Environmentalism The Rise Of Industrialization As Spread...

In the last century, environmentalism has become an important and highly polarizing topic of social discourse as the rise of industrialization as spread across the world. More and more human beings have become aware of their impact on the environment, yet even this seems to be up for debate. However, those who are concerned with environmental issues like global warming, the depletion of natural resources, and pollution have gained a more clear and organized voice to not only raise awareness, but enact both higher and lower level change. Within these movements, different religious institutions (churches, denominations, temples) have used drawn on their religious narratives to understand what â€Å"creation care† and stewardship truly mean. The†¦show more content†¦To begin to understand the interaction between Judaism and environmentalism, formative narratives from the Torah must be investigated. However, this investigation need not journey passed the first narrative o f the creation story to understand the significant between humanity, creation, and the divine. Genesis 1 describes how God created the heavens and the earth, man and beast and then mandates man to rule over beast and creation (Genesis 1:28). Therefore, from the beginning there seems to be an established hierarchy of man over nature. In a seminal article discussing the connection between ecology and religion, Lynn White (1967) heavily critiqued the traditional interpretation of this mandate of man’s domination over the environment. White saw the connection between religion and the growing ecological as he stated: â€Å"What people do about their ecology depends on what they thing about themselves in relation to things around them. Human ecology is deeply conditioned by beliefs about our nature and destiny-that is, by religion†¦Since the roots of our trouble are so largely religious, the remedy must also be essentially religious†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (as cited in Benstein, 2006, p. 14). Religion, then, is a large part of the problem and historical has not been part of the solution. Although a Christian writer, White states that the