Here are four pieces of an essay by Peter Sawtell of Eco-justice Ministries www.eco-justice.org from the book Holy Ground.
"We don't have environmental problems," I say, "We have a human problem." Embedded in the governing mind-set of our culture are fundamental flaws in how we understand our connections with the natural world. We have seen humanity as separate from the rest of creation. We have looked at the world as a storehouse of resources, rather than as a dynamic and interdependent system. We have been oblivious to the world's limits, both in what it can provide and in the abuse that it can absorb. We have arrogantly claimed the wisdom and power to manipulate the world, without an adequate understanding of the consequences. We have been selfishly fixated on our immediate wants and needs without considering future generations....
But if changes in policy and technology are to take us in genuinely new directions, we will have to change our beliefs, our assumptions, and our expectations. We need to claim a new way of living in relationship with the entire Earth community....
To bring about such transformation, we must tell new stories about who we are and where we are going. We need a sense of our neighbors that reaches around the world to include people from all countries, people far in the future, and our fellow creatures of other species. We must see ourselves as cooperative, not controlling, in our relationship with nature. The challenge of making these shifts in perspective are not exclusively religious, but they are challenges that must be taken on by any faith that claims to address the needs of today's world.....
(While) many people in the Judeo-Christian tradition look to the opening stories of the book of Genesis for instruction about humanity's relation to the rest of creation....My sense of what constitutes a faithful relationship with God's creation is rooted in a much larger scriptural theme. I find great wisdom and hope in the biblical principle of shalom - of peace with justice. The Jewish and Christian faith traditions, through thousands of years, have affirmed that God wills shalom for all of creation. The goodness of this delicately balanced Earth is diminished when we abuse of exploit any part of it. We are bound to all other parts of creation in complex, fragile relationships, and shalom guides us toward justice, compassion, and solidarity in all of them....
