Since I forgot to bring my camera along when we attended the wonderful Blackstone Audio warehouse sale in Ashland on Saturday (the proceeds of which are going to the Jackson County Library system), so I can’t share pics of the divine madness that ensued. Instead, I’ll mention the Blackstone Audiobook I’m listening to right now, by way of my subscription to Audible.com.
The book is Blessed Unrust by Paul Hawken. It’s about what Hawken describes as the “movement of movements” happening in the world today to promote sustainability and social and economic justice, The book is of particular interest to me at the moment because I’m also reading Pope Benedict’s recent social encyclical, Caritas in veritate. From E.F. Schumcher to the Catholic Worker movement to the priest-founder of the Fair Trade movement in South America, Catholic social teaching has played an important role in the development of many of the ideas which inform this “movement of movements.”
For folks unfamiliar with the Catholic angle on these developments, the always excellent John Allen of The National Catholic Reporter has an article on Pope Benedict’s understanding of environmentalism in the context of Christian faith and Catholic social teacing. Coming as it does on the heels of Caritas in veritate, Benedict’s “green” speeches and writings are going a long way to providing Catholics the theological groundwork they need for unifying faith, social justice & environmental concerns.
Here’s an excerpt from Allen’s article:
Obviously, Benedict XVI approaches environmental issues as a religious believer, convinced that nature is the “book of creation.” More than that, however, Benedict has implied that theism is not merely one among many points of entry into environmental concern — it is actually the only way to achieve a balanced ecology, ensuring that the environment is respected without being turned into a fetish.
In effect, Benedict’s thinking on the environment seems to presume that there are three cultural models on offer to understand humanity’s relationship with the environment:
- A secular/scientific approach, which imparts no particular moral status to nature — its aim is technical domination, regarding the material world as raw material for creative exploitation.
- A pagan or pantheistic view (including its romantic modern variants), which sees nature itself as the source of divinity, and thus regards it as taboo.
- A theology of creation, which regards nature as a gift of the Creator, to be used for the common good of the human family — both its current members and future generations.
Allen goes on to quote from Caritas in veritate:
When nature, including the human being, is viewed as the result of mere chance or evolutionary determinism, our sense of responsibility wanes. In nature, the believer recognizes the wonderful result of God’s creative activity, which we may use responsibly to satisfy our legitimate needs, material or otherwise, while respecting the intrinsic balance of creation. If this vision is lost, we end up either considering nature an untouchable taboo or, on the contrary, abusing it.
Read Caritas in veritate.
Order Blessed Unrest from Blackstone Audio in Ashland.
