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- Christian views on environmentalism vary among different Christians and Christian denominations. Major Christian denominations endorse the Biblical calling of our stewardship of God's creation and our responsibility for its care. Some of this church policy is relatively recent and may not be followed by some parishioners. According to some social science research, conservative Christians and members of the Christian right are typically less concerned about issues of environmentalism than the general public and some fundamentalist Christians deny global warming and climate change. Many Christians are environmental activists who promote awareness and action at the church, community, and national levels. Green Christianity is a broad field that encompasses Christian theological reflection on nature, Christian liturgical and spiritual practices centered on environmental issues, as well as Christian-based activism in the environmental movement. Within the activism arena, green Christianity refers to a diverse group of Christians who emphasize the biblical or theological basis for protecting and celebrating the environment. The term indicates not a particular denomination, but a shared territory of concern. Status of nature in Christianity has been hotly debated, especially since historian Lynn White published the now classic The historical roots of present-day ecologic crisis in 1967 in which he blames Christianity for the modern environmental crisis which he concludes is largely due to the dominance of Christian world-view in the west which is exploitative of nature in unsustainable manner. He asserts that Judeo-Christian are anti-ecological, hostile towards nature, imposed a break between human and nature with attitude to exploit the nature in unsustainable way where people stopped thinking of themselves as part of the nature. This exploitative attitude combined with the new technology and industrial revolution wreaked havoc on the ecology, the colonial forestry is a prime example of this destruction of ecology and native faiths. Lynn White's argument made in a 1966 lecture before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, subsequently published in the journal Science, that Western Christianity, having de-sacralized and instrumentalized nature to human ends, bears a substantial "burden of guilt" for the contemporary environmental crisis. White's essay stimulated a flurry of responses, ranging from defenses of Christianity to qualified admissions to complete agreement with his analysis. (en)
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