\u201d<\/p>\n
The language of stewardship is familiar to liberal theologians \u2014 but coming in a papal encyclical, it is stunning.<\/p>\n
Indeed, it may be read as a response to a half-century-old argument, most famously made by the historian Lynn White, that the biblical relationship of \u201cdominion\u201d is partly to blame for the environmental crisis. Francis is giving a direct refutation of the anthropocentric view that the earth exists only as resources for humans to use.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Bible has no place for a tyrannical anthropocentrism unconcerned for other creatures,\u201d he says. . . .<\/p>\n
Finally, Pope Francis\u2019 overall spiritual attitude toward nature is perhaps the most radical part of the whole encyclical. He begins with his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, who found spiritual communion not only in cathedrals but also in forests.<\/p>\n
And in the end, he comes back to mysticism again, writing:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely. Hence, there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person\u2019s face. The ideal is not only to pass from the exterior to the interior to discover the action of God in the soul, but also to discover God in all things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mystical nature panentheism in a papal encyclical! And with a nod to liberation theology! And with a footnote to the Sufi mystic Ali al-Khawas, no less.<\/p>\n
Whatever impact \u201cLaudato Si\u2019\u201d has in the political world remains to be seen. But that the pope is here embracing a nature-based mysticism, a highly adumbrated anthropocentrism, and a radical \u201cintegral ecology\u201d places the encyclical alongside the best of radical, progressive religious environmentalism \u2014 and far outside what even mainline Protestant denominations have affirmed heretofore.<\/p>\n
\u201cLaudato Si\u2019\u201d may turn out to be politically influential. It is already theologically revolutionary.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jay Michaelson says that the most important aspect of the Pope\u2019s encyclical on the environment is that it represents a \u201cseismic shift\u201d in Christian theology and Western thought: It says that human beings have a relationship with the earth, on a par with their relationship with God and with their neighbors; It says that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,33,47],"tags":[389,2758,761,3893,2481],"class_list":["post-21632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church","category-nature","category-theology","tag-catholicism","tag-contemporary-theology","tag-environmentalism","tag-laudato-si","tag-pope-francis"],"yoast_head":"\n
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