Eco-Dimensionality as a Religious Foundation for Sustainability

Academics have critiqued the Abrahamic faiths, particularly Christianity, as inadequate to respond to today’s environmental dilemmas due to abstract theological qualities like the concept of a unified or transcendent God. Christianity and Islam are the earth’s most populous religions, however, and they are growing in the global south. A literature review finds that both indigenous and world religions develop strategies for environmental sustainability. Examples include: Amazonian fisheries, Islamic gardens, monastic forest management, Baptist LEED certified buildings, and Christian agrarian stewardship. These cases share a characteristic termed eco-dimensionality, defined as the integrative expression of environmental values, caretaking norms and sustainable practices in all aspects of religion, that recognizes and specifically adapts to keystone environmental processes and ecosystemic or geo-physical diversity. Religious eco-dimensionality incorporates: inventorying biota and ecosystems, recognizing environmental spatial and temporal dynamics at multiple scales, understanding communitarian and anti-communitarian human behaviors, structuring social networks, adopting sustainable technologies, and developing an integrative repertoire of religious symbols, aesthetic endeavors and ceremonies. Eco-dimensionality can evolve to address new issues. Negatively stereotyping faith traditions can inhibit constructive conversations concerning environmental issues and development of religious symbols and practices enhancing eco-dimensionality.