Lynn Townsend White Jr. White was the son of a Presbyterian minister, with a keen interest in history, he later went to become the Professor of medieval history at Princeton, then Stanford and finally University of California, Los Angeles(UCLA) from 1958 to 1987 (Livingstone, 1994). It was during this period, in 1967, Lynn White wrote the influential critique “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis”. The paper described how Judeo-Christian theology hugely altered society’s attitudes toward the environment as White describes, to the point that even our “daily habits of action of perpetual progress are rooted in Judeo-Christian theology” (White, 1967).

“[our] daily habits of action of perpetual progress are rooted in Judeo-Christian theology” (White, 1967).

These Judeo-Christian beliefs created an an “affordance” for the depletion of nature. “Affordance” is a term used by Cultural Psychologists and Anthropologists to describe ‘sociocultural, physical, geographical and biological factors that allow/[afford] the phenomenon to take place’ (Ramstead, Veissière & Kirmayer, 2016).

As a result, people influenced by these attitudes, began to see resources as something meant for exploitation, and even a plain disregard for the environment as noted by Historian Donald Worster.

Humans, over the past five hundred years, have maimed and torn its fabric of life apart in consequence of the Judeo-Christian religious ethos and its modern secular offspring – science, industrial capitalism, and technology” – Donald Worster, Professor of American History at the University of Kansas

These 2 historians have espoused how Judeo-Christian beliefs have influenced intellectual thought in the West and subsequently influenced numerous modes, systems of thought that are linked to the environmental issue. Many scholars have sought to find solutions and answers to these issues. Especially Lynn White, himself a self-professed “Churchman”, represents a voice from within the Church, looking out and around at the environmental issue and then introspecting to find those solutions. In his reflections and introspections, he concludes in his paper “Since the roots of our trouble are so largely religious, the remedy must also be essentially religious, whether we call it that or not”.

Indeed, the remedy has already demonstrated itself to be religious in nature, citing St Francis as the prime example of Christianity in harmony with environmentalism, Lynn White demonstrates how Christian beliefs can be a solution to the problem it created.

“Christianity is complex and its consequences differ in differing contexts” – Lynn White

Lynn White notes that “Christianity is complex and its consequences differ in differing contexts”. Indeed, we can already begin to comprehend these complexities: the pro-environmental views of St Francis and Thomas Berry are a stark contrast to the exploitative attitudes of the industrial revolution, yet both of them are by-products of the Judeo-Christian religion.

Echoing Lynn White’s sentiments, I seek to examine the historical development of the Christian thoughts and attitudes to unpack these “complexities of the Christian faith” and attempt to account for how it developed into the environmental attitudes today. I hope to draw upon, rather than ignore, theological resources to respond to cultural changes of environmental attitudes in order to fill in the gaps by informing people about their beliefs and attitudes thus, tipping the mechanism of Planned Behaviour in favour of environmentally conscious behaviours.

References:
Ajzen, I. (1985). From Intentions to Actions: A Theory of Planned Behavior. Action Control,11-39. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-69746-3_2

David N. Livingstone, Eco-Myths: Myth 1: The Church Is To Blame, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Apr. 4, 1994, at 21, 24.

Gottlieb, R. S. (2006). A Greener Faith. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195176483.001.0001

Ramstead, M. J., Veissière, S. P., & Kirmayer, L. J. (2016). Cultural Affordances: Scaffolding Local Worlds Through Shared Intentionality and Regimes of Attention. Frontiers in Psychology,7. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01090

White, L. (1967). The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis. Science,155(3767), 1203-1207. doi:10.1126/science.155.3767.1203