Quotations from Earth Issue
Theologians, Scholars, Philosophers

There is communion with God,
and a communion with the earth,
and a communion with God through the earth.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, "Writings in Time of War"

The destruction of the world around us is a reflection of not being "God centered" as human beings. Christ, as both God and man, is our center, our truth and our life. The pollution and defilement we encounter exists th rough ignorance or rejection of God.
-- Tod Connor, Christianity Today

I know I am made from this earth, as my mother's hands were made from this earth, as her dreams were made from this earth, and this paper, these hands, this tongue speaking, all that I know speaks to me through this earth and I long to te ll you, you who are earth too, and listen as we speak to each other of what we know: the light is in us.
-- Susan Griffin, Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her

What we call the environmental crisis is not merely a crisis in the natural environment of human beings. It is nothing less than a crisis in human beings themselves
-- Jurgen Moltman, God in Creation

When Mount Everest was scaled the phrase commonly used in the West to describe the feat was "the conquest of Everest." An Oriental whose writings have been deeply influenced by Taoism remarked, "We would put the matter differently. We would speak of the `befriending of Everest.'
-- Sallie McFague, Models of God

 ... to deny the reality of an environmental crisis is an enormous mistake for those who worship the Creator. Such a denial neglects a major human responsibility and withholds the gospel from one of the places where it most needs to be heard.
-- Loren Wilkinson, Christianity Today, 1/11/93

Every added protection against the natural world contributes its bit to the steadily building illusion of independence from nature, so that in time that greatest of illusions is erected; the omnipotence of man.
-- Frederick Turner, Beyond Geography: The Western Spirit Against the Wilderness.

The New Prosperity requires a new language. This new language is primarily the language of the earth, a language of living relationships that extend throughout the universe.
-- Thomas Berry

To know that with all that we are and all that we have we are God's stewards is the answer to a particularly deep yearning of the time in which we live, namely the yearning for a vita nova, a complete renewal of our life.
-- Hans Lilje, German Bishop quoted in A Theology for Christian Stewardship

 It is forbidden to live in a city that does not have greenery.
-- Jerusalem Talmud, Kiddushin 12:12

From coast to coast, desert to woodland, The Native peoples perceive themselves to be an integral part of the Creation. Native languages talk of the Creation in family terms such as "Mother Earth," "Grandmother Moon," "The Grandfather Winds."
-- Position Paper of the Native American Project of the Theology of the Americas

To wipe out unnecessarily whole species of those creatures over whom we exercise stewardship is to betray that stewardship and to impoverish the experience of God. It is a crime against our Creator.
-- John B. Cobb, Jr. in Biodiversity, ed. E.O.Wilson