The Case for Faith in Environmentalism
God save the climate
We looked like college students in the classroom for the first time on the final exam.
On Christmas Eve, 2016, my hardly religious family and our non-worshipping friends occupied an entire pew at our local church. We joined in on carols where we could and stood respectfully (awkwardly) where we couldn’t, our attendance motivated more by Christmas tradition than faith.
If forced to identify my own religious philosophy, I’d call it a diluted version of Buddhism. The awkward dogmas of Christianity and the destructive politics of evangelicals turned me off to the dominant western philosophies, forcing me to look East for a religious home.
And Buddhism-Lite worked great for me.
Practicing the philosophy reintroduced me to the importance of pondering existential questions, and it gave me a framework for the perplexing moral quandaries that plague modern life. I’m not sure I would be anywhere near as happy as I am now without a daily meditation practice.
But Buddhism — at least my version of it — had a flaw.
It didn’t offer hope.
It gave me a way of thinking through conflicts, judging morality, and living happily, but it didn’t offer me hope.
