Eco churches, eco synagogues, eco Hollywood: 21st-century practical responses to Lynn White, Jr.’s and Andrew Furman’s 20th-century readings of environments in crisis

In 1942, Lynn White, Jr. commented on the relationship between history and religion, saying that “we stand amid the debris of our inherited religious system” (1942: 156). Later, he was to carry this thought further, attributing ecological crisis to “the Judeo-Christian dogma of creation.” Fifty years on, his essay, “The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis” (1967), remains a compelling, if controversial, example of how readings of semi-historical texts such as the Bible can direct ideas and behaviour that impact future events. In particular, White points to the “dogma of creation, which is found in the first clause of all the Creeds” (1206).