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Christian Environmental Networks:
Abstract
In this chapter, I will attempt to profile the Christian networks I have researched making use of my theoretical model for networks, and describe my own participation with them. The networks will be described against the backdrop of the climate and transition movements, which I examined in the previous chapter. I will describe three main networks: Isaiah 58, Christian Ecology Link and the GreenSpirit network, but I will make reference to other Christian grassroots organisations, such as Operation Noah and the Forest Church. Two of the three networks investigated here represent the opposite poles of the wide spectrum in this field, with Isaiah 58 being a Christian Anarchist network centred on protest whilst the GreenSpirit network is oriented towards spirituality and a green lifestyle. Despite their diverse interests and areas of engagement, many of these networks share common concerns, practices and beliefs, and the present chapter will endeavour to identify this common territory as well as what makes these Christian networks distinctive.
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Matthew Fox’s Original Blessing, published in 1983, remains one of the best selling books in the eld of Christian environmentalism. In it, Fox expounds his ‘Creation Spirituality’ as a solution to the global environment crisis, along with several other major world issues of the late 20th century. Fox’s work (over 20 books, and countless tapes, videos and lecture tours) is devoured at a popular level, but routinely dismissed by many ‘green’ theologians. This paper seeks to evaluate Creation Spirituality as an environmental theology.
Explanations for the spread of a modern religious movement are sought within the dynamics of the movement itself. Five key factors are identified and functionally analysed: (1) an acephalous, reticulate organizational structure, (2) face-to-face recruitment along lines of pre-existing significant social relationships, (3) commitment generated through an act or experience, (4) change-oriented ideology, and (5) real or perceived opposition. It is suggested that these five factors are common in other types of movements and that when they are present and interacting, the conditions which were causal in the genesis of the movement become facilitating only and are not essential to its spread.
This article follows my earlier survey of the phenomenon and literature of Christian environmentalism in the West (Douglas 2009). I concluded that the literature of religious environmentalism has only recently begun to address the process of converting ecotheology into praxis. In this article, I present some significant factors that impede the conversion of ecotheology and associated symbolic policy and rhetoric, into operational policies and praxis, drawing on a case study of mainstream Christian denominations in Australia.
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