The Christian Future and the Fate of Earth

Front matter

Praise for Thomas Berry’s The Christian Future and the Fate of Earth

“Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim have given us a precious

gift in bringing together these ten key essays by the late

Contents

Preface by John B. Cobb, Jr. ix Introduction by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim xiii 1. Spiritual Traditions and the Human Community 1 2. Third Mediation 8

4. Christian Cosmology 26 5. The Christian Future and the Fate of Earth 35 6. Role of the Church in the Twenty-first Century 46 7. Christianity and Ecology 59 8. Women Religious: Voices of Earth 68 9. The Wisdom of the Cross 82 10. The Universe as Cosmic Liturgy 96

Appendix: Reinventing the Human at the Species Level 117 vii

Preface

John B. Cobb, Jr.

By Earth Day 1970 it had become clear to a good many of us that one danger loomed over all others for the whole of humanity and indeed the whole earthly biosphere. For the first time in human history, humanity as a whole—and not simply local groups—was threatened by destruction. We had earlier assimilated the fact that a nuclear war could have such consequences, but now we saw that even if such a catastrophe were avoided, the danger remained. It was not that someone might take a peculiarly dangerous or extraordinary action. It was rather that the consequence of continuing in the ruts in which we were already travelling would carry us over a precipice.

When this realization struck, most of us were already involved in multiple causes. We were trying to support the Civil Rights movement and stop the war in Vietnam. There was a liberation movement in Latin America, and feminism was gaining attention in the United States. Poverty remained a terrible problem worldwide. There were injustices everywhere. The response of many people was to add the “environmental crisis” to this list of important concerns. But it was obvious to others of us that this was not enough.

My own initial response was to emphasize the priority of making the changes that could lead to survival. That involved a certain withdrawal of time and energy from other causes as well as making statements that seemed to belittle other concerns. But after a few months, I changed my mind and followed the leadership of the churches. Those in the church who understood the situation decided that what was needed was to build ix x PREFACE alliances between environmental, peace, and justice-oriented groups. The World Council of Churches added “sustainable” to its characterization of the good society as “just” and “participatory.” In the United States many church-related groups called for “eco-justice.”

This strategy reduced the suspicion on the part of ethnic minority groups and Third World peoples that improving the environment was just another excuse being employed by the privileged for avoiding basic issues of justice. In addition, it encouraged the efforts of different people to find particular handles on environmental issues around which wide consensus could be reached. But this strategy also allowed the great majority of concerned people to treat the issue of sustainability as simply one more to be put on the laundry list. In the local church the issue often received attention just one Sunday in the year. Few could claim that as a result of the widespread recognition of the importance of developing a sustainable society the church had reordered its priorities so as to deal effectively with what is clearly the most important of all the problems we face.

One Christian did not allow himself to be diverted by other issues. His name is Thomas Berry. He knew that humanity as a whole faced its ultimate crisis. Every issue should be viewed in light of this fact. Its claim to priority should be fully acknowledged. Even those of us who have tried to weave the concerns of peace, justice, and sustainability together are profoundly grateful that his witness to priorities was not diluted.

Others of us saw how important it was to work at many levels. We needed improved technology and more efficient use of resources. We needed businesses to change their practices. We also needed different economic theories and practices. We could not get these without political changes, so we needed these as well. We recognized that a basic change in attitude and vision on the part of all of us had to take place, but this was just one level among the many that called for our attention.

Berry believed that the changes we need will not occur at the many levels until they occur at the basic one—the way we understand ourselves and our world. Again he refused to be dis-

PREFACE xi tracted from the fundamental task. Further, his work in the history of religion led him to believe that the key to changing the way people see themselves and their world can be found in their creation stories. He judged that today such a story must correspond with what is known scientifically. But simply repeating what physicists and astronomers say does not meet the need. The universe must be understood as a communion of subjects, and the story of its rise and development must be told in these terms. Such an understanding would lead to a sense of participation in the universe and in the present stage of the story. With the help of Brian Swimme he wrote a truly remarkable account of the ongoing creation of which we are a part, The Universe Story. Building on that account he named the next phase of life on this planet, “the Ecozoic Age.” By using the language of geological epochs, he made clear the radical uniqueness of this crisis. He also communicated hope that the required changes would occur.

Thousands of people, perhaps tens or even hundreds of thousands, have been led to give real primacy to the task of living into the Ecozoic Age. No other writer in the ecological movement has had analogous effectiveness. In the decades ahead, more and more people, tens of millions at least, will fully recognize that the ecological crisis has the ultimacy that Berry has insisted on throughout his career. Others will come up with new formulations and make different proposals. But Berry’s formulation has pride of place, and it may prove the most durable and effective of all. However that may be, we all have reason to be deeply grateful for his unique calling and his extraordinary faithfulness to it.

Introduction

Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim

This collection of essays written over the last several decades represents Thomas Berry’s vintage reflections on the contributions Christians can make to a common future for the planet. He outlines both the problems facing Christianity in this regard as well as the promise. In doing so, he brings his reader into a place of possibility—a new grounding for both reflection and action. Written by one of the foremost thinkers of our period, these essays are not only timely, they are vital for finding our way forward in this new millennium.

With Thomas Berry’s death on June 1, 2009, these essays take on a new sense of importance. While many people have followed his writings on the story of evolution, few have understood his Christian roots. He remained a priest, teacher, and writer throughout his life. Berry expanded the framework of his Catholic heritage by first studying other religions, especially Asian and indigenous traditions. Later, drawing on the French Jesuit and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Berry enlarged his scope of concern to include the universe and Earth. Like Teilhard, he situated the human as arising from the evolutionary process. For Berry, the human is the self-reflective dimension of the universe. Thus, with his study of human history and of Earth history, Berry opens up Catholicism to be present to all of creation and to be concerned for its future.

Thomas Berry was a person of immense feeling for the suffering dimensions of life. Early on he would visit Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin at the Catholic Worker in the Bowery. He was xiii xiv INTRODUCTION a firm supporter of social justice issues. However, as this Orbis Books series in ecology and justice demonstrates, he wished to re-envision not only equitable human-human relations but also life enhancing human-Earth relations. Without this, a sustainable future is not possible. Leonardo Boff and others have taken Thomas Berry’s vision to heart. A vibrant Earth community requires a new awakening to the incarnational dimension of life—human and natural.

Berry does not minimize the size and scale of the challenges we are facing as a species and as a planet. The urgency of the global environmental crisis is now well documented, even if its many manifestations are not yet fully understood. From climate change to pollution of air, soil, and water, from population growth to biodiversity loss, Berry is aware of the varied problems included in the broad term “environmental crisis.” What is particularly remarkable is how early Berry understood the magnitude and complexity of these issues. While most people ignored his warnings over thirty years ago, no one can afford to now. He is no longer a lone prophet calling out in the wilderness. Thus his writings take on a special relevance at this stage of our search for new and sustaining human-Earth relations. Indeed, the noted theologian John Cobb observes in his preface, “No other writer in the ecological movement has had analogous effectiveness” in helping us realize the “radical uniqueness of this crisis.”

The Challenge and the Promise

Consistent with this spirit, Berry strongly challenges Christianity to respond appropriately to this complex situation. He raises penetrating questions regarding some of the reasons, both historical and contemporary, for the lateness and laxity of the Christian response. Is this because the desire for personal salvation into a heavenly realm supersedes all other concerns? In other words, does the search for otherworldly rewards override commitment to this world? Has the concern

INTRODUCTION xv for Redemption lessened the concern for Creation? Has the material order of nature been devalued by Christianity? Have human-centered ethics been all consuming so that we do not have an ethics that addresses ecocide and biocide? Did Christianity surrender its interest in natural theology and cosmology to positivistic science? Are seminaries—both Protestant and Catholic—so preoccupied with an outdated curriculum and sectarian theological issues that they have no room to include environmental concerns? These questions require even further reflection, he suggests, before an adequate response to our situation can be formulated from out of the Christian tradition.

Yet, he observes, the promise inherent in Christianity is still to be fully acknowledged and expressed. This includes the recognition in Paul’s epistles regarding the Incarnation as embracing both the historical person of Christ and the Cosmic Christ of the universe. Berry also speaks of the deep appreciation for the order and beauty of Creation contained in the Christian tradition ranging from Francis of Assisi and Thomas Aquinas in the medieval period to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in the twentieth century. He writes often of the liturgical cycle as grounding humans in the great seasonal changes of nature. He notes as well the powerful material reality of the elements of nature used in the sacraments such as bread and wine in the Eucharist and water in baptism. He has wondered what it means to baptize with water if we have polluted it, or to receive bread and wine fashioned from wheat and grapes laced with pesticides and herbicides.

In addition, he understands the immense promise in the emerging alliance of social justice and environmental justice that is being forged, especially in a book series such as this one produced by Orbis. As we would gather over the years to discuss the news of the day, he would often comment on the suffering the environmental crisis is inflicting on those most vulnerable. Ever since the toxicity of Love Canal near Buffalo, New York, was exposed in 1978, environmental health issues were evident in his concerns. It also became clear to him that many toxic

Xvi INTRODUCTION waste sites in the United States and abroad are frequently placed near poor communities. In more recent years he would comment on the deleterious impact of climate change on island nations and coastal peoples such as the millions in Bangladesh and in New Orleans. He wondered frequently how new human- Earth relations could be forged that would be mutually beneficial, not harmful for the whole Earth community.

For Berry some of the key sources of transformation— theological, ethical, ritual—were within the religious traditions waiting further articulation and action. He was hopeful that Christians might respond more confidently and cogently to growing environmental threats to people and the planet. Indeed, he opened up a gateway for Christians to reform their tradition by making an Exodus passage into the modern world. He called for a transition like the first Exodus experience of the Jews out of Egypt, a passage into modernity, something the Church has so often resisted. In critiquing the ineffectual response of Christian institutions—both academic and clerical—to the environmental crisis, he also suggested that it is not too late. Indeed, it is more important than ever before that these institutions become involved. He invited theologians and laity alike to make their contributions—in universities, in seminaries, in churches, and in grassroots movements.

Christians Responding to the Environmental Crisis

It is significant to note that Christianity is already shaking off its lethargy with regard to environmental issues and many denominations are making efficacious responses. For more than a dozen years, the Protestant-based World Council of Churches has published treatises on “justice, peace, and the integrity of creation” and emphasized the ethical dimensions of climate change. For fifteen years the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, leader of the Greek Orthodox Church, has organized major religion and science symposia on water issues across Europe, as well as in the Amazon River basin and in Greenland. He has issued

INTRODUCTION xvii statements—including a joint statement with John Paul II in 2002—calling destruction of the environment “ecological sin.” The Evangelical community in the United States has published position papers calling for care for creation and warning that the poor will suffer from global warming. The U.S. Catholic bishops have issued a letter on global climate change as well as other statements on ecology, including a letter on the Columbia River bioregion. Pope Benedict XVI has warned frequently that the beauty and integrity of Creation is being severely diminished by humans. Moreover, his encyclical Charity in Truth (Caritas in Veritate) is a strong statement condemning the expoitation of land and people under the current economic system.

Drawing on Berry’s ideas, the Catholic bishops of the Philippines issued in 1988 a pastoral letter on the environment titled “What Is Happening to Our Beautiful Land?” Two decades later, in December 2008, they published another statement listing the critical environmental problems their country is still facing and calling for a moratorium on mining and logging. In February 2009 the Catholic bishop of Alberta, Canada, wrote a strong condemnation of oil extraction from the tar sands, noting that such widespread environmental destruction is morally reprehensible. All of these statements are being used as ethical calls to engage Christian communities in further action on behalf of the environment. These statements, along with those from other religious traditions, have been collected on the Forum on Religion and Ecology website (www.yale.edu/religionandecology). A website has been created for teaching Christianity and ecology in seminaries, colleges, and churches (www.webofcreation.org). In addition, a joint degree program between Yale Divinity School and Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies has been developed.

However, our desire for both reflection and action, Berry observes, may require even deeper contemplation of the roots of the problems. This is why Berry brings us toward the universe story as a comprehensive context for responding to our ecological role in the modern world that is being ravaged by industrial processes. He feels that this context of evolution will evoke awe, wonder, and humility in humans. At the same time, as a xviii INTRODUCTION functional cosmology, it will encourage the “great work” of ecological restoration, ecological economics, and environmental education so needed in our times.

He notes how the Christian tradition in many of its key doctrines, such as the Trinity, Incarnation, and Redemption, can be understood within this large cosmological framework. These essays where he makes linkages between Christian theology and the universe story have hitherto not been available for a wide audience. His comments are richly suggestive and provide fertile ground for theologians and laity alike. They illustrate Thomas’s broad appreciation of the Catholic tradition and his indebtedness to Thomas Aquinas after whom he took his religious name.

Thomas Berry as Teacher, Scholar, and Mentor

Thomas’s reflections on the Christian Future and the Fate of Earth arise from a long-term commitment to the Catholic tradition as a monk, scholar, teacher, and writer. He became a member of the Passionist Order during his college years and many of his ideas about sacraments and liturgy were formulated out of the rhythms of monastic life. This contemplative life allowed him time for reading and thinking, time which he avidly sought, often reading into the depths of night. It was as if he was driven to see and understand a larger vision of human life in this most critical of moments for the planet.

After completing his doctorate from Catholic University with a thesis on Giambattista Vico, he went to study in China in 1948-1949. There he met Theodore de Bary who was to become a lifelong friend and one of the most renowned Asian scholars in the West. Along with his wife, Fanny de Bary, they were Thomas’s earliest supporters. Over frequent dinners at their home in Tappan, New York, Thomas and Ted would discuss the spiritual dimensions of the Asian classics, especially Confucianism. Fanny shared Thomas’s interest in Teilhard and for many years was an active board member of the American

INTRODUCTION Xxix

Teilhard Association, including the decade during which Thomas served as president. Drawing on her years of study of Japanese flower arrangement, she always brought beautiful spring flowers to the annual Teilhard Association meetings in New York. Her feeling for beauty in nature was matched by Thomas’s aesthetic sensibilities. At Columbia University Ted established a groundbreaking Asian studies program highlighting the classical texts, history, and culture of India, China, and Japan. He assisted in having key Asian classics translated and published by Columbia University Press in monographs and in sourcebooks. Thomas used these books in his teaching and writing, as did many professors and students in Asian studies across North America. Ted also founded the Oriental Thought and Religion Seminar at Columbia, which he invited Thomas to join. It was a rich and sustaining friendship with Ted and Fanny when few understood Thomas’s keen interest in Asian religions or appreciated his fascination with the evolutionary story that Teilhard had articulated.

Thomas began his teaching at Seton Hall University in New Jersey and then moved to St. John’s University on Long Island. The Jesuit Christopher Mooney later invited him to join the Theology Department at Fordham University. There Thomas founded and directed the History of Religions program for more than a dozen years before retiring from teaching in 1979. This was the only program of its kind at any Catholic University in North America. Regrettably it did not endure beyond his tenure at Fordham. Yet many of his students continue to teach at universities across the United States and Canada. The Passionist theologian Steve Dunn, who had studied with Thomas, directed a doctoral program at the University of Toronto. There he trained a generation of scholars in Berry’s perspective on the universe story and ecology.

Thomas was somewhat anomalous in Fordham’s Department of Theology. He was not a Jesuit, nor was he a theologian. Instead, he was trained in Western history and in the world’s religions. Yet, he was a charismatic figure and in

XX INTRODUCTION demand as an engaging speaker. Thus, the history of religions section that he directed eventually drew more students than any other program in the Theology Department. Students came from around the country, some turning down admission to religious studies programs at Columbia or Yale, to study with him. And what lively, dedicated students they were!

This is where we met in the fall of 1975—John coming from North Dakota and exploring Native American religions, Mary Evelyn recently returning from Japan and immersed in the Asian religious traditions. It was an exhilarating time for us as we gathered with other graduate students to study with this original thinker and incomparable mentor. We thrived on the challenges he presented to us: learn the textual language of at least one tradition, know the history of many, feel the bass notes of the spiritual wisdom of each tradition, and explore history and culture so that the living context of a tradition might open up.

Thomas himself set a high bar for his students, having read widely in the world’s religions and learning the languages needed to appreciate their ancient texts and commentaries. His library at the Riverdale Center for Religious Research reflected this passion for breadth and depth. The Center was a beautiful old Victorian house overlooking the Hudson River just outside New York City. We gathered there under the spreading limbs of a four-hundred-year-old red oak and across from the 200-million-year-old rock cliffs of the Palisades. Over twenty-five years friendships were formed, talks were held, and lasting memories were made at this incomparable center. During the academic year we would have monthly lectures on Saturday followed by potluck dinners. In the summers Thomas would hold a conference on a topic of his choosing. For weeks in advance the conference room at the Center was covered with his books and notes as he prepared his lectures. Then several hundred people would gather for a weekend at the retreat center next door to hear his latest thinking. These were inspiriting moments!

Thomas had collected his library of some eight thousand books in this rambling and accommodating house. In the large

INTRODUCTION xxi front room the Latin Church Fathers faced the Greek philosophers and the Chinese classics, all in their original languages. The Sanskrit texts of the Hindu classics were in the next room and he initiated many of us into the Bhagavad Gita in Sanskrit before we read the other Indian texts. Some of his students wrote dissertations that were translations of these texts with original interpretive commentaries.

Not only did his library hold the classical scriptures of the Asian and Abrahamic religions, but also ethnographies of indigenous peoples, as well as collections on ecology and environmental issues. Upstairs overlooking the Hudson River was the American Indian room, filled from floor to ceiling with books on the various tribes that populated the North American continent. This was John’s favorite haunt, as the sun porch was Mary Evelyn’s. There on the porch we would join Thomas for lunch or dinner. Music such as Beethoven’s Archduke Trio was background for wide-ranging conversations from the state of the world to the state of Sung China, Heian Japan, or Mughal India.

His historical versatility was stunning—unmatched by any professor we had ever encountered, with the exception of his colleague Ted de Bary. We were the beneficiaries of these two brilliant minds, as Mary Evelyn went on to Columbia to pursue her PhD in Confucianism with Professor de Bary. This was during the “Golden Year” of 1977 to 1978 when John lived with Thomas, Brian Brown, and Valerio Ortolani at the Riverdale Center. Thomas introduced and married several of his students to one another. Somehow they fell in love studying with him! So it was, that with Thomas presiding, John married Mary Evelyn in the midsummer of that golden year.

With this wedding, our four decades period of work with Thomas was launched. We were just beginning a journey with him that would stretch beyond our graduate years and into our teaching years. He was with us throughout, working with us and attending and speaking at many of the conferences on religion and ecology that we convened at Harvard in the 1990s. At

Xxii INTRODUCTION the culminating conference in 1998 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, more than one thousand people had gathered. They were so enamored with his concluding speech that they would not let him leave the stage when the moderator indicated his time was up.

Thomas’s understanding of the wisdom and the history of the world’s religions was remarkable. Well before interreligious dialogue became a topic of inquiry and discussion, he was immersing himself in the texts and traditions of India, China, and Japan. He wrote a book titled Buddhism and another titled Religions of India; both books, published by Columbia University Press, are still in print. There was no question in his mind regarding the depths of spiritual and practical insight conveyed by these traditions. He would remark, in light of the Vatican II document Nostra Aetate that spoke of “rays of truth” in the world’s religions, that, indeed, they held not just rays but floods of illumination and truth.

Thomas moved through diverse religious traditions with an empathetic feel for the pulse of their spiritual dynamics. We recall afternoons after class when a group of us would gather with him in the campus dining area or ratskeller. We would explore the Pali texts of Buddhism, the Sanskrit scriptures of Indian dharma, and the enigmatic turn of the hexagrams in the Chinese Book of Changes (I Ching). More than once he guided us through the process of forming a hexagram from this classical text in response to a question. Rather than dwell on the divinatory dimension of the I Ching, however, he urged us on to deeper reflection on the poetic lines of the text. We still ponder the possibility in our driven, acquisitive modern world that, as one hexagram indicated, “the small may get by” (hsiao kuo). Perhaps, he would observe, we may even move toward a world where Fritz Schumacher’s notion, “Small is Beautiful” may come to be realized.

While those graduate school days focused on historical and textual developments in the many religions, Thomas encouraged us also to explore the cosmology of religions. Under his

INTRODUCTION xxiii guidance we related rituals, texts, teachings, and commentarial studies to the stories of creation and metaphysical speculation about the world as it was and where we humans fit in. We struggled to discover the history, anthropology, and sociology embedded in those stories. Thomas forged ahead, articulating his broad understanding of historical interactions and cultural relationships.

Gradually, we came to see his pursuit of cosmology as the ground for reflecting on human meaning and orientation in the world. “With a story,” he would say, “people can endure catastrophe. And with a story they can gather the energies to change their lot.” For him the first place to look for story was in history. He began with Western history and later moved to Asian religions and Native American traditions. He was part of the early group of world historians seeking to define the contours of our human movement and exchanges across the planet. He mused that the West was in search of a comprehensive story and cited historians such as Oswald Spengler, Arnold Toynbee, Christopher Dawson, and Eric Vogelin to give nuance to his views. He drew on the philosopher of history Giambattista Vico for describing the sweeping ages of history—both human and Earth. In Vico he found a mind that could roam amidst the large-scale dimensions of earlier eras and through whom Thomas could uncover a passageway into modernity. It was because of his remarkable grasp of world history that Thomas could eventually make the transition into evolutionary history.

In his classes he would grope for a thought, searching for a word that could capture the transition between the great ages of evolutionary time. And, then, he would cough. That cough became emblematic for us of his search for articulation—looking for the words to move us forward into a new and deeper understanding of our historical moment. Gradually, Thomas connected his study of history and evolutionary cosmology to the environmental issues of our day. This came slowly, maturing like some fine wine that carries the texture and taste of soils, sun, grapes, air, and aging.

xxiv INTRODUCTION

Reaching into his own past he recalled his boyhood experience in North Carolina of a summer meadow filled with white lilies. This experience began to define his commitment to preserve and protect such beauty. Increasingly he spoke of a deep affectivity and authenticity imparted by Earth itself in its biodiversity. It was in the early 1980s that these ideas coalesced in the notion that we were ending the Cenozoic era and entering an “Ecozoic” period. This was his way of naming the terminal destruction of Cenozoic life in the industrial-technological bubble of consumer acquisitiveness. He observed that scientists were telling us that we were in the midst of an extinction period. Nothing this devastating had occurred since the dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago. But rather than leaving his audience in despair, his use of the term Ecozoic was to name that emerging period in which humans would recover their creative orientation in the world.

Sensing his way forward, he drew increasingly on the thought of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin for insight into the story of our times, namely, the emerging, evolutionary universe. Teilhard provided a large-scale vision of humans as situated within the vast context of universe evolution. Teilhard had a profound sense of the unfolding of ever-greater complexity and consciousness in the arc of evolution from the molecular to the cellular to multi-cellular organisms to the explosion of life forms.

Rather than settling on Teilhard’s insights, however, Thomas pushed beyond to explore the conjunction of cosmology and ecology. While appreciating Teilhard he also critiqued his optimistic view of “Building the Earth” with new technologies and scientific discoveries. He balanced Teilhard’s faith in technology with a strong dose of realism—highlighting our current patterns of environmental degradation. He wanted us to see that in a geological instant we were extinguishing life—species, ecosystems, rivers, wetlands. Our contemporary moment was as significant as the change implied in a geological era.