Conservation Theology for Conservation Biologists—a Reply to David Orr

As an international group of Christians from five continents who are also professionals in a variety of conservation-related disciplines, we write this response to David Orr’s recent essay “Armageddon versus Extinction” (Orr 2005). Although we agree there are some elements of truth in Orr’s essay, three aspects of his argument significantly disappoint us. First, we think he seriously misunderstands the nature of science and the nature of religion. Second, his understanding of the connection between “evangelicals” and “right-wing conservatives” seems to be based on an ill-informed understanding of what evangelicals believe, so we aim to clarify this. Third, we are deeply concerned that by generalizing to such an extent and then calling for confrontation, Orr will only fuel a conflict that will be damaging to conservation in the long term, when instead much could be gained by both parties from constructive engagement (as his essay hints at, but then shoots down). Although we are disappointed by these three aspects of Orr’s essay, and expand on these points below, we also want to make it clear that we are not rejecting his argument wholesale: it is unfortunately true that evangelical Christians have often been sluggish about caring for what they believe to be a world entrusted to human care by a loving God. We are greatly saddened by this reality, although as John Cobb (2005) pointed out in his thoughtful response to Orr’s essay, among the broader Christian community, evangelicals have often been ahead of other Christian traditions in “protecting declining species” and “respecting the integrity of creation.” In reality people associated with all religious and secular communities have contributed to the long history of environmental destruction, and most of us are living unsustainably. Our aim here, however, is not to exempt evangelicals from the charge of neglecting their responsibility to care for God’s world. We write this response therefore in an attempt to seek constructive engagement and to explain where and why we disagree with Orr’s approach. Space does not permit us to demonstrate fully that the popular view of evangelicals as obsessed with Armageddon, and hence opposed to conservation, is ill informed and overly simplistic. First, regarding Orr’s philosophy of science, he points out that conservation biologists “lack both a deep explanation of what ails us and a larger cosmology that resonates with the public” but wonders “whether the sciences can come together to tell a compelling, authentic, and lifeorienting story of our human sojourn.” We suggest that he is hoping for the sciences to deliver something that, by definition, they can never achieve. Science, on its own, cannot fulfill human aspirations and dreams. Science is about discovering the whats and the hows of the universe and does not address the deeper why questions relating purpose and meaning in life. Scientific method, valuable as it is (and most of us are scientists), is surely not the only way in which we gain knowledge. People in their daily lives employ other disciplines to gain understanding, including the arts, philosophy, and religion. By disparaging religion, and seemingly seeking to move science into its place, we think Orr is trying to make science do something that it can never do. Of course he is not alone in this, and the reduction of conservation to being technical science alone surely contributes hugely to its lack of appeal in certain communities. In a recent influential paper entitled “The Death of Environmentalism” (Shellenberger & Nordhaus 2004), the authors write, “What the environmental movement needs more than anything else right now is to take a collective step back to re-think everything. We will never be able to turn things around as long as we understand our failures as essentially tactical and make proposals that are essentially technical.” The far-sighted 1990 Union of Concerned Scientists’ Open Letter to the Religious Community, signed by 33 leading scientists worldwide, said of the global environmental situation: “Problems of such magnitude, and solutions demanding so broad a perspective, must be recognized from the outset as having a religious as well as a scientific dimension.” We agree strongly with Rick