unity of world religion essay

Religions offer a unified vision of reality because God is one and the reality which He created must have unity and integrity. This basic postulate underlies most religious traditions from the Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam to the Asiatic religions of Hinduism and Buddhism. In Islam, this is expressed most clearly and forcefully by the doctrine of tawhid , the absolute oneness of God. Tawhid shapes and colors everything Islamic from theology and science to art and language. As an article of faith, it seeks to present a unified and integrated vision of reality in which God as the Creator has an intimate relationship with His creation. All deities other than God are false and must be recognized as such. Since God is the only source of reality, He alone must be worshipped.

But unity is not only a matter of theology; rather it is a framework of analysis, a context in which reality emerges as an interconnected whole. Attempts to conceive reality as a whole have a long history from the classical to the modern period. Taoist sages, Native American medicine men, Hindu gurus, Greek philosophers, Jewish, Christian and Muslim thinkers all have had a sense of the cosmos as an ordered whole. For them, it was inconceivable to perceive reality otherwise because our way of connecting to the world is possible only through conceptual unities. Our five senses, for instance, perceive the world as a whole. My five senses work together to have a meaningful experience of the physical world. Conceptually, our minds conceive things not as discrete and disconnected items but as an interconnected unity. Otherwise, we cannot make sense of the self and the world in which we live. It would be a mistake to take this as a purely subjective assessment. What we call ‘reality’ becomes intelligible and thus lends itself to rational analysis only when it is conceived as a whole. As a matter of fact, we have no direct or disengaged experience of reality as an atomized entity. Even the most basic elements of the physical world present themselves to us as part of a larger whole.

Furthermore, cosmos as an ordered unity is also the foundation of socio-political order. As Eric Voegelin has shown in his Order and History , there is no political order without first a cosmological order. It is the unity between heaven and earth that generates order, proportion, balance and harmony in the world. Even though we have moved, to use Koyre’s suggestive terms, from a ‘closed world’ to an ‘infinite universe’ in our modern conceptions of the cosmos, we still maintain the connection between heaven and earth, and ponder over how the two make up a unity in which we find order and meaning. Modern science has not completely destroyed this unity but changed the ways in which it can be understood. The world and the ways in which we understand it remain interconnected and “networked”. The “butterfly effect” reminds us of the underlying interconnectedness of the world of existence.

The idea of unity and interconnectedness, however, is not confined to abstract philosophical debates. Ever since we have lost the traditional sense of unity in the modern period, we have paid a heavy price and introduced fake, materialistic and inhuman distinctions into the very reality of which we are a part. The Cartesian wall of separation between res extensa (the physical-corporeal world) and res cogitans (the world of the mind) has led to a view of nature that is not only materialistic and opaque but also unintelligible and unsustainable. It has created such an abyss that the so-called endless war between nature and nurture or between what nature makes and what humans produce as culture has reached new heights with modern science and technology. The alienation of man from the rest of creation has resulted in the worst kinds of atrocities in the modern period. One should only remember the destruction we have wrought upon nature over the last two centuries, the Holocaust, countless wars, and most recently weapons of mass destruction and biological weapons, all of which are the creations of our modern humanity made possible by a very different, flat and reductionist notion of the cosmos.

Unity and Uniformity

To modern ears, such terms as unity, oneness, integrated whole, wholeness may suggest imageries of totality, closeness and oppression. From classical sophists and skeptics to modern atheists, a common argument has been made to the effect that religions advocating the absolute oneness of God has caused division and strife among people with different convictions, and that the categorical distinction between truth and falsehood in matters of religion has led to the classification of ideas and actions as good and bad, acceptable and abhorrent, and eventually lawful and unlawful. According to an argument by the prominent Egyptologist Jan Assmann in his The Mind of Egypt , the “Mosaic distinction” between true and false gods has introduced something new to the tradition of ancient religions and pitted for the first time those who followed ‘true faith’ against those who believed in ‘false deities’. Democratic belief in a plethora of deities without a moral judgment on them has been disrupted by the Abrahamic insistence of true versus false religion. This distinction, it is further claimed, continues to divide humanity and fuels religious tension and fanaticism today. A truly humanist approach to religion would abolish all such distinctions between true and false and let people devise their own pantheon of cosmopolitan deities. Unity leads to monopoly and oppression and we should forsake all such moral-ideological constructions.

This is the first conceptual correction we need to make. As the French philosopher and metaphysician Rene Guenon has pointed out, there is a difference between unity and uniformity. While uniformity denotes a state of bland sameness and oppressive homogeneity, unity points to what connects diverse things. There is no uniformity in nature but unity reigns in the natural order. We should remember that uniformity is produced by man-made machines and devices, and by the so-called ‘systems’. The unity of an animal species does not amount to uniformity. Each animal, while belonging to the same species, remains unique and maintains its particular personality. But the series of machines produced in exactly the same ways and presented to hundreds of millions of people living in fairly diverse circumstances leads to a monopolizing uniformity. Living beings have ‘identity’ whereas machines have only a ‘serial number’.

Furthermore, unity is needed for moral discernment because it entails a moral obligation to treat every being, living or not, with the respect that it deserves. The fact that I am connected to the rest of existence and that I am part of a bigger whole gives me a different perspective on things. By contrast, uniformity is a useful tool for control and management, and this is exactly what we do with the mindboggling level of uniformity and homogeneity we have reached with modern techno-science.

The second conceptual clarity we need to have concerns the relationship between unity and plurality. Just as unity does not mean uniformity, plurality does not mean division and chaos. Plurality and diversity have their own place in the great chain of being and fulfill an important function in the total economy of creation. According to Muslim theologians, God always creates something anew and His creation is never the same. The notion of “perpetual creation” or “creation anew” ( khalq jadid ) explains the dynamic nature of existence. Furthermore, plurality and diversity are an essential component of the human plane where differences among human beings contribute to the universal telos of creation. Religions have developed different ways of dealing with diversity without giving up on unity.

Unity and Diversity

In the Islamic tradition, the relationship between unity and plurality has been defined as complementary. The notion of “unity-in-diversity” ( al-wahdah fi’l-kathrah ), elaborated by such sages as Ibn Al-‘Arabi and Mulla Sadra, has been a common and powerful idea from science and theology to art and architecture. Unity in the sense defined above does not negate plurality. To the contrary, it places plurality, multiplicity and diversity within a larger context of intelligibility. Thus God’s absolute oneness and unity does not coerce or cancel out the plurality we see in the world because at the end of the day plurality is a necessary outcome of creation. Since God has decided to create and what He has created is different from Him, the world must have plurality and diversity as one of its essential traits.

This dual approach to things allows for what I call ‘metaphysical transparency’ whereby the world of existence is seen through the perspective of multiple layers of reality. The world is always more than how it appears to our eyes, and this means that we have an ontological duty to decipher the multiple layers of meaning contained in reality. Epistemology is nothing but bringing out the multi-dimensional aspects of existence and interpret their meanings that require a hermeneutical exercise. But this is also an acknowledgement of the fact that the knowing subject cannot fully encapsulate reality; it cannot exhaust its potentials. Unless we put the cart before the horse and reduce reality to our perceptions of its, reality always remains larger and bigger than our conceptual constructions can present it to be. There is always something remaining unarticulated, something waiting to be discovered.

In his Mathnawi , Mawlana Jalal al-Din Rumi makes a distinction between “meaning” ( ma’na ) and “form” ( surat ) and applies it to various areas from religion and philosophy to society. Meaning is what gives substance to things; but what hits us first in the external world is their form. Our first experience of things is mediated through their external appearance. We have a perceptual sense about a person first by looking at his/her form. It is only after we interact with that person that we develop a particular idea, a certain conception about him/her. The first is the form and it takes us so far in our grasp of things. The second is the meaning and it is here that we begin to penetrate into the reality of things. This is where we go beyond the appearance and uncover the inner meaning of things. What we discover is not necessarily Kant’s ding an sich . Nor is it something static. What lies beneath is often more dynamic and multi-layered. Understanding diversity through the eyes of unity does not lend us in a static metaphysics where the reality of things is forever frozen and stuck in some abstract mental construct. To the contrary, the goal of “unity-analysis” is to break through such misleading constructs and witness the dynamic nature of reality to the extent possible for us humans. The reason for this is that the reality of things, as Mulla Sadra says in his Four Intellectual Journeys ( al-Asfar al-arba‘ah al-‘aqliyyah) , defies conceptualization because reality precedes concepts and informs them. As a result, all of our conceptualizations must be checked against the reality of things. In order to have access to the pre-conceptual reality of things, one needs to have a different epistemology – an epistemology that goes beyond the verbal and the mental and allows for a non-discursive experience of reality.

Religion, Truth and Diversity

The point I am trying to make here must be clear by now: it is wrong to reject unity in the name of liberating us from totalitarianism and to worship multiplicity in the name of defending pluralism. Both unity and diversity have their place within the larger context of existence; creating a binary opposition between the two makes justice to neither one of them. More importantly, it is not entirely true to say that religions only speak the language of unity and do not know how to handle multiplicity. As a result of this common misconception, religions have been accused of advocating theological totalitarianism and moral exclusivism. It is argued that since religions subscribe to a notion of religious truth that is absolute and exclusivist and since they all want to impose this truth on their followers, they cannot accommodate difference and instead prefer uniformity and absolutism. Some conclude that this is a fundamental problem with all religions and that we have to secularize religious worldviews in order to create democratic and pluralistic societies in the 21st century.

There are a couple of points to be considered here. First of all, one does not need religion to advocate totalitarianism, absolutism and violence. As Talal Asad argues in his Formations of the Secular: Islam, Christianity and Modernity , non-religious ideological constructs such as nationalism or communism can be used to justify absolutism and violence. Certain trends in secular Western modernity are no less oppressive and totalitarian. Most European wars since the 18th century have been fought with very little or no religious justification. Secularism per se does not guarantee liberal credentials. In some cases, laicism and especially its militant versions as an ideology can be more oppressive. The truth-claims of traditional religions can be a source of tension but so can secular truth-claims. A case in point is the top-down imposition of state-secularism in Muslim countries in the name of modernization and development. A good part of the tension that exists between secular elites and traditional-religious masses is fed by policies of top-down modernization-cum-secularization.

Secondly, religion and secularism clash when secularism is presented as an alternative worldview to religion. Combined with positivism, scientism and naturalism, secularism has often been defended by its aggressive supporters to supplant religion and construct a pseudo-religious identity. But as Serif Mardin shows in his Religion, Society and Modernity in Turkey , militant Turkish secularism and Kamalism has failed to produce a social ethics for the Turkish public and thus fallen short of providing an alternative identity for the citizens of modern Turkish republic – an identity that would supposedly make Turkish citizens more secular than religious and traditional. Furthermore, the founding fathers of Turkish modernization have used the power of the state to impose this incomplete and unconvincing identity on the people and forced them to react. As a result, secularism has become antithetical to religion and religious faith. Given the realities on the ground, it is secularism, not religion, that is a source of division and tension in most Muslim societies today. One should also add that the militant defenders of secularism in Muslim countries have taken no critical attitude towards the failing aspects of secularism and adopted Western customs and mores at the expense of local traditional Islamic values. While accusing Muslim masses of blindly following ( taqlid ) the example of their predecessors, they themselves have fallen into the same trap vis-à-vis the Enlightenment and Western modernity. As a result, the largely westernized elites have become deeply alienated towards their own history, culture, society and its religious vocabulary.

Thirdly, we need to be more discerning about the history of religions. When we talk about religion as a source of integration or division, we should keep in mind that each religious tradition has its own unique historical experience. Christian socio-religious history is different from that of Judaism and Islam, and each offers different possibilities for different socio-political circumstances. As Seyyed Hossein Nasr has shown in his numerous works and especially in Islam in the Modern World , one of the devastating mistakes of Western modernity has been to create a general theory of religion based on the specific experience of Western Christianity in Europe and apply it to all religions in toto . This reductionist and imperialist approach has not only led to the loss of the remarkable diversity of religious history but also to the misunderstanding and misjudgment of non-Western religious traditions. Just imagine for a moment what Judaism and Christianity would look like if we had adopted the Buddhist notions of truth, salvation, morality and religious community to world’s religions. It would be impossible to make sense of any of the fundamental teachings of Judaism and Christianity, and their history would appear to be a strange collection of myths, legends, personality cults, abstruse metaphysical concepts, and social impurities.

The Spirit of Cosmopolitan Islam

This point is particularly pertinent for non-Western societies because when we talk about religion as a source of integration and/or division in modern societies, most of the discussion concentrates on the role of Islam in contemporary Muslim and Western societies. In its long history, Islam has acted both as a religion and a social imagery. The fact that Islam has emerged within a diverse religious and ethnic environment in Arabia has helped it become a fairly cosmopolitan religion early on. This is clearly seen in the ethnic composition of the first Muslim community with a number of non-Arab personalities. The Qur’an displays a frank awareness of the existence of other religious traditions especially that of Judaism and Christianity and engages in a number of theological debates with them.

The later history of Islam after the Umayyads and the Abbasids show the extent to which a truly cosmopolitan and pluralistic Muslim culture has emerged in such diverse places as Bukhara, Isfahan, Baghdad, Alexandria, Istanbul, Sarajevo, Cordoba, and Granada. While it would be anachronistic to look for examples of constitutional citizenship and liberal tolerance in the modern senses of the terms, a notable experience of Convivencia , the living together of different religious groups, has been recorded and the goal of creating a fairly global culture based on common values achieved. In its best days, Muslim societies have embraced religious and ethnic diversity to the benefit of both the majority and minority communities. Without giving up their own claim to the truth, they have recognized the reality of other traditions in their midst.

Today most Muslim societies have to a large extent lost this spirit of cosmopolitan Islam and instead adopted second-rate imitations of Western modernity. There are several reasons for this but one major reason that sums up others as well is Islam’s checkered experience with modernity and modernity’s hostile attitude towards non-Western traditions. With the legacy of colonialism leaving deep scars in the Muslim world from Africa and the Balkans to the plight of the Palestinians, Muslim societies are reacting to Western modernity in the same way modernity has positioned itself in the new world: an expansionist, exclusivist and absolutist power. They think by adopting modernity’s self-destructive methods they will overcome it and replace it with something better. Thus they build monstrous buildings, mega mosques, rocket-like minarets all in the name of modern urban development. They pollute the environment more than Western countries in the name of rapid economic development. They advocate the worst form of entertainment culture in order to compete with Western pop culture. They spend billions of dollars on arms and build atomic bombs in order to ‘boost’ the Muslim pride. The list goes on.

Such activities neither make them modern or Western nor bring them closer to their own societies. By contrast, they further alienate themselves from the core values and social imageries of Muslim masses who, disappointed and disgruntled with the exclusivist and aggressive nature of Western modernity and the double standards of Western policies, turn towards worst kinds of alternatives and entrust their future to different versions of irresponsible radicalism and extremism. Instead of addressing the pressing issues of justice and equality, Western countries and their cohorts in the Muslim world go further in their error and support authoritarianism and oppression in the name of fighting against religious radicalism, fundamentalism, violence, etc. In such circumstances, religion can act as a source of social cohesion and stability only when issues of justice are addressed and a degree of human decency is maintained in politics. Otherwise, fake religious justifications are useless and even harmful to cover up real oppression and real injustice.

Religions per se are neither the source of nor the solution for the socio-political problems of our age. Other social, political and economic issues need to be addressed to let religions play a constructive role in socio-political conflicts. Religious leaders and communities can make substantial contributions to issues of justice, immigration, xenophobia, Islamophobia, ethnic and religious hatred, discrimination, human trafficking, civil wars and other social ills. But they can do so to the extent to which other social and political resources are mobilized and the facts on the grounds are altered to allow for change for the better. Religious leaders would be deluding themselves into thinking that they have the panacea for all the problems of our world. Many of them do not pretend to have the magic wand and remain within the boundaries of religious humility and honesty. But the same moral attitude needs to be shown by political leaders, business communities, media bosses, NGOs and others to tackle the social maladies of the late modernity in which we live. What is also needed is a new attitude towards religion, one that will go beyond an instrumentalist approach to religion and respect its integrity and wholeness.

In short, religions can be a source of unity or division to the extent to which we mobilize other resources at our disposal for the same goal of achieving unity, integrity and integration. Creating chaos out of greed and ambition and then expecting religion to fix it is neither fair nor intelligent. And it will not work. It is true that religions have a moral responsibility to lead the world. But this can be possible only in a world in which religious values and moral principles are not made dysfunctional by the system in which we operate. As things stand right now in the long duree of Western modernity, this is not the case, i.e., we’re living a mode of existence that is still radically instrumentalist, pragmatist, and profit-driven in the wider sense of the term. We still want to enjoy freedom to the fullest extent without undertaking the necessary responsibilities to make it possible for all human beings. We still treat the natural environment in a way as if it did not exist but fully know that it can no longer renew and sustain itself because of the way we have been exploiting it. We want to have full dominion over the world without acknowledging the devastating consequences of such a possession. Religions cannot help such a world until and unless we change the way we relate to the world around us.

In conclusion, let me say briefly that integration needs to take place at the level of heaven and earth, the human and the universe, and what is substantial and what is instrumental before it can have any meaning and function at the social level. Muslim minority communities may or may not fully integrate into their host countries in Europe. But their integration would have no meaning as long as they integrate into a social environment which keeps producing new social ills, new forms of alienation, and new causes for friction for us all as human beings. What we need is more than just better immigration laws and labor policies (we need them too). What we need is a new sense of the cosmos, a new awareness of the great chain of being of which we are a part, a new sensitivity towards what constitutes the most essential aspects of our existence, a new concept of existence and knowledge that will overcome the epistemic hubris of modernity deeply entrenched in our modern ways. This invites us to recognize the fact that we’re part of a larger whole over which we should not vainly try to have full dominion. We should integrate into this larger reality without giving up our humanity and freedom. Only a mode of existence and a concept of will that maintains the balance between meaning and freedom will grant us an integrated and peaceful way of life.

——-

The final/definitive version of Ibrahim Kalin’s essay was published in Philosophy&Social Criticism , vol 37 number 4 May 2011, SAGE Publications Ltd, (LA, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC), all rights reserved, p. 471-478, Special Issue: “Realigning Liberalism: Pluralism, Integration, Identities”, Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations Istanbul Seminars 2010, Edited by: Alessandro Ferrara, Volker Kaul and David Rasmussen. Link to the issue http://psc.sagepub.com/content/37/4.toc

——–

Ibrahim Kalin – Currently chief foreign affairs advisor of the Prime Minister, he did his graduate studies at the International Islamic University Malaysia before receiving his Ph D from George Washington University in Washington DC. He was a faculty member at the Department of Religious Studies at the College of the Holy Cross (2002-2005), Worcester, MA. As a scholar of Islamic Studies, he worked at the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University. Prior to this, he worked at the College of the Holy Cross in the USA. Kalin is the founding-director of the SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (LINK), based in Ankara and was its general coordinator from 2006 to 2009. Besides advising the prime minister, he is currently a columnist for Sabah newspaper.

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Unity: A World Religion

By james dillet freeman.

We invited the world to come and meet with us, and more than 700 people came from 38 different countries.

This song of peace is in itself a symbol of the worldwide nature of the Unity movement.

Unity crosses church lines, and it does this not as a separating force but as a strengthening spirit.

Charles and Myrtle Fillmore did not set out to found a new religion. They set out to find healing and help for themselves. Then they had the inspiration called Silent Unity.

The Fillmores had a great insight: People don't have to be in the same room in order to pray together.

Unity is a new religion that does not deny the findings of the new sciences that are freeing us from old scourges and limitations; Unity confirms their truths and urges us to seek yet newer truths within ourselves.

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Unity of religions: certainly no confusion

This view of Sarva Dharma Sambhava has become the political principle of modern India. However, other countries, in particular Pakistan and Bangladesh, did not accept it. Religions that support an exclusive or final revelation, such as Christianity and Islam, almost unanimously opposed it. The idea of ??Sarva Dharma Sambhava did not create equality of views even in Hinduism, where different sects still compete with each other. .Unity of religions or confusion Is the equality of all religions a spiritual principle that has become a fundamentally correct position designed to ensure harmony between believers of different faiths, despite the actual differences between them? And is this really the real meaning of Sarva Dharma Sambhava? Let's first consider what actually means Sarva Dharma Sambhava. This is the statement that all Dharmas are equal. But what is Dharma? Dharmas are universal, true principles and natural laws that are always true. For example, Dharma or the property of fire is its burning. Indeed, in fact, it is impossible to imagine a fire that does not burn. Similarly, there are ethical and spiritual principles or Dharmas. Such ethical Dharmas are yogic principles such as non-harm (ahiMsã- non-violence), truthfulness (satya), control over sexuality (brahmacharya), prohibition of theft (asteya), and nonproliferation (aparigraha), yama and niyama from yogic thoughts. For example, no being wants to hurt, cause suffering to others, because violence and suffering are a violation of the Dharma, while the desire to alleviate the suffering of others contributes to the Dharma. These are the principles of a righteous life, working for people and all societies. Another such dharmic principle is the law of karma, which tells us that what we do has consequences both in this and in the future life, for ourselves and for the whole world.

Does Sarva Dharma Sambhava require this level? We must be careful in associating the Dharma with religion and insisting that different religions are inherently harmonious, like different Dharmas. In fact, different religions have inherent disharmonies that will take a long time to study in attempts to identify them and to understand them. This caused many misunderstandings that exist in the world in which prayers to God were regularly accompanied by calls for war and aggression. Unity of religions or confusion The induistic supporters of Sarva Dharma Sambhava often say to a Christian and a Muslim how to be a better Christian or a Muslim, but they will not encourage them to become Hindus, as if Christianity and Islam contained the same teachings and had the same value as Hinduism . The choice of religion they consider a free will and will help everyone in their quest for God. The principle of Sarva Dharma Sambhava only reveals possible conditions and limitations for the professing of religious beliefs. Religion, which does not recognize the self-realization and realization of God, like most Western religions, can not lead people to Moksha in the Hindu sense. If someone wants to help a person find Moksha, which should be a true dharmic concern, they should better follow what is true, look for Dharma, even if it may require to go against their religion.

Of course, all religions teach us somehow to be kind, to tell the truth, to control the feelings and, somehow, profess other principles that are Dharmic. At the same time, the Dharmic principles can be shared by people without any religious beliefs. They are universal ethical principles and are largely obvious if we deeply understand the nature of the interdependence of everything. So, it turns out that apart from the Dharmic principles, religions do not have much in common. Some religions (Christianity, Islam) have a God-creator, while others (Buddhism and Taoism) do not allow such a concept. While the Dharmic traditions look at enlightenment or Moksha as a goal, for some religions the goal is salvation from sin and hell. Some religions estimate the age of the world only in five or six thousand years, others - in billions of years. Some allow images to be used in religious worship, others strongly oppose them. Some religions are tolerant and accept other beliefs, others are of extremist views . Religion is as diverse as any other cultural phenomenon, such as fashion, language or art. This is manifested at the highest level. In fact, religion is often a source of destructive superstitions and discriminatory practices that interfere in various aspects of human life. Many religions contain beliefs and dogmas that are not universally true. If we carefully consider the teachings of the religious mainstream, then we will find very different approaches. Sacred books, such as the Koran and the Bhagavad-gita, are almost not alike in either tonality or content. If the religions of the world are so different, there is no reason to believe that their founders must have been taught the same thing. The criterion for assessing the significance of religion today is the number of its true adherents, and not any mystical evidence of its truth and mission in the world. Even if we do not believe that all religions are the same, this does not mean that there is no value in different religions. We can respect religion for their historical, cultural and intellectual role, not necessarily considering them the product of divine revelation and the ultimate truth. The Bible, for example, is an unusual book with a great history, poetry and wisdom. But hardly is the Word of God, true in all respects, for all times and for all people. In this respect, all religions are part of the common heritage of humanity, so they must be explored to understand history. The presence of any aspects of truth in all religions does not mean that all religions are true or that all religions are essentially the same.Although we must be open to the truth, wherever we find it, this does not mean that we must accept all religions as true ones to reach the truth.

Consequently, religious exclusivity is a real serious obstacle to establishing harmony between different religious groups. Fortunately, not all religions insist on their exclusivity, which allows them to co-exist in peace with others. They combine some notions of exclusivity with more tolerant traditions. Although there is much adharma in the social evil that has arisen in the context of Hindu religion, there is no adharma in its basic formulation that surpasses time, place and man and emphasizes eternity over the historical property of religion. They do not require an exclusive formulation of the truth, but are open to diversity and multiplicity, in fact welcoming it. The social effect of Sarva Dharma Sambhava led to the fact that this spiritual principle became a political principle in India: in order to create social harmony, we should honor all religions as equivalent, so that religious differences do not stir up social conflicts. Unfortunately, religious conflicts continued because the agreement to treat religions as equivalent was only superficial, formal, which did not remove the problem of real differences and misunderstandings between their adherents. Hence we can urge Christian or Islamic spiritual leaders to resist this statement and agree that Hinduism, Buddhism or other dharmic traditions are as good as their religions, and therefore all attempts to disprove the teachings of the Dharmic religions are erroneous. Sarva Dharma Sambhava was used to protect the favor of various religious groups and defend votes based on religious beliefs. Often the effect of a one-way street was obtained. The Hindus were urged to accept Sarva Dharma Sambhava, which means that they should not object if Hindus convert to Christianity and Islam, and to avoid criticizing these religions, even if some of their elements are a violation of what the Hindus believe is true. On the other hand, by the same principle, Muslims and Christians should not reciprocate, stop their conversion efforts or become Hindus. As a result, Sarva Dharma Sambhava only undermined the Hindu idea of ??truth and urged the Hindus to abandon their critical abilities in matters of religion. This contradicts the spirit of yogis and spiritual Gurus , in which all sorts of disputes were encouraged to reach the truth. Please pay attention to Shad Darshana, six systems of Hindu philosophy, to such a tradition of free, lively and friendly discussion. Although we should all strive to be kind and respectful people and not interfere in the religious views of others, this does not mean that we should stop thinking about how to do this. To create social harmony, people should not refuse to defend their religion or critically examine religions that oppose them. The logical result of the consistent implementation of the principle of Sarva Dharma Sambhava may mean that Hindus should completely abandon their religion. However, whenever the Hindus try to protect their religion, which is still under siege even in India, they are accused of violating Sarva's principle of Dharma Sambhava. On the other hand, when other religious groups violate this principle - and this is, in fact, the practice of all missionary transformations - they are little criticized for it.

Actually, this requires tolerance among religions, which implies respect for diversity in the religious sphere. Members of different religious communities must recognize that other religions can preach something very different from their understanding of God, truth, salvation or liberation. Instead of pretending that these differences do not exist, we must recognize them and give people the freedom to study them. Equality of religions should not be confused with tolerance. We must endure all people, even if they do not agree with us. Tolerance to differences ensures harmony, and does not create the illusion that there is no difference between religions. In fact, if we tolerate only people, but try to make them the same as we are, we are not altogether tolerant. Similarly, the adherents of other religions must learn to tolerate Hindus and respect the fact that Hindus do not always agree with them on religion, that Hindus have their own spiritual and ethical views that other religious groups should also take into account. If Indians seek to eliminate the consequences of historical atrocities, referring to aggressive attempts to convert them to other religions, then representatives of other religious faiths should be ready to hear the Hindu viewpoint on these events and respect it, no matter how hard it is to accept it and admit its possible guilt . In a free society, religious beliefs must be a personal matter. The state should not impose any religious beliefs or dogmas. There should be political tolerance for all religious views, if they are not connected with violent or anti-popular activities. At the political level, it does not matter whether someone professes a religion, or not.

Unity of religions or confusion In the modern world, no one people can already consider their language or culture to be exceptional, the highest. Therefore, any religion in search of truth can only go deep into its own depths, like science, and not assert itself, displacing other points of view and systems of outlook. Such a position requires that, in observing the boundaries of religion and belief, we consider all religions as a worthy subject of in-depth study. In this regard, a new Hindu critique of religion is necessary for the expansion of religious views represented in the modern world. This is the real Sarva-Dharma, the monopoly possession of which no group can claim. Probably, only those religions that will be ready to undergo radical transformation will survive. They are waiting for a change in the direction of empirical spirituality, in which people independently acquire the experience of God or truth, what becomes for them the most important thing, and religious dogma and institutionalism, at best, will be in the background. A respectable but honest study of other religions by Hindus or any other believers is important for establishing a balance of views today. It is necessary to return to the Dharma or the principles of universal truth, and not just to respect all the religions that exist today, and often abuse their dogmas in order to manipulate the mass consciousness. It is necessary to strive to maintain the Dharma, even if all historically held religious constructions run the risk of being broken. It's time for religions to bow to the Dharma, and not try to fit Dharma into the narrow confines of individual religious institutions. Hinduism as a religion of Dharma, not dogma, should lead this spiritual revolution, which also means clarifying the adharma that can be found among Hindus today. Unfortunately, the superficial universalism of the new Sarva-Dharma Sambhava serves only to create a smokescreen for the religious beliefs and dogmas to perpetuate themselves. You can draw an analogy. This justice does not mean that all governments are good regardless of whether they are democratic, fascist or communist.

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5 Religion as Unifier and Divider

• Published: January 2006
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Religion was once considered a unifying force and a source of national identity. In reality, religion polarizes people in such a way that unity appears to be an uncertain proposition even if God comes into the picture. This chapter examines the degree to which religion divides or unites Americans today. It considers the role played by religion in American politics and American life and argues that although religion has been a divisive force most of the time, the current social schisms over “moral values” may be less pronounced than previously thought. It first looks at the rise of generic traditionalism in the religious sphere, evangelism, and sin and secularization. It then discusses some of the issues involved in the culture war that have an explicitly religious basis, including abortion and faith-based initiatives.

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Of Unity in Religion By Francis Bacon: Summary and Analysis

Of unity in religion by francis bacon.

Francis Bacon wrote the essay Of Unity in Religion during a period of religious change in England during Queen Elizabeth I’s reign. It was during this period that Protestantism was establishing itself as the predominant religion in England under the Church of England. However, the reformation and the Church of England itself were fraught with dispute. Bacon, an experienced politician, saw the importance of a unified church for the stability and advancement of the English empire, and he authored the essay to transmit the idea of protestant religion unification.

The essay’s fundamental argument is that religious divisions are detrimental to religion, charity, and peace and should thus be avoided. Religion is meant to maintain the unity of human civilization. As such, it should be a unified force in and of itself. According to Bacon, Christians should remain united around their religion’s fundamental principles. He sees no damage in quarrels about little issues or irrelevant points. This allows for a range of viewpoints on non-essential issues to be permitted. For example, different forms of church government and ritual and worship are permissible, as the Bible contains no definitive rule on these subjects. However, when the Bible expressly establishes a rule or doctrine, it must be accepted without reservation. In other words, unity on essential points is compatible with disagreement on non-essential points. Christ’s clothing was seamless, consisting of a single piece; nevertheless, the Queen’s garment, which represents the church, was multicoloured. Bacon’s advise is unquestionably valuable and applicable to members of other religions as well. Not only Christians, but adherents of any religion would be wise to retain &lt;table width=&quot;100%&quot;&gt;&lt;tbody&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;strong style=&quot;font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;&quot;&gt;to retain / retention&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&quot;retain” is a more formal way of saying ‘keep’. It’s especially common in phrases like &quot;to retain control / status / a position” etc. The noun is &quot;retention”. It’s also used in a physical sense to mean &quot;keeping something inside”. In business, retention is very important, because companies need to try to keep the customers they already have as well as trying to attract new ones.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;strong&gt;He was unable to&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;strong&gt;  &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;strong&gt;retain&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;control of the company after he &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;strong&gt;had &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;strong&gt;lost the confidence of investors&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;strong&gt;She explained her weight gain as the result of fluid &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;strong&gt;retention&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;strong&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt; " data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex=0 role=link>retain a sense of unity on their religion’s fundamentals while tolerating disagreements over small points.

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Bacon argues in this article that the Church’s unity is the surest method to safeguard religion. He cites three advantages of religious unity, including the ability to please God and accomplish religious objectives. Secondly, to quell mockery of the Church; and finally, through religious unity, members of the Church can bring about peace, strengthen faith, and promote charity. He has also made recommendations: the church should reject unity based on ignorance of inconsistencies, as well as patchwork unity that is artificial or false unity. He implores both church and state not to be rebellious toward one another, as this would contradict the fundamental principles of man’s duty to God and mankind. One should not act like a devil with the goal of obtaining God’s throne. He asserts categorically that those who convert people through coercion are doing so for personal gain, not for the sake of religion.

Bacon is portrayed in this essay as an insightful observer and practical thinker who was cognizant of the dangers associated with religious debates. He appears to reject prejudices in this essay and makes a strong case for tolerance and a liberal outlook on religion—attitudes that are still important in the twenty-first century.

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Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology

World Religions Overview Essay

The Movement of Religion and Ecology: Emerging Field and Dynamic Force

Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, Yale University

Originally published in the Routledge Handbook of Religion and Ecology

As many United Nations reports attest, we humans are destroying the life-support systems of the Earth at an alarming rate. Ecosystems are being degraded by rapid industrialization and relentless development. The data keeps pouring in that we are altering the climate and toxifying the air, water, and soil of the planet so that the health of humans and other species is at risk. Indeed, the Swedish scientist, Johan Rockstrom, and his colleagues, are examining which planetary boundaries are being exceeded. (Rockstrom and Klum, 2015)

The explosion of population from 3 billion in 1960 to more then 7 billion currently and the subsequent demands on the natural world seem to be on an unsustainable course. The demands include meeting basic human needs of a majority of the world’s people, but also feeding the insatiable desire for goods and comfort spread by the allure of materialism. The first is often called sustainable development; the second is unsustainable consumption. The challenge of rapid economic growth and consumption has brought on destabilizing climate change. This is coming into full focus in alarming ways including increased floods and hurricanes, droughts and famine, rising seas and warming oceans.

Can we turn our course to avert disaster? There are several indications that this may still be possible. On September 25, 2015 after the Pope addressed the UN General Assembly, 195 member states adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). On December 12, 2015 these same members states endorsed the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Both of these are important indications of potential reversal. The Climate Agreement emerged from the dedicated work of governments and civil society along with business partners. The leadership of UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, and many others was indispensable.

One of the inspirations for the Climate Agreement and for the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals was the release of the Papal Encyclical, Laudato Si’ in June 2015. The encyclical encouraged the moral forces of concern for both the environment and people to be joined in “integral ecology”.  “The cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor” are now linked as was not fully visible before. (Boff, 1997 and in the encyclical) Many religious and environmental communities are embracing this integrated perspective and will, no doubt, foster it going forward. The question is how can the world religions contribute more effectively to this renewed ethical momentum for change. For example, what will be their long-term response to population growth? As this is addressed in the article by Robert Wyman and Guigui Yao, we will not take it up here. Instead, we will consider some of the challenges and possibilities amid the dream of progress and the lure of consumption.

Challenges: The Dream of Progress and the Religion of Consumption

Consumption appears to have become an ideology or quasi-religion, not only in the West but also around the world. Faith in economic growth drives both producers and consumers. The dream of progress is becoming a distorted one. This convergence of our unlimited demands with an unquestioned faith in economic progress raises questions about the roles of religions in encouraging, discouraging, or ignoring our dominant drive toward appropriately satisfying material needs or inappropriately indulging material desires. Integral ecology supports the former and critiques the latter.

Moreover, a consumerist ideology depends upon and simultaneously contributes to a worldview based on the instrumental rationality of the human. That is, the assumption for decision-making is that all choices are equally clear and measurable. Market based metrics such as price, utility, or efficiency are dominant. This can result in utilitarian views of a forest as so much board feet or simply as a mechanistic complex of ecosystems that provide services to the human.

One long-term effect of this is that the individual human decision-maker is further distanced from nature because nature is reduced to measurable entities for profit or use. From this perspective we humans may be isolated in our perceived uniqueness as something apart from the biological web of life. In this context, humans do not seek identity and meaning in the numinous beauty of the world, nor do they experience themselves as dependent on a complex of life-supporting interactions of air, water, and soil. Rather, this logic sees humans as independent, rational decision-makers who find their meaning and identity in systems of management that now attempt to co-opt the language of conservation and environmental concern. Happiness is derived from simply creating and having more material goods. This perspective reflects a reading of our current geological period as human induced by our growth as a species that is now controlling the planet. This current era is being called the “Anthropocene” because of our effect on the planet in contrast to the prior 12,000 year epoch known as the Holocene.

This human capacity to imagine and implement a utilitarian-based worldview regarding nature has undermined many of the ancient insights of the world’s religious and spiritual traditions. For example, some religions, attracted by the individualistic orientations of market rationalism and short-term benefits of social improvement, seized upon material accumulation as containing divine sanction. Thus, Max Weber identified the rise of Protestantism with an ethos of inspirited work and accumulated capital.

Weber also identified the growing disenchantment from the world of nature with the rise of global capitalism. Karl Marx recognized the “metabolic rift” in which human labor and nature become alienated from cycles of renewal. The earlier mystique of creation was lost. Wonder, beauty, and imagination as ways of knowing were gradually superseded by the analytical reductionism of modernity such that technological and economic entrancement have become key inspirations of progress.

Challenges: Religions Fostering Anthropocentrism

This modern, instrumental view of matter as primarily for human use arises in part from a dualistic Western philosophical view of mind and matter. Adapted into Jewish, Christian and Islamic religious perspectives, this dualism associates mind with the soul as a transcendent spiritual entity given sovereignty and dominion over matter. Mind is often valued primarily for its rationality in contrast to a lifeless world. At the same time we ensure our radical discontinuity from it.

Interestingly, views of the uniqueness of the human bring many traditional religious perspectives into sync with modern instrumental rationalism. In Western religious traditions, for example, the human is seen as an exclusively gifted creature with a transcendent soul that manifests the divine image and likeness. Consequently, this soul should be liberated from the material world. In many contemporary reductionist perspectives (philosophical and scientific) the human with rational mind and technical prowess stands as the pinnacle of evolution. Ironically, religions emphasizing the uniqueness of the human as the image of God meet market-driven applied science and technology precisely at this point of the special nature of the human to justify exploitation of the natural world. Anthropocentrism in various forms, religious, philosophical, scientific, and economic, has led, perhaps inadvertently, to the dominance of humans in this modern period, now called the Anthropocene. (It can be said that certain strands of the South Asian religions have emphasized the importance of humans escaping from nature into transcendent liberation. However, such forms of radical dualism are not central to the East Asian traditions or indigenous traditions.)

From the standpoint of rational analysis, many values embedded in religions, such as a sense of the sacred, the intrinsic value of place, the spiritual dimension of the human, moral concern for nature, and care for future generations, are incommensurate with an objectified monetized worldview as they not quantifiable. Thus, they are often ignored as externalities, or overridden by more pragmatic profit-driven considerations. Contemporary nation-states in league with transnational corporations have seized upon this individualistic, property-based, use-analysis to promote national sovereignty, security, and development exclusively for humans.

Possibilities: Systems Science

Yet, even within the realm of so-called scientific, rational thought, there is not a uniform approach. Resistance to the easy marriage of reductionist science and instrumental rationality comes from what is called systems science and new ecoogy. By this we refer to a movement within empirical, experimental science of exploring the interaction of nature and society as complex dynamic systems. This approach stresses both analysis and synthesis – the empirical act of observation, as well as placement of the focus of study within the context of a larger whole. Systems science resists the temptation to take the micro, empirical, reductive act as the complete description of a thing, but opens analysis to the large interactive web of life to which we belong, from ecosystems to the biosphere. There are numerous examples of this holistic perspective in various branches of ecology. And this includes overcoming the nature-human divide. (Schmitz 2016) Aldo Leopold understood this holistic interconnection well when he wrote: “We abuse land because we see it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” (Leopold, 1966)

Collaboration of Science and Religion

Within this inclusive framework, scientists have been moving for some time beyond simply distanced observations to engaged concern. The Pope’s encyclical, Laudato Si , has elevated the level of visibility and efficacy of this conversation between science and religion as perhaps never before on a global level. Similarly, many other statements from the world religions are linking the wellbeing of people and the planet for a flourishing future. For example, the World Council of Churches has been working for four decades to join humans and nature in their program on Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation.

Many scientists such as Thomas Lovejoy, E.O. Wilson, Jane Lubchenco, Peter Raven, and Ursula Goodenough recognize the importance of religious and cultural values when discussing solutions to environmental challenges. Other scientists such as Paul Ehrlich and Donald Kennedy have called for major studies of human behavior and values in relation to environmental issues. ( Science , July 2005) This has morphed into the Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere. (mahb.standford.edu). Since 2009 the Ecological Society of America has established an Earth Stewardship Initiative with yearly panels and publications.  Many environmental studies programs are now seeking to incorporate these broader ethical and behavioral approaches into the curriculum.

Possibilities: Extinction and Religious Response

The stakes are high, however, and the path toward limiting ourselves within planetary boundaries is not smooth. Scientists are now reporting that because of the population explosion, our consuming habits, and our market drive for resources, we are living in the midst of a mass extinction period. This period represents the largest loss of species since the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago when the Cenozoic period began. In other words, we are shutting down life systems on the planet and causing the end of this large-scale geological era with little awareness of what we are doing or its consequences.

As the cultural historian Thomas Berry observed some years ago, we are making macrophase changes on the planet with microphase wisdom. Indeed, some people worry that these rapid changes have outstripped the capacity of our religions, ethics, and spiritualities to meet the complex challenges we are facing.

The question arises whether the wisdom traditions of the human community, embedded in institutional religions and beyond, can embrace integral ecology at the level needed? Can the religions provide leadership into a synergistic era of human-Earth relations characterized by empathy, regeneration, and resilience? Or are religions themselves the wellspring of those exclusivist perspectives in which human societies disconnect themselves from other groups and from the natural world? Are religions caught in their own meditative promises of transcendent peace and redemptive bliss in paradisal abandon? Or does their drive for exclusive salvation or truth claims cause them to try to overcome or convert the Other?

Authors in this volume are exploring these issues within religious and spiritual communities regarding the appropriate responses of the human to our multiple environmental and social challenges. What forms of symbolic visioning and ethical imagining can call forth a transformation of consciousness and conscience for our Earth community? Can religions and spiritualites provide vision and inspiration for grounding and guiding mutually enhancing human-Earth relations? Have we arrived at a point where we realize that more scientific statistics on environmental problems, more legislation, policy or regulation, and more economic analysis, while necessary, are no longer sufficient for the large-scale social transformations needed? This is where the world religions, despite their limitations, surely have something to contribute.

Such a perspective includes ethics, practices, and spiritualities from the world’s cultures that may or may not be connected with institutional forms of religion. Thus spiritual ecology and nature religions are an important part of the discussions and are represented in this volume. Our own efforts have focused on the world religions and indigenous traditions. Our decade long training in graduate school and our years of living and traveling throughout Asia and the West gave us an early appreciation for religions as dynamic, diverse, living traditions. We are keenly aware of the multiple forms of syncretism and hybridization in the world religions and spiritualties. We have witnessed how they are far from monolithic or impervious to change in our travels to more than 60 countries.

Problems and Promise of Religions

Several qualifications regarding the various roles of religion should thus be noted. First, we do not wish to suggest here that any one religious tradition has a privileged ecological perspective. Rather, multiple interreligious perspectives may be the most helpful in identifying the contributions of the world religions to the flourishing of life.

We also acknowledge that there is frequently a disjunction between principles and practices: ecologically sensitive ideas in religions are not always evident in environmental practices in particular civilizations. Many civilizations have overused their environments, with or without religious sanction.

Finally, we are keenly aware that religions have all too frequently contributed to tensions and conflict among various groups, both historically and at present. Dogmatic rigidity, inflexible claims of truth, and misuse of institutional and communal power by religions have led to tragic consequences in many parts of the globe.

Nonetheless, while religions have often preserved traditional ways, they have also provoked social change. They can be limiting but also liberating in their outlooks. In the twentieth century, for example, religious leaders and theologians helped to give birth to progressive movements such as civil rights for minorities, social justice for the poor, and liberation for women.  Although the world religions have been slow to respond to our current environmental crises, their moral authority and their institutional power may help effect a change in attitudes, practices, and public policies. Now the challenge is a broadening of their ethical perspectives.

Traditionally the religions developed ethics for homicide, suicide, and genocide. Currently they need to respond to biocide, ecocide, and geocide. (Berry, 2009)

Retrieval, Reevaluation, Reconstruction

There is an inevitable disjunction between the examination of historical religious traditions in all of their diversity and complexity and the application of teachings, ethics, or practices to contemporary situations. While religions have always been involved in meeting contemporary challenges over the centuries, it is clear that the global environmental crisis is larger and more complex than anything in recorded human history. Thus, a simple application of traditional ideas to contemporary problems is unlikely to be either possible or adequate. In order to address ecological problems properly, religious and spiritual leaders, laypersons and academics have to be in dialogue with scientists, environmentalists, economists, businesspeople, politicians, and educators. Hence the articles in this volume are from various key sectors.

With these qualifications in mind we can then identify three methodological approaches that appear in the still emerging study of religion and ecology. These are retrieval, reevaluation, and reconstruction. Retrieval involves the scholarly investigation of scriptural and commentarial sources in order to clarify religious perspectives regarding human-Earth relations. This requires that historical and textual studies uncover resources latent within the tradition. In addition, retrieval can identify ethical codes and ritual customs of the tradition in order to discover how these teachings were put into practice. Traditional environmental knowledge (TEK) is an important part of this for all the world religions, especially indigenous traditions.

With reevaluation, traditional teachings are evaluated with regard to their relevance to contemporary circumstances. Are the ideas, teachings, or ethics present in these traditions appropriate for shaping more ecologically sensitive attitudes and sustainable practices? Reevaluation also questions ideas that may lead to inappropriate environmental practices. For example, are certain religious tendencies reflective of otherworldly or world-denying orientations that are not helpful in relation to pressing ecological issues? It asks as well whether the material world of nature has been devalued by a particular religion and whether a model of ethics focusing solely on human interactions is adequate to address environmental problems.

Finally, reconstruction suggests ways that religious traditions might adapt their teachings to current circumstances in new and creative ways. These may result in new syntheses or in creative modifications of traditional ideas and practices to suit modern modes of expression. This is the most challenging aspect of the emerging field of religion and ecology and requires sensitivity to who is speaking about a tradition in the process of reevaluation and reconstruction. Postcolonial critics have appropriately highlighted the complex issues surrounding the problem of who is representing or interpreting a religious tradition or even what constitutes that tradition. Nonetheless, practitioners and leaders of particular religions are finding grounds for creative dialogue with scholars of religions in these various phases of interpretation.

Religious Ecologies and Religious Cosmologies

As part of the retrieval, reevaluation, and reconstruction of religions we would identify “religious ecologies” and “religious cosmologies” as ways that religions have functioned in the past and can still function at present. Religious ecologies are ways of orienting and grounding whereby humans undertake specific practices of nurturing and transforming self and community in a particular cosmological context that regards nature as inherently valuable. Through cosmological stories humans narrate and experience the larger matrix of mystery in which life arises, unfolds, and flourishes. These are what we call religious cosmologies. These two, namely religious ecologies and religious cosmologies, can be distinguished but not separated. Together they provide a context for navigating life’s challenges and affirming the rich spiritual value of human-Earth relations.

Human communities until the modern period sensed themselves as grounded in and dependent on the natural world. Thus, even when the forces of nature were overwhelming, the regenerative capacity of the natural world opened a way forward. Humans experienced the processes of the natural world as interrelated, both practically and symbolically. These understandings were expressed in traditional environmental knowledge, namely, in hunting and agricultural practices such as the appropriate use of plants, animals, and land. Such knowledge was integrated in symbolic language and practical norms, such as prohibitions, taboos, and limitations on ecosystems’ usage. All this was based in an understanding of nature as the source of nurturance and kinship. The Lakota people still speak of “all my relations” as an expression of this kinship. Such perspectives will need to be incorporated into strategies to solve environmental problems. Humans are part of nature and their cultural and religious values are critical dimensions of the discussion.

Multidisciplinary approaches: Environmental Humanities

We are recognizing, then, that the environmental crisis is multifaceted and requires multidisciplinary approaches. As this book indicates, the insights of scientific modes of analytical and synthetic knowing are indispensable for understanding and responding to our contemporary environmental crisis. So also, we need new technologies such as industrial ecology, green chemistry, and renewable energy. Clearly ecological economics is critical along with green governance and legal policies as articles in this volume illustrate.

In this context it is important to recognize different ways of knowing that are manifest in the humanities, such as artistic expressions, historical perspectives, philosophical inquiry, and religious understandings. These honor emotional intelligence, affective insight, ethical valuing, and spiritual awakening.

Environmental humanities is a growing and diverse area of study within humanistic disciplines. In the last several decades, new academic courses and programs, research journals and monographs, have blossomed. This broad-based inquiry has sparked creative investigation into multiple ways, historically and at present, of understanding and interacting with nature, constructing cultures, developing communities, raising food, and exchanging goods. 

It is helpful to see the field of religion and ecology as part of this larger emergence of environmental humanities. While it can be said that environmental history, literature, and philosophy are some four decades old, the field of religions and ecology began some two decades ago. It was preceded, however, by work among various scholars, particularly Christian theologians. Some eco-feminists theologians, such as Rosemary Ruether and Sallie McFague, Mary Daly, and Ivone Gebara led the way.

The Emerging Field of Religion and Ecology

An effort to identify and to map religiously diverse attitudes and practices toward nature was the focus of a three-year international conference series on world religions and ecology . Organized by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, ten conferences were held at the Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions from 1996-1998 that resulted in a ten volume book series (1997-2004). Over 800 scholars of religion and environmentalists participated. The director of the Center, Larry Sullivan, gave space and staff for the conferences. He chose to limit their scope to the world religions and indigenous religions rather than “nature religions”, such as wicca or paganism, which the organizers had hoped to include.

Culminating conferences were held in fall 1998 at Harvard and in New York at the United Nations and the American Museum of Natural History where 1000 people attended and Bill Moyers presided. At the UN conference Tucker and Grim founded the Forum on Religion and Ecology, which is now located at Yale. They organized a dozen more conferences and created an electronic newsletter that is now sent to over 12,000 people around the world. In addition, they developed a major website for research, education, and outreach in this area (fore.yale.edu). The conferences, books, website, and newsletter have assisted in the emergence of a new field of study in religion and ecology. Many people have helped in this process including Whitney Bauman and Sam Mickey who are now moving the field toward discussing the need for planetary ethics. A Canadian Forum on Religion and Ecology was established in 2002, a European Forum for the Study of Religion and the Environment was formed in 2005, and a Forum on Religion and Ecology @ Monash in Australia in 2011.

Courses on this topic are now offered in numerous colleges and universities across North America and in other parts of the world. A Green Seminary Initiative has arisen to help educate seminarians. Within the American Academy of Religion there is a vibrant group focused on scholarship and teaching in this area. A peer-reviewed journal, Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology , is celebrating its 25 th year of publication. Another journal has been publishing since 2007, the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture . A two volume Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature edited by Bron Taylor has helped shape the discussions, as has the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture he founded. Clearly this broad field of study will continue to expand as the environmental crisis grows in complexity and requires increasingly creative interdisciplinary responses.

The work in religion and ecology rests in an intersection between the academic field within education and the dynamic force within society. This is why we see our work not so much as activist, but rather as “engaged scholarship” for the flourishing of our shared planetary life. This is part of a broader integration taking place to link concerns for both people and the planet. This has been fostered in part by the twenty-volume Ecology and Justice Series from Orbis Books and with the work of John Cobb, Larry Rasmussen, Dieter Hessel, Heather Eaton, Cynthia Moe-Loebeda, and others. The Papal Encyclical is now highlighting this linkage of eco-justice as indispensable for an integral ecology.

The Dynamic Force of Religious Environmentalism

All of these religious traditions, then, are groping to find the languages, symbols, rituals, and ethics for sustaining both ecosystems and humans. Clearly there are obstacles to religions moving into their ecological, eco-justice, and planetary phases. The religions are themselves challenged by their own bilingual languages, namely, their languages of transcendence, enlightenment, and salvation; and their languages of immanence, sacredness of Earth, and respect for nature. Yet, as the field of religion and ecology has developed within academia, so has the force of religious environmentalism emerged around the planet. Roger Gottlieb documents this in his book A Greener Faith . (Gottlieb 2006) The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew held international symposia on “Religion, Science and the Environment” focused on water issues (1995-2009) that we attended. He has made influential statements on this issue for 20 years. The Parliament of World Religions has included panels on this topic since 1998 and most expansively in 2015. Since 1995 the UK based Alliance of Religion and Conservation (ARC), led by Martin Palmer, has been doing significant work with religious communities around under the patronage of Prince Philip.

These efforts are recovering a sense of place, which is especially clear in the environmental resilience and regeneration practices of indigenous peoples. It is also evident in valuing the sacred pilgrimage places in the Abrahamic traditions (Jerusalem, Rome, and Mecca) both historically and now ecologically. So also East Asia and South Asia attention to sacred mountains, caves, and other pilgrimage sites stands in marked contrast to massive pollution.

In many settings around the world religious practitioners are drawing together religious ways of respecting place, land, and life with understanding of environmental science and the needs of local communities. There have been official letters by Catholic Bishops in the Philippines and in Alberta, Canada alarmed by the oppressive social conditions and ecological disasters caused by extractive industries. Catholic nuns and laity in North America, Australia, England, and Ireland sponsor educational programs and conservation plans drawing on the eco-spiritual vision of Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme. Also inspired by Berry and Swimme, Paul Winter’s Solstice celebrations and Earth Mass at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York Winter have been taking place for three decades.

Even in the industrial growth that grips China, there are calls from many in politics, academia, and NGOs to draw on Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist perspectives for environmental change. In 2008 we met with Pan Yue, the Deputy Minister of the Environment, who has studied these traditions and sees them as critical to Chinese environmental ethics. In India, Hinduism is faced with the challenge of clean up of sacred rivers, such as the Ganges and the Yamuna. To this end in 2010 with Hindu scholars, David Haberman and Christopher Chapple, we organized a conference of scientists and religious leaders in Delhi and Vrindavan to address the pollution of the Yamuna.

Many religious groups are focused on climate change and energy issues. For example, InterFaith Power and Light and GreenFaith are encouraging religious communities to reduce their carbon footprint. Earth Ministry in Seattle is leading protests against oil pipelines and terminals. The Evangelical Environmental Network and other denominations are emphasizing climate change as a moral issue that is disproportionately affecting the poor. In Canada and the US the Indigenous Environmental Network is speaking out regarding damage caused by resource extraction, pipelines, and dumping on First Peoples’ Reserves and beyond. All of the religions now have statements on climate change as a moral issue and they were strongly represented in the People’s Climate March in September 2015. Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, published the first collection of articles on religion and climate change from two conferences we organized there. (Tucker & Grim, 2001)

Striking examples of religion and ecology have occurred in the Islamic world. In June 2001 and May 2005 the Islamic Republic of Iran led by President Khatami and the United Nations Environment Programme sponsored conferences in Tehran that we attended. They were focused on Islamic principles and practices for environmental protection. The Iranian Constitution identifies Islamic values for ecology and threatens legal sanctions. One of the earliest spokespersons for religion and ecology is the Iranian scholar, Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Fazlun Khalid in the UK founded the Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Science. In Indonesia in 2014 a fatwa was issued declaring that killing an endangered species is prohibited.

These examples illustrate ways in which an emerging alliance of religion and ecology is occurring around the planet. These traditional values within the religions now cause them to awaken to environmental crises in ways that are strikingly different from science or policy. But they may find interdisciplinary ground for dialogue in concerns for eco-justice, sustainability, and cultural motivations for transformation. The difficulty, of course, is that the religions are often preoccupied with narrow sectarian interests. However, many people, including the Pope, are calling on the religions to go beyond these interests and become a moral leaven for change.

Renewal Through Laudato Si’

Pope Francis is highlighting an integral ecology that brings together concern for humans and the Earth. He makes it clear that the environment can no longer be seen as only an issue for scientific experts, or environmental groups, or government agencies alone. Rather, he invites all people, programs and institutions to realize these are complicated environmental and social problems that require integrated solutions beyond a “technocratic paradigm” that values an easy fix. Within this integrated framework, he urges bold new solutions.

In this context Francis suggests that ecology, economics, and equity are intertwined. Healthy ecosystems depend on a just economy that results in equity. Endangering ecosystems with an exploitative economic system is causing immense human suffering and inequity. In particular, the poor and most vulnerable are threatened by climate change, although they are not the major cause of the climate problem. He acknowledges the need for believers and non-believers alike to help renew the vitality of Earth’s ecosystems and expand systemic efforts for equity.

In short, he is calling for “ecological conversion” from within all the world religions. He is making visible an emerging worldwide phenomenon of the force of religious environmentalism on the ground, as well as the field of religion and ecology in academia developing new ecotheologies and ecojustice ethics. This diverse movement is evoking a change of mind and heart, consciousness and conscience. Its expression will be seen more fully in the years to come.

The challenge of the contemporary call for ecological renewal cannot be ignored by the religions. Nor can it be answered simply from out of doctrine, dogma, scripture, devotion, ritual, belief, or prayer. It cannot be addressed by any of these well-trod paths of religious expression alone. Yet, like so much of our human cultures and institutions the religions are necessary for our way forward yet not sufficient in themselves for the transformation needed.  The roles of the religions cannot be exported from outside their horizons.  Thus, the individual religions must explain and transform themselves if they are willing to enter into this period of environmental engagement that is upon us. If the religions can participate in this creativity they may again empower humans to embrace values that sustain life and contribute to a vibrant Earth community.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Berry, Thomas. 2009. The Sacred Universe: Earth Spirituality and Religion in the 21st Century (New York: Columbia University Press).

Boff, Leonardo. 1997. Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books).

Gottlieb, Roger. 2006. A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and Our Planetary Future . (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Grim, John and Mary Evelyn Tucker, eds. 2014. Ecology and Religion. (Washington, DC: Island Press).

Leopold, Aldo. 1966. A Sand County Almanac . (Oxford University Press).

Rockstrom, Johan and Mattias Klum. 2015. Big World, Small Planet: Abundance Within Planetary Boundaries . (New Haven: Yale University Press)

Schmitz, Oswald. 2016. The New Ecology: Science for a Sustainable World. (Princeton: Princeton University Press).

Taylor, Bron, ed. 2008. Encyclopedia of Religion, Nature, and Culture. (London: Bloomsbury).

Tucker, Mary Evelyn. 2004. Worldly Wonder: Religions Enter their Ecological Phase . (Chicago: Open Court).

Tucker, Mary Evelyn and John Grim, eds. 2001 Religion and Ecology: Can the Climate Change? Daedalus Vol. 130, No.4.

Header photo: ARC procession to UN Faith in Future Meeting, Bristol, UK

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Essays on Religion

Essays about religion hold immense significance as they provide a platform for exploring the diverse beliefs, practices, and cultural influences that shape human spirituality and understanding of the divine. The purpose of such essays is to promote interfaith dialogue, enhance cross-cultural awareness, and encourage critical examination of religious concepts, ethics, and rituals. By fostering discussions about religion, these essays contribute to tolerance, understanding, and the broader exploration of the complexities of faith in a globalized world.

Cultural and Historical Context

One of the primary goals of essays about religion is to explore the cultural and historical context of various faith traditions. These essays delve into the origins, development, and evolution of religious beliefs, shedding light on how they have shaped societies over time.

Essays on religion also aim to examine the core beliefs, practices, and rituals of different faiths. These essays provide insights into the ways individuals seek spiritual connection, guidance, and purpose through their religious affiliations. Essays about religion serve as valuable tools for promoting interfaith understanding, cultural awareness, and critical thinking. By exploring the rich tapestry of religious beliefs and practices, these essays contribute to a more harmonious and connected global society.

Who is God in My Life

Throughout human history, the concept of God has been a central and deeply personal one. It transcends religious boundaries and philosophical discourse, touching the very core of our existence. In this essay, I will explore who God is in my life, examining the multifaceted ways...

The Importance of Religious Freedom: Preserving Liberty and Diversity

Religious freedom is a fundamental human right that plays a pivotal role in fostering a just and inclusive society. This essay delves into the significance of religious freedom, its historical context, and its role in promoting diversity, tolerance, and peaceful coexistence among individuals of varying...

Impact of Religion on the Lives of Its Followers

Religion holds a significant place in human society, influencing various aspects of individuals' lives. From shaping beliefs and values to guiding daily practices and providing a sense of purpose, religion has a profound impact on its followers. This essay explores the ways in which religion...

Islam: the Religion of Peace and Compassion

Amidst the intricate mosaic of diverse religious beliefs, Islam stands out as a faith that embodies peace, compassion, and a profound connection with the Divine. This discourse plunges into the essence of Islam as a religion of peace, delving into its foundational principles, teachings, historical...

How I Spent My Ramadan: Reflections on Spiritual Renewal

Ramadan, a sacred month in the Islamic calendar, is a time of spiritual reflection, self-discipline, and devotion. This essay recounts how I spent my Ramadan, embracing the rituals and practices that define this holiest of months. It sheds light on the personal growth, inner reflections,...

My Relationship with God: a Personal Reflection

Attempting to describe my relationship with God is akin to the challenge of encapsulating the vastness of the cosmos within a single breath. This essay embarks on a humble journey to offer a glimpse into the profound and intricate connection that underpins my beliefs, shapes...

Religious Intolerance: a Barrier to Unity and Understanding

Religious intolerance, marked by prejudice and hostility toward individuals or groups based on their religious beliefs, stands as a significant challenge to social harmony and global progress. This phenomenon, often fueled by misunderstandings and fear, undermines the principles of empathy, respect, and coexistence that are...

The Significance of Freedom of Religion

Freedom of religion, a fundamental human right, plays a pivotal role in fostering diverse societies and upholding individual autonomy. This essay delves into the importance of freedom of religion, exploring its role in promoting cultural diversity, protecting human rights, and fostering social harmony. Freedom of...

The Catholic View on Abortion

The Catholic Church's stance on abortion is deeply rooted in its moral and ethical teachings. This essay explores the Catholic view on abortion, examining the theological, philosophical, and ethical reasons that shape the Church's position, the importance of the sanctity of life, and the implications...

Jesus Christ and His Mission to the World

Jesus Christ, a central figure in Christianity, holds profound significance as both a historical figure and a spiritual leader. This essay delves into the life and mission of Jesus Christ, exploring his teachings, impact on humanity, and the enduring legacy of his message of love,...

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• Christianity
• World Religions
• Biblical Worldview
• Influence of Christianity
• Religious Tolerance
• Problem of Evil
• Spirituality
• Creation Myth
• Gospel of John
• Gospel of Mark
• Hagia Sophia
• Image of God
• Old Testament
• Religious Beliefs
• Religious Conflict
• Religious Freedom
• Religious Liberty
• Religious Pluralism

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