See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/302978440

The Environmental Imagination

Article in Christianity & Literature · June 2016

CITATIONS READS

0 10,382

1 author:

Mark Eaton
Azusa Pacific University
17 PUBLICATIONS 40 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Mark Eaton on 19 December 2019.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Imagination sagepub.co.uk/
journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0148333116646046
cal.sagepub.com
Mark Eaton
Azusa Pacific University, USA

The historian Lynn White, Jr. once wrote in a famous essay, ‘‘The Historical
Roots of Our Ecological Crisis’’ (1967), ‘‘As we now recognize, somewhat over a
century ago science and technology—hitherto quite separate activities—joined to
give mankind powers which, to judge by many of the ecological effects, are out of
control. If so, Christianity bears a huge burden of guilt . . .. Hence we shall con-
tinue to have a worsening ecological crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that
nature has no purpose save to serve man’’ (1207). This argument proved to be
highly influential, notwithstanding a lack of specificity about how exactly
Christianity contributed to the ascendance of science and technology, and thus
‘‘bears a huge burden of guilt’’ for ecological damage caused by science and
technology. As Noah J. Efron points out, ‘‘whatever damage modern science
and technology have caused cannot blithely be chalked up to Christianity’’
(89). Still, White’s essay forcefully argues against an anthropocentric view
‘‘that nature has no purpose save to serve man,’’ which he contends is central
to Christianity, and his essay remains valuable insofar as it anticipates the current
consensus that human activities have indeed had a major impact on the Earth’s
ecosystems. Moreover, some scientists have argued that we are now living in a
new epoch of geological time, which they call the Anthropocene, in which human
influence on the planet is at once unprecedented and irreversible.
One can hear echoes of White’s indictment of Christianity for climate change
still reverberating in Pope Francis’s landmark encyclical letter Laudato Si’: On
Care for Our Common Home (2015). ‘‘Never have we so hurt and mistreated our
common home as we have in the last two hundred years,’’ writes the Pope. ‘‘Yet
we are called to be instruments of God our Father, so that our planet might be
what he desired when he created it and correspond with his plan for peace,
beauty and fullness’’ (39). Acknowledging that there is some disagreement
among experts about the extent of the damage and what can be done about it,
the Pope insists that ‘‘the rapid pace of change and degradation’’ is among the
most pressing problems of our time: ‘‘we need only take a frank look at the facts
to see that our common home is falling into serious disrepair’’ (44). Importantly,
however, the Pope emphatically rejects White’s contention that the anthropocen-
tric view of nature is central to Christianity: ‘‘Clearly, the Bible has no place for
the tyrannical anthropocentrism unconcerned for other creatures’’ (50). As if
responding directly to White’s essay of nearly 50 years ago, the Pope goes on
Eaton 277

to argue that anthropocentrism misconstrues what the Scriptures tell us about

If a mistaken understanding of our own principles has at times led us to justify mis-
treating nature, to exercise tyranny over creation, to engage in war, injustice and acts
of violence, we believers should acknowledge that by doing so we were not faithful to
the treasures of wisdom which we have been called to protect and preserve. Cultural
limitations in different eras often affected the perception of these ethical and spiritual
treasures, yet by constantly returning to their sources, religions will be better equipped
to respond to today’s needs. (146)

Interestingly, there is one thing both the Pope and White agree on: namely, that
religious people have an urgent role to play in bringing about necessary change.
‘‘Since the roots of our trouble are so largely religious,’’ White himself suggested,
‘‘the remedy must also be religious, whether we call it that or not’’ (1207).
The Pope too calls upon Christians everywhere to play a greater role in respond-
ing to climate change. He extols the ‘‘rich heritage of Christian spirituality, the fruit
of twenty centuries of personal and communal experience,’’ as one resource for
‘‘the renewal of humanity’’ that he believes is required to confront the ecological
crisis. Indeed, far more than sound doctrines, a ‘‘profound interior conversion’’ to
ecological habits is needed, ‘‘whereby the effects of their encounter with Jesus
Christ become evident in their relationship to the world around them. Living our
vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to the life of virtue; it is
not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian existence’’ (159). In short,
the Pope calls for a ‘‘reconciliation with creation’’ as an indispensable part of what
it means to be Christian: ‘‘I ask all Christians to recognize and to live fully this
dimension of their conversion’’ (161). The reason this is so important is because of
the responsibility that each of us bears to preserve the planet for the generations
who come after us. ‘‘Intergenerational solidarity is not optional,’’ the Pope reminds
us, ‘‘but rather a basic question of justice, since the world we have received also
belongs to those who will follow us’’ (118). In his review essay titled ‘‘The Pope and
the Planet’’ (2015), the environmental writer Bill McKibben concludes that the
Pope’s encyclical letter ‘‘turns out to be nothing less than a sweeping, radical,
and highly persuasive critique of how we inhabit this planet—an ecological cri-
tique, yes, but also a moral, social, economic, and spiritual commentary’’ (40).
In a recent piece published in The Guardian, literary critic Robert Macfarlane
points out that the idea of the Anthropocene raises difficult but important questions.
It requires us to think about our responsibility to those who will inhabit the earth
after we are gone, not just our children but also other species. It asks us to consider
our place in history in terms of deep time. It demands that we acknowledge our
culpability for climate change. It compels us to take drastic measures if necessary.
‘‘Literature and art are confronted with particular challenges by the idea of the
Anthropocene,’’ writes Macfarlane. ‘‘How might a novel or a poem possibly account
for our authorship of global-scale environmental change across millennia—let alone
278 Christianity & Literature 65(3)

shape the nature of that change?’’ (Macfarlane). This is the sort of question asked by
the essays that follow, which all demonstrate in various ways how literature can be
an invaluable resource for reimagining nature and our symbiotic relationship to it.
To cite just one rather compelling example of how literature does this, consider the
final paragraph of Cormac McCarthy’s apocalyptic novel The Road (2006):

Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them
standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the
flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On
their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming.
Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In
the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of
mystery. (241)

Taking our title from Lawrence Buell’s book The Environmental Imagination:
Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture (1995), published
just over 20 years ago and a pioneering example of what is now called ecocriticism,
this special issue of Christianity & Literature addresses how literature responds to the
natural world and what we can learn from literature about what Pope Francis calls
integral ecology, the profound interconnectedness of all the earth’s inhabitants. In
The Environmental Imagination, Buell examines the environmental imagination in
literature and explores what some of the consequences might be for literary studies
‘‘of attempting to imagine a more ‘ecocentric’ way of being’’ in the world (1). Before
‘‘we can address today’s environmental problems,’’ Buell suggests, we need to find
‘‘better ways of imagining nature and humanity’s relation to it’’ (2). For more than
20 years, Professor Buell has been at the forefront of that effort in literary studies,
and I am grateful to him for agreeing to respond to the articles in this special issue.

Works Cited
Buell, Lawrence. The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the
Formation of American Culture. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press, 1996. Print.
Efron, Noah J. ‘‘Myth 9: That Christianity Gave Birth to Modern Science.’’ Galileo Goes to
Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion. Ed. Ronald L. Numbers. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 2009. 79–89. Print.
Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ Of the Holy Father Francis On Care for Our Common Home.
Vatican City: Vatican Press, 2015. Accessed 1 April 2016. Web.
Macfarlane, Robert. ‘‘Generation Anthropocene: How humans have altered the planet for
ever.’’ The Guardian, 1 April 2016. Accessed 1 April 2016. Web.
McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. New York: Knopf, 2006. Print.
McKibben, Bill. ‘‘The Pope and the Planet.’’ The New York Review of Books, 13 August
2015: 40–42. Print.
White, Lynn, Jr. ‘‘The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis.’’ Science 155.3767
(10 March 1967): 1203–1207. Print.

View publication stats