ECOLOGY

The term "ecology" designates one of the basic divisions of biology and was first employed by Ernst Haeckel, the German zoologist, in the 19th century. In the mid-20th century ecology emerged as one of the primary scientific and ethical concerns of humanity. The word comes from the Greek root oikos ("house" or "dwelling") and refers to the systemic relationship of abiotic environmental factors with biotic components such as plants, animals, and microbes. Ecology, therefore, is the study of the structure and dynamics of the web of life, i.e., the biological processes that compose and sustain the earth's ecosystem.

In contrast with the Newtonian view that nature is simple in structure, mechanistic in behavior, and static in form, an ecological interpretation stresses that nature is diverse in structure, reciprocal in behavior, and dynamic in form. Basic premises of an ecological interpretation include the following: (1) All forms of life exist in interdependent relationships. Life is sustained by reciprocity and mutuality among organisms. (2) Nature is dynamic rather than static. In its adaptation and growth nature shows a constantly changing face. (3) The stability of nature depends upon diversity. Heterogeneous environments have greater possibilities for change and adaptation than homogeneous environments. (4) Nature is fragile and finite. Through intentional or unintentional intervention the ecological balance can be so disturbed as to be irremediable. Moreover, nature has limits, and its supply of resources is not infinite.

In recent years ecologists have shown in considerable detail that many of the organisms and species on earth are either being irretrievably destroyed or are now in danger of extinction because of damage by human beings to the earth's ecosystems. Numerous ecological perils threaten humans and other living beings today. A litany of these usually includes: the rapid destruction of forests; massive erosion of soil; disappearance of sources of fresh water; desertification; pollution of land, air and water; extinction of species; global warming; and the thinning of the stratospheric ozone layer. Overarching all of these is the burgeoning human population which, along with patterns of excessive consumption, compounds every ecological problem the earth faces today.

Theology of Nature. In response to the ecological crisis one of the major developments in contemporary theology has been the attempt to reformulate a theology of nature. Six key themes can be discerned. (1) The biblical doctrine of creation (Gn 1) stresses the goodness of the whole created order. In the divine perspective nature has an implicit value of its own in that it manifests the goodness of God and joins in universal praise of its Creator. Nature, therefore, cannot be reduced to an exclusively instrumental status in the service of humanity. (2) Humans are an integral part of the web of life and not an exception to it. So close is the kinship of the human species to its natural environment that the two live in an inescapable reciprocity. Ecology traces the bonds between the two. While emphasizing human continuity with the nonhuman natural world theologians and scientists also call attention to the unique capacities of humans to reflect upon and to project the future of the natural world. Humans are to be responsible caretakers of the earth (Gn2.15). Within the created order only humans have the capacity to transcend time and place and hence to exercise stewardship with respect to the creation before the Creator. (3) Human sin is illustrated in the fact that the terrestrial sector of creation bears the consequences of our irresponsibility. The ecological crisis calls our attention to the biblical assertion that "the whole creation is in travail" (Rom 8.23). (4) The incarnation affirms the value of an individual's personal being before God by affirming simultaneously the significance of earthly life and its natural environment as the context for God's revelation. The Word that became flesh has identity and continuity with the creative Word which called all things into being (Jn 1:3). The New Testament authors extend the logos doctrine into a cosmic view in which Christ is the consummation of all things (Colossians) and the restoration of the cosmos through sanctification (Hebrews). The incarnate Christ restores to the creation its reality and value. (5) Some theologians, notably those influenced by teilhard de chardin or American process philosophy, emphasize a new formulation of the doctrine of divine immanence. Rather than acting from without, God is seen as the source of constant gracious creativity acting, in a manner consistent with the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, from within the on-going world process. In process thought distinctions are made between God's primordial and his consequent nature. According to process theology the world process is included within the life of God, who at the same time transcends the world. In this sense it can be said that God is the world's "ultimate environment." (6) The God of creation is also the Lord of history. Environmental scientists and theologians are concerned that ecological values be seen in their social as well as natural context. An ecological ethic requires the reordering of economic values. An adequate theology of nature will see the natural and the social worlds as existing inextricably together.

Ecological Theology. Official religious bodies, not unlike other institutions, have paid little attention to ecological issues until recently, but they are now doing so more explicitly than ever before. Moreover, ecology has increasingly come to engage the attention of religious thinkers, including Christian theologians. The objective of ecological theology is to spell out, in this case from within the context of Christian tradition, precisely why people of faith should care about the nonhuman natural world. Ecological theology is especially appropriate at a time when some prominent environmentalists are claiming that religion, and particularly Christianity, is indifferent if not inimical to the well-being of nature. Critics often cite the controversial thesis of historian Lynn White, Jr., that the Bible, by giving humans "dominion" over the earth (Gn 1.26), has sanctioned our "domination" of the natural world. Or they appeal to philosophers like John Passmore, who argues that Christianity will never contribute substantially to ecological ethics without ceasing thereby to be Christian. Preoccupation with the supernatural and with immortality, they argue, has led believers to focus so intensely on the "other world" that they pay little attention to this one.

Many theologians agree that the Christian tradition is somewhat ambiguous in its evaluation of nature, but that it still has the resources for a fresh ecological vision. Since the survival of nature was not a major issue during the emergence of biblical religion we should not expect the latter to come with pre-packaged remedies for our ecological problems. Still, even though concern for treating the earth as our home has not been a prominent feature of Christian spirituality, the central teachings of the faith can now be shown to be powerfully relevant to ecology.

It is not immediately obvious, though, precisely how Christianity can be said to be ecologically significant. Like some other religious traditions, it cherishes a spirituality that at times seems to have made terrestrial reality less important than ecological ethicists would require. Like some other religious traditions it has fostered a spirituality in which humans are in via, on a long journey of homeless detachment. And this ideal of religious home-lessness easily lends itself to translation into an environmentally noxious cosmic homelessness. Can the religious call to live homelessly be made compatible with the ecological imperative to treat the natural world as our home?

In the Bible, Abraham, the common ancestor of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, was summoned to leave his ancestral home in order to pursue God's promise. His willingness to endure homelessness for the sake of the promise remained an ideal of Israel's religion which also understood itself in terms of an Exodus journey. Jesus called his own followers to a life of homeless pilgrimage. The Letter to the Hebrews states that faith in the promise makes us "strangers and aliens on earth," seekers of "a better homeland, a heavenly one" (11.13–16) Numerous other Christian writings, hymns, and prayers down through the ages have echoed the same theme: sojourning, the sense of not yet being at home, is central to Christian faith. Thus many Christians, perhaps even the majority of them, find it difficult to see the earth as "home." They sometimes even interpret it as though it were little more than a "vale of soul-making."

This spiritual interpretation of terrestrial existence turns the natural world into little more than a way-station on an exclusively human path to salvation. It robs earthly reality of intrinsic value, and although the doctrines of creation and incarnation clearly exalt the goodness of nature, Christian spirituality has been largely indifferent to the long-term thriving of the earth as a good in itself. francis of assisi, ignatius loyola, hildegaard of bingen, meister eckhart, thomas aquinas, and many others have emphasized the value of all created things, but concern for the long-term welfare of nature has not been a very explicit part of Christian preaching and teaching.

Nevertheless, some concerned theologians have begun to explore the ecological relevance of Christian faith. They are convinced that ecological ethics requires at least some kind of religious grounding and that religious homelessness need not be turned into a cosmic homelessness. While at first sight a pure naturalism may seem to be the only possible framework in which we could embrace the earth as our true home, under examination naturalism fails to demonstrate in sufficient depth precisely why our natural environment is inherently, and not just instrumentally, a good to be preserved and cherished. On the other hand, Christian theology, in spite of its historical ambiguity on the issue, can provide such a foundation.

For convenience one may distinguish three ways in which this theological premise is now being developed. These are the apologetic, sacramental, and eschatological approaches to ecology. None of the three can claim adequacy by itself, and there is some tension among them. But taken together they constitute at least the beginnings of an effective theological response.

The Apologetic Approach. The apologetic approach to ecological theology claims, either explicitly or implicitly, that Scripture and tradition together provide an adequate religious foundation for ecological ethics. Examples are the World Day of Peace Message by Pope John Paul II entitled "The Ecological Crisis: A Common Responsibility" (1990), the American Catholic Bishops' pastoral, "Renewing the Earth" (1992), and the World Council of Churches' statements on "Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation." In addition, a growing body of theological articles and books on ecology voice a similar apologetic concern.

The distinguishing mark of apologetic ecological theology is its sometimes unstated conviction that Christian tradition does not need to undergo drastic revision in order to constitute a sufficiently solid basis for environmental ethics. Its summons to responsible stewardship is a clear signal of biblical religion's concern for the natural world. So our vocation as responsible stewards of creation should provide enough of a religious incentive for Christians to take up the cause of ecology today. Numerous scriptural and traditional texts, many of them passed over before, also demonstrate the considerable extent to which Christian faith quite directly obliges us to protect the environment that we share with all other species of living beings.

This apologetic type of ecological theology also looks for support to the traditional emphasis on timeless religious virtues. Without the practice of love, humility, justice, detachment, and gratitude no alleviation of the ecological crisis is even conceivable. Since human habits of immoderation and injustice have contributed so obviously to pollution and the drain on nonrenewable resources, nothing less than a return by all of humanity to the pursuit of virtue will ultimately restore the earth to health. For this conversion to take place in an effective way people the world over must embrace their role as faithful stewards of the creation, representing God's goodness and care toward all other forms of life.

This approach may be called "apologetic" because it places a somewhat defensive shield over traditional religious teachings, claiming that they do not deserve the complaints they sometimes receive from secular ecologists. Apologists imply that Christianity is in essence immune to criticism since environmental abuse stems only from our disobedience to the dictates of faith and not from any deficiencies inherent in Christianity itself. Consequently, the ecological crisis calls less for the readjustment of Christianity than for a straightforward retrieval of its forgotten teachings about stewardship, justice, and other virtues. If we would only allow the eternal values set forth in Scripture and tradition to shape our environmental policies, we could avert the possible calamity that threatens the earth today. The fault is not with the sources of faith but with our failure to accept their message.

The often strident criticisms of Christianity by some ecologists would seem to justify something like an apologetic response. In spite of the well-known arguments concerning the "religious origins" of our current ecological crisis, it is by no means evident that religion is itself the main culprit. The widespread destruction of ecosystems may stem much less from specific religious attitudes than from irreligious habits and policies uncensored by a healthy sense of human limits and gratitude for the gift of creation.

Nevertheless, although apologetics must be one aspect of any Christian ecological theology today, a growing number of critics from within the Christian community now consider it to be quite inadequate. They concede that its focus on Scripture and tradition is helpful in bringing to our attention many ecologically significant texts and teachings (e.g., the Wisdom Literature, the Noachic covenant with "every living creature," or the psalms that glorify nature as God's creation, not to mention many texts from the New Testament or from early and medieval Christian writers). However, questions still linger about the religious sufficiency of the theme of stewardship and about the general obliviousness to the cosmos that characterizes so much traditional and modern theology. To an increasing number of theologians the ecological crisis requires that we go beyond apologetic theology.

The Sacramental Approach. The ecological crisis, some theologians argue, is so novel and momentous that it calls for a much more radical transformation of Christian faith than the apologetic approach proposes. These theologians seriously doubt that Christianity can adequately confront the problems facing the natural world simply by calling on such classic themes as stewardship and the practice of virtue, important though these may be. Even the most impressive display of scriptural and traditional texts about God and nature may not be enough to demonstrate Christianity's essential involvement with ecology. Theology needs to undergo a new and unprecedented internal change in its whole approach to nature. In brief, according to this second approach, the ecological situation requires that theology develop a much more profound "sense of the cosmos," especially after several modern centuries in which it has focused its attention almost exclusively on themes of history, subjectivity, society, and freedom—usually to the exclusion of nature. Theology is now being challenged to bring the universe back to the center of its concern.

Advocates of this cosmological transformation of theology base their position on what they take to be the sacramentality of nature, a theme already explicit in Scripture and tradition but often subordinated to the biblical emphasis on salvation history. While Scripture and tradition are still essential sources of ecological theology, nature itself is seen here also as powerfully disclosive of God. A fresh acknowledgment of the sacral quality of the cosmos itself is taken as the main reason for our valuing nonhuman nature. The inherently revelatory character of nature gives it an intrinsic, even "sacred," value that should shelter it from exploitative technological and industrial projects undertaken in the name of development and "progress."

Thomas Berry is one of the most prominent advocates of this sacramental approach. In his widely influential writings he argues that Scripture and tradition are by themselves an incomplete foundation for ecological spirituality and theology. Instead, he suggests that we base our ecological perspective on the sense that the universe itself is the primary revelation of God. His theology claims a strong pedigree in the sacramental emphasis of Catholic tradition, both western and eastern. However, advocates of both the apologetic and eschatological theologies are unhappy with the subordinate role he gives to the Bible.

The sacramental theme is also taken up into the "creation-centered" theology associated especially with Matthew Fox. This theology goes far beyond apologetics. Claiming that the traditional call to stewardship and virtue is not nearly enough, it argues that the ecological crisis requires a more radical rethinking of what it means to be Christian within the framework of the entire earth-community. Our inherited texts and teachings are not alone capable of leading us through the needed shift in our religious thinking and practice. The rhythms and powers of the universe must also be allowed to guide us. A reattunement to nature requires also that we attend to the voices of native peoples who have always lived close to the earth. All of the traditional teachings of Christianity—if we expect them to be effective in an age of ecological sensitivity—need to be recast in a sacramental, cosmological, relational, non-hierarchical, non-patriarchal, and non-dualistic fashion.

More than anything else, however, the biblical theme of creation must now be brought to the very center of Christian theology. According to creation-centered theology, this most ecologically compelling of all doctrines has been eclipsed by the tradition's unbalanced exaggeration of a "fallen" world and the need for human redemption. According to Fox, a one-sided Fall/Redemption theology diverted our religious attention away from the intrinsic, original goodness of nature. As long as nature seemed to be vitiated by our own sinfulness we failed to greet its sacramental effusiveness with an appropriate reverence. Moreover, a predominantly Fall/Redemption interpretation of the Bible led us toward an anthropocentrism that distracted us from concern about the nonhuman natural world.

Creation-centered theology, therefore, requires a less human-centered understanding of the cosmos than we find in the apologetic approach. Its relativization of the human even carries over to the notion of sin. Sin refers not only to our estrangement from God and other humans, but as well to nature's alienation from us and from God. Likewise "reconciliation" refers not only to the restoration of interhuman bonds, but more fundamentally to the renewal of the entire earth-community to which we belong much more completely than it belongs to us. In this theology Christ is much more than a personal historical savior. First and foremost he is the heart of the whole cosmos, the Word in whose image all of nature was fashioned, and the goal toward which the entire universe moves in its evolution. A cosmic Christology, with its roots in the New Testament writings of John and Paul, as well as in Irenaeus and Teilhard de Chardin, is the deepest foundation of a specifically Christian sacramental approach to ecology.

Countering the ecologically problematic cosmic homelessness of some of the world's religious traditions, creation-centered theology encourages an enjoyment of the natural world as our true home. Accordingly it moves beyond those spiritualities that fostered a sense of discomfort with our embodied existence. It is especially critical of the dualistic strains in Christian tradition that have sanctioned negative attitudes toward nature, women, and the body.

To those who accuse this new theology of advocating a licentious brand of "neo-paganism," sacramental ecologists remind us that their ecological preoccupation exacts a much more difficult kind of renunciation than did the puritanical dualism that defined so much Christian morality in the past. An ecological spirituality imposes upon humans the very strict spiritual discipline of taking into account the implications of all of their actions for the entire natural world and future generations. And while an ecological asceticism does not seek to detach us from the natural world, it does require that we forsake the ideal of autonomous, isolated selfhood with which we have become so comfortable since the Enlightenment. Sacramental ecology is equally intolerant of the privatization of religion. Taking into account the implications of our being intimately intertwined with the wider earth-community, and not just with human society, this ecospirituality demands personal sacrifices that we have never made before.

Such an ethic also calls for a wider understanding of justice than we find in most previous Christian moral teaching. Its emphasis on "eco-justice" reminds us that we cannot respond appropriately to any social inequities without attending also to the prospering of the earth's eco-systems. Likewise a truly "pro-life" ethic goes beyond focusing only on issues of human fertility and takes into account the need to protect the earth's complex life-systems without which there will be a complete and final "death of birth" (McDonagh).

Finally, since a sacramental perspective on ecology discovers in nature an inherent value, it radically questions utilitarian or naturalist attitudes toward the physical world. Inasmuch as nature is essentially the sacramental manifestation of an ultimate goodness and generosity, its value transcends that of simple raw material at the service of purely human projects. Thus the nurturing of a sacramental vision is one of the most important contributions Christianity can make to the grounding of ecological ethics.

The Eschatological Approach. Nevertheless, an accentuation of the theme of nature's sacramentality may not yet be the most distinctive endowment Christian faith can make to ecology. While any attempt to construct a Christian ecological theology today must build on the sacramental interpretation of nature, several theologians (notably Jürgen Moltmann) have asked whether biblical religion's most fundamental theme, that of a divine promise for future fulfillment, is itself of any relevance here. In other words, does eschatology have a significant role to play in shaping an ecologically sensitive theology?

To some ecologists a concern for the eschatological future, as it has been traditionally understood in Christian theology, is ecologically problematic. Discourse about the end of the world or about life beyond death seems to distract us from engagement with present ecological emergencies. On the other hand, since the theme of promise is the backbone of biblical faith, it is doubtful that we could have a distinctively Christian ecological theology without making eschatology central to it.

By "eschatology" theology today no longer means simply the religious concern for a personal destiny beyond death. Instead eschatology refers primarily to the patient, shared hope in God's promise that underlies the stories about Abraham, Moses, Israel's messianic expectations, Jesus' parables of the Reign of God, and the early Christian community's longing for the coming of Christ. Eschatology is not speculation about another world so much as it is the anticipation of God's always surprising and restorative appearance out of the future. It is not a vision that pulls us off the face of the earth, but one that looks toward the renewal of the earth and all of creation. The main theme of eschatology is not escape to the other world, but a new creation of this world, culminating in "the kingdom that will have no end."

Therefore, when viewed eschatologically all of reality, including the natural world, is permeated with promise. Even in all of its ambiguity the entire universe hints at future fulfillment. Authentic faith constantly scans the horizon for signs of the coming of a new future into the world, not for a removal of humans from the earth. Biblical faith looks not only for a God sacramentally revealed in present natural harmony but even more for the future coming of God in the eschatological perfection of creation, which of course includes the resurrection of the dead. This eschatological sense of promise may also help ground a Christian ecological theology.

An eschatological approach to ecology looks upon the natural world itself as essentially a promise of future fulfillment. Thus it is not only the world's sacramental character, but its being permeated by promise that bids us to care for it. If a theology of nature is to have a close connection to biblical religion, then the theme of promise must be made central and not subordinated to other theological criteria. Seen eschatologically, the present cosmos is an installment of the ultimate perfection announced by the good news of God's coming. Consequently, nature is not something from which to separate ourselves in order to find a final fulfillment, but a reality to which we are everlastingly related and whose new creation we constantly await.

Standing on the promissory character of nature an eschatological ecology does not displace but instead gives a distinctively futurist orientation to the sacramental contribution discussed above. Sacramentalism has the felicitous effect of bringing the wider cosmos back to the attention of theology. But in the Bible sacramentality is taken up into eschatology. Biblical hope does not look for a complete and final epiphany of the sacred in any present manifestation of natural beauty. Such a revelation of God awaits the eschatological future which even now relativizes all present cosmic realities, including the natural world in all its splendor. Nature's value then consists not only of its being transparent to God, as the sacramental approach rightly argues, but also of its being a promise of the future unfolding of God's vision for the world. Thus, human violence toward nature is by implication not only a sacrilege against the alleged "sacredness" of life. It is also despair, the turning away from a promise.

As the American Catholic Bishops' pastoral "Renewing the Earth" notes, the fundamental ecological virtue is hope. A genuinely biblical perspective requires that our ecological theology remain deeply connected to the sense of promise. If the sacramental approach seeks to recosmologize Christianity, then the Bible demands that we always embed our cosmology in eschatology. Present cosmic reality is not the conclusive symbolic revelation of God but an intense straining toward a new creation not yet fully manifest.

In its vision of redemptive fulfillment the Bible in fact explicitly includes the entire cosmos, now groaning in the birth pangs of new creation. Following the spirit of Paul in Romans 8.18–22, one may say that the universe is not a mere point of departure for the homeless religious pilgrimage, but in all of its evolution a participant in the human journey into God. Religious homelessness does not have to turn into a cosmic homelessness. The cosmos is not left behind as the children of Abraham pursue the promise. Rather it accompanies us in all of our striving. Nature shares eternally in our fate, and God's incarnational embrace of the world makes the whole universe a perpetual participant in the salvation for which Christian faith hopes. Our own religious longing for future fulfillment, therefore, is not a violation but a blossoming of the cosmos. This way of looking at things should make a difference in how we treat the earth's fragile ecosystems.

Viewing nature as promise, eschatological ecology also allows the universe to have a future that far transcends our purely human aspirations. The cosmic future includes much more than the goals that we humans might formally sketch. According to eschatological ecology, any realization of our plans for the human future must be accomplished in a manner that does not interfere with the promise for a transhuman future that the present cosmos may be carrying within itself. We are ethically obliged to preserve all the diversity of the earth's life systems, irrespective of their value for us, since to destroy them is not only to diminish our own future but that also of the larger world that includes us. As the Wisdom Literature implies—and especially the Book of Job—we are not ourselves the authors of the divine vision that embraces and moves all of creation.

An eschatological interpretation of nature carries two additional implications for ecological theology. In the first place, when the cosmos is viewed as promise nature can claim our respect and conservation without requiring that we prostrate ourselves before it. Sacramentalism, on the other hand, if not carefully tempered by a sense of the future, tends to sacralize nature, at times almost to the point of divinization. Eschatology allows for deficiencies in nature that a purely sacramental ecology may not easily tolerate. When it is taken as promise rather than solely as the present symbolic mediation of God, nature is allowed to be less than perfect. When we do not require the universe at this moment to be fully revelatory of God we will be less surprised and discouraged when it turns out to be bloody as well as beautiful. A sacramental ecology cannot easily accommodate the dark side of nature, whereas an eschatological posture, looking more toward the future than the present for the completion of creation and the final coming of God, can acknowledge the unfinished status of the world.

In the second place, an assimilation of ecology into eschatology allows for, and even demands, a way of thinking about personal life beyond death that will avoid a sense of our final separation from nature. The traditional interpretation of death and beyond was exceedingly problematic from an ecological point of view. In spite of the teaching about bodily resurrection, it has usually pictured human destiny in terms of an immortal human soul abandoning the body on an otherworldly journey to a realm completely beyond nature. This picture could hardly avoid placing the entire natural world, of which the body is a part, in a negative light.

What then would an ecologically satisfying notion of personal immortality look like? Karl rahner proposed that a person's death need not imply a separation from the earth and the universe, but rather the possibility of entering into a deeper relationship with nature. Though Rahner's language was still somewhat dualistic, he speculated that in death the soul takes on a "pancosmic" relationship to the world rather than becoming completely detached from it. If it is as persons that we die, Rahner implied, any "personal" survival of death could be construed as a deepening rather than a severing of our connections with the cosmos. In death the person is set free from a shallow relationship to the cosmos and to God in order to assume a more profound one. Such a view is consistent with Christian teachings about resurrection, continuous creation, and divine incarnation, as well as with the sense that nature is filled with promise.

The dualistic anthropology presupposed by much traditional piety, on the other hand, encouraged us to prepare for death by detaching ourselves as thoroughly as possible here and now from the world and the body. Allegedly this ascesis would make us ready for the final flight of the soul from the earth. A spirituality chastened by ecological concern, however, would prepare us for our personal death by having us always cherish and deepen our relationship to the cosmos. We prepare for death not by reducing the degree of our connectedness to the earth-community, but by heightening it. Spiritual discipline should under no circumstances mean a weakening of our sense of being intricately related to nature. Thus, in an ecological spirituality asceticism is not so much a matter of leaving things out of our lives as it is the habit of embracing the otherness around us, including the wildness of nature.

For Christian faith, of course, the archetype of such inclusiveness is Jesus himself. The Gospels present him as one who constantly sought out deeper relationships, especially with those who were no longer connected to life: the outcasts, the sick, the sinners—and the dead. Jesus' life, whose central motif is that of including the unincluded, can serve also as the model of our ecological concern. Ecological ethics then is the extension to all beings of the divine spirit of inclusiveness made manifest in Jesus. It is not essential that the historical Jesus himself have made any references to an "ecological crisis" in order to function as the model of our own ecological spirituality today. It is his eschatological spirit of inclusiveness, whose shape may vary from age to age, that is all important. Jesus' radically relational life is the sacrament of a responsive God whose preservative care and concern for life is the ultimate paradigm of our own ecological ethics.

Implications for Environmental Ethics. In light of the three versions of ecological theology discussed above, Christian theology is able to respond substantively to the suspicions voiced by some critics that it is indifferent to the ecological crisis. The apologetic, sacramental, and eschatological strains of ecological theology not only vigorously dispute such a suggestion, but together they make a strong case that Christian faith is inseparable from concern for ecological integrity.

From the apologetic approach ecological theology learns the significance of stewardship and the need for ecologically sustaining virtues. In spite of naturalistic suspicion of the notion of stewardship as being too "managerial," it would be irresponsible for humans now to abandon their vocation as caretakers of nature. Moreover, recent exegesis has shown that the Bible in no way sanctions the human exploitation of nature that Lynn White, Jr., declared to be the main historical cause of the environmental crisis. The biblical theology of human dominion and stewardship was never intended to make humans anything other than bearers of the image of a just and compassionate God in our relationship to the rest of creation.

On the basis of the sacramental approach ecological theology can make the case that Christian faith is essentially, and not just accidentally, bound to the preservation of nature. The loss of nature leads directly to a loss of our sense of God. It is useful to ask what our religions would look like if we lived on a lunar landscape (Berry). From the beginnings of religious history on earth the mystery of the sacred has been revealed through such natural phenomena as clean water, fresh air, fertile soil, clear skies, bright light, thunder and rain, living trees, plants and animals, and life's fertility. Nature, viewed in sacramental perspective, is not primarily raw material to serve human purposes but essentially the showing forth of a divine goodness and generosity. As such it commands a care and concern that a utilitarian view cannot provide.

Finally, an eschatological emphasis allows us to revere nature without compelling us to worship it. It treasures nature as a promise open to future perfection, and in this way provides a distinctively biblical direction to ecological concern.

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[j. c. logan/

j. f. haught]