Gaia, Creaturely

Agency and Religion

Gaia, Creaturely Agency

and Religion
 Conservation protests began in
18/19C in Europe & US as protests
against industrial resource extraction
and ecological destruction

Thirlemere Defence Association the

first conservation protest

Followed by open space defense for

walking & public access

And by societies against animal

cruelty and to protect birds

Second wave of environmental

concern after 2WW led to land use
planning, zoning laws, environmental
impact assessment
Here in Indonesia there are very
few effective zoning laws and
hotels, factories, offices,
condominiums, tracks, roads,
suburban housing, factories,
waste dumps spread out from
existing and new settlements
with weak regulation

Water catchments, air quality,

species diversity all threatened
by this kind of maldevelopment

Floods and heat island effect

both become more frequent in
human settlements as human
agency overwhelms nonhuman
Conservation of wild or beautiful
landscapes came to be seen as
governmental work by mid 20C

But protected areas / species

have failed to ‘save’ nature from
industrialism and imperialism

They cover less only around 2%

of earth’s land area
Conservation of endangered species
focuses on individual species at risk
of extinction

But extinctions of particular large

mammals and birds have occurred in
tandem with spread of human
hunters and agriculturalists

Habitats need protecting from

hunting & agriculture & industrial
chemistry!

But the focus on individual species

promotes zoo & lab breeding of
endangered species, reintroduction
and habitat regeneration projects for
particular endangered species
Focus on individual species neglects ecosystemic destruction and
ecosystem agency in sustaining species

Restoring whole ecosystems - rewilding - allows species & ‘Gaia’ to

recover agency in care of species / biodiversity

But it requires exclusion of conventional peasant & industrial

agriculture and hunters
Conservationists increasingly recognise
current approach is not working

Turn to religion as potential social capital

for conservation

But this raises ? of origins of religion

Why sacrifice? Why make offerings. Do

gods eat our gifts?!

Durkheim saw religion as social ‘cement’

but how about the ecological
significance of religion?

Mauss sees gift exchange & sacrifice as

intrinsically social, sustaining mutuality,
limiting hierarchy, social power
Traditional / indigenous /
preindustrial societies live off daily
solar power and lack capacity to
extract and store food & power

Religions in traditional societies

express in sacrifice, offering & gift
the human sense of dependence
on Earth, & on heavenly & earthly
beings - sky gods, angels, tree
spirits, mammals, plants - who
give life & take it away

Imprecating the gods & spirits is

thought to ensure continued
energy flow, good weather,
teaming rivers, fruits in trees
 But novel practices and rituals industrial food production
and sale, consumer artefacts such as fossil fuelled vehicles
poisons the energetic flows of water, oxygen, carbon
dioxide, beneficial bacteria from leaves to soils to stomachs
and rivers

Green revolution, hybrid rice and corn destroy bacteria in

soil rendering it biogically dead

Monocrop plantations of oil palms or Jati destroy ecosystem

functions of rainforests which no longer draw moisture from
the oceans and recycle it in clouds providing homes for
myriad species in leaf matter, branches, canopies including
epiphytes such as orchids as well as numerous insects,
birds and small and large mammals
 Inappropriate technologies can be replaced with appropriate
technologies

Appropriate technologies work synergistically with other beings

from bacteria to large scale organisms

‘Edible landscapes’, composting waste so returning to to the soil

and synergistic organic farming

Interplanting of crops that discourage bugs, while providing

different nutrients to different plants, reducing reliance on
fertilisers of fast growing hybrid rice & corn

Use of some ‘pests’ to control other pests such as monkeys &

owls that eat rats on oil palm estates
 Composting of organic waste in
households and businesses & careful
separation & community collection of
disposal of inorganic waste

Ending reliance on plastic in sale and

distribution of food & water, &
returning to plant based materials

But these approaches require

willingness of human agents to
recognise their co-agency with
bacteria, plants, insects, fishes,
mammals, trees, sunshine, soils,
water catchments
 Can religion of the modern non-
indigenous kind provide ‘social
capital’ for these kinds of ecological
co-agency?

Rappaport suggests sacrificial rituals

have a biological function - fitting
humans to their ecosystem

But ‘world religions’ are born in

particular places, climate zones,
customary and cultural contexts

Their rituals and teachings reflect

these eco-cultural settings

Rappaport’s theory strongly affiliates

place-based community governance
with conserving function of religion
Islam is Arabic in origin. Cosmology (focused
on stars, planets easily visible in deserts)
dress code, eating rules, prayer rules, male-
female hierarchy all reflect Arabian customs
& culture

Christianity born in Israel/Palestine in Roman

Empire. Many of its customs, ethics,
traditions are Greco-Roman in origin and its
calendar is a temperate zone seasonal
calendar

Buddhism/Hinduism Indic in origin - diet,

clothing, gender relations, cosmology/
ontology reflect tropical / Indic origin

‘World’ religions displace local place-based

customs, rituals and traditions
 Religion and Ecology

Social Capital - community organising; doctrine; education; ethics;

norm enforcement; shame;

Religion as sacrificial system: meat a huge problem underwritten by

Islamic ‘day of slaughter’; industrial meat hides taboo of killing;
sacrifice of plants expresses honour to other beings (Catholic
Mass, Hindu/Buddhist rituals)

Religion as calendrical, seasonal, daily discipline - ordering time &

rituals such as waste disposal, food gathering & preparation

Religion as mysticism, prayer, meditation, spirituality - psyche-

spiritual quest for transcendence can enhance sense of connection,
oneness of Being and beings

Holiness and wholeness - redeeming human-nature relations

Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo | Elijah Fed by the Raven (ca ...
Saint Jerome Extracting a Thorn from a Lion's Paw (Getty Museum)
 The ethical issue at root of the human relation to the nonhuman
concerns responsibility

Homo sapiens is the most powerful species on earth

We have evolved powers - from fire to atom bomb - that give us the
ability to remove all other species from our habitats except the ones
we choose - cats, cows, rice, fruit trees etc.

Aesthetics - the preferred ethical mode of post-enlightenment

environmental ethics - suggests recognition of beauty will drive,
motivate, resource, ecological responsibility

Hence role of photography, documentary, hiking, fine art in

mediating sensibility for precious landscapes and species
 How does religion mediate ecological responsibility if at all?

Is Gaia alive?

Does Gaia have powers, goals, ends that humans ought to value?

Gaia names the ‘earth system’

Inside the envelope of the atmosphere everything is recycled and

only the heat from the sun, and the gravitational force of the moon
and sun, together with a small amount of space dust, asteroids etc
enter in and out

Human economy is not circular - humans act as if there is an ‘away’

But one person’s ‘away’(landfill or waste dump) is another person’s

farm or another species’ habitat
 Did God ‘create’ Gaia to have these evolved ecosystemic and
productive capacities?

How do theologians put creation and evolution together?

Or is ‘God’ also a product of evolution as German philosophers first

argued in 19C?

Indigenous societies were not monotheistic - their gods were spirits

or geni of place

‘Big gods’ evolved in tandem with agriculture which gave

heightened powers to some over others inc. slavery
Good Samaritan originates the idea of third party responsibility and is a key source of
the modern idea and practice of development - inc sustainable- development aid

The extension of third party responsibility to other kind, and to Gaia herself - this is
another ethical revolution

Can science alone promote it? How might religion promote it?

Could it be part of zakat? Is it part if guardianship?