The Genesis Mandate Revisited
reConCiling ConServaTion wiTH weSTern CulTural HiSTory
By lynn Braband
Lynn Braband is an
Extension Educator
for the New York
State Integrated
Pest Management
Program at Cornell
University.
Credit: walter n. nelson
Some claim that environmental problems— climate change, sprawl, species extinctions, and the like—can be traced to the Judeo-Christian ideas rooted in the Old Testament,
where God told Adam and Eve to “subdue” the
earth and “have dominion over the fish of the sea,
and over the fowl of the air, and over every living
thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1: 28).
These assertions have caused many, including
myself, to reexamine our traditions and beliefs.
While aspects of the critique ring true, I believe
the basic charge to be wanting, and a hindrance to
progress. As many are coming to realize, science
and religion need to work together for the sake of
all living things.
mittee why his agency was acting contrary to its
expressed mandates, responded, “I do not know
how many future generations we can count on
before the Lord returns.”
Conversely, many people have deliberately distanced themselves from Christianity, and searched
for alternative spiritual expressions. These include
monistic religions, such as Buddhism and Hinduism,
and animism from sources such as Native American
and pre-Christian European tribal beliefs.
Historian Lynn White, Jr., is frequently cited
as being one of the first to articulate this criti-
cal perspective, often referred to as “the Genesis
mandate.” In his influential article, “The Historical
Roots of Our Ecological Crisis,” White states that
“Christianity is the most anthropocentric religion
the world has seen” (White 1967). As such, he
writes, it established a “dualism” of humans and
nature that “insisted that it is God’s will that man
exploit nature for his proper ends.”
Still others have been motivated to probe the
theological histories of their traditions. The
Enlightenment, for example, in placing the hu-
man mind at the pinnacle of authority, profoundly
influenced modern attitudes toward nature (Berry
2000). Its resonance holds true centuries later.
I vividly recall a conversation I had as an under-
graduate with an engineering student. Pollution did
not concern him. He felt that if our environment
became intolerable, we would bio-engineer our-
selves to thrive within the new chemistries.
Others took a harder line. In his 1969 book
Design with Nature, for example, landscape planner
Ian McHarg wrote that the Genesis story of man’s
dominion over nature “encourages the most exploitative and destructive instincts in man rather
than those that are deferential and creative. Indeed,
if one seeks license for those who would increase
radioactivity, create canals and harbors with atomic
bombs, poisons without restraint, or give consent
to the bulldozer mentality, there could be no better
injunction than this text” (McHarg 1969).
Going back even further in history, one can find
dualistic attitudes—separating humans from
nature—in the writings of ancient Greek philosophers, particularly Plato. In the Bible, on the other
hand, especially in the Old Testament, the concept
of nature as something distinct from humanity does
not exist. A shift in religious teachings occurred in
the Middle Ages, however, when prominent church
theologians sought to align Christianity with ancient Greek thought (Wilkinson 1991).
A Place Outside Nature
The public’s responses to these assertive attitudes
have varied. Some have agreed that the Genesis
mandate gives humans license to exploit nature
with few limits. For example, President Reagan’s
first Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, when
asked by a U.S. House of Representatives com-
It’s also important to recognize that environmen-
tal degradation has not been limited to Western
societies, therefore the charge that the Genesis
mandate is at the root of all environmental prob-
lems is suspect. Christian history, moreover, is
not monolithic but diverse and rich. Some tradi-
tions promote much more positive, even sacred,
views of nature. St. Francis of Assisi, for instance,
advocated a “brotherhood” of humans with the
rest of creation (Wilkinson 1982). Celtic monks
“had a deep sense of the goodness of creation and
