Whither Mormon Environmental Theology?

1. Thomas Berry, The Sacred Universe: Earth Spirituality and Religion in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 93.

2. Lynn White Jr., “The Historical Roots of the Ecological Crisis,” Science, March 10, 1967, 1203-7.

3. Ibid., 1206.

4. Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, “Introduction: The Emerging Alliance of World Religions and Ecology,” Daedalus, Fall 2001, http://www.amacad.org/publications/fall2001/fall2001.aspx (accessed January 2010).

5. Willis Jenkins, Ecologies of Grace: Environmental Ethics and Christian Theology (New York City: Oxford University Press, 2008).

6. The World Council of Churches website includes such programs as “Climate Change and Water” and “Poverty, Wealth and Ecology,” http://www.oikoumene.org/programmes.html (accessed January 2, 2011).

7. John Hart, What Are People Saying about Environmental Theology? (New York: Paulist Press, 2004), 23-38.

8. The Evangelical Environmental Network http://www.creationcare.org (accessed January 2, 2011).

9. Both Brigham Young University and Utah Valley University have recently held symposia on Mormonism and the environment. While this article cites several examples of Mormon environmental theological scholarship, two additional anthologies are George B. Handley, Terry B. Ball, and Steven L. Peck, eds., Stewardship and the Creation: LDS Perspectives on the Environment (Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center, 2006); and Terry Tempest Williams, William B. Smart, and Gibbs M. Smith, eds., New Genesis: A Mormon Reader on Land and Community (Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith Publisher, 1998). For two examples of blogs, see http://greenmormonarchitect.blogspot.com/; http://www.LDSustainability.blogspot.com (accessed January 2, 2011). LDS Earth Stewardship is the name of a recently formed Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/lds-earth-stewardship?hl=en (accessed January 2, 2011).

10. Thomas G. Alexander, “Stewardship and Enterprise: The LDS Church and the Wasatch Oasis Environment, 1847-1930,” Western Historical Quarterly 25, no. 3 (Autumn 1994): 341-64.

11. Jenkins, Ecologies of Grace, 81.

12. Ibid., 80.

13. Robin Attfield, “Christian Attitudes to Nature,” Journal of the History of Ideas 44, no. 3 (July-September 1983): 369-86; Peter Harrison, “Subduing the Earth: Genesis 1, Early Modern Science, and the Exploitation of Nature,” Journal of Religion 79, no. 1 (January 1999): 86-109; Jeanne Kay, “Human Dominion over Nature in the Hebrew Bible,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 79, no. 2 (June 1989): 214-32; Clare Palmer, “Stewardship: A Case Study in Environmental Ethics,” in Environmental Stewardship: Critical Perspectives Past and Present, edited by R. J. Berry (New York: T&T Clark International, 2006).

14. Jenkins, Ecologies of Grace, 80.

15. Palmer, “Stewardship,” 66.

16. Jenkins, Ecologies of Grace, 78.

17. Clare Palmer “Stewardship: a Case Study,” 67.

18. Quoted in ibid., 67.

19. Alexander, “Stewardship and Enterprise,” 350.

20. For detailed examples of good and bad impacts of Mormon pioneers, see Alexander, “Stewardship and Enterprise”; Dan L. Flores, “Zion in Eden: Phases of the Environmental History of Utah,” Environmental Review 7, no. 4 (1983): 325-44; Terry B. Ball and Jack D. Brotherson, “Environmental Lessons from Our Pioneers,” BYU Studies 38, no. 3 (1999): 62-83; Richard C. Foltz, “Mormon Values and the Utah Environment,” Worldviews 4 (2000): 1-19.

21. Brigham Young, quoted in Hugh Nibley, To the Glory of God: Mormon Essays on Great Issues—Environment, Commitment, Love, Peace, Youth, Man, edited by Truman Madsen and Charles D. Tate (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1972), 3-29.

22. Brigham Young, quoted in ibid.

23. George Q. Cannon, quoted in Richard D. Stratton, ed., Kindness to Animals and Caring for the Earth: Selections from the Sermons and Writings of Latter-day Saint Church Leaders (Portland, Ore.: Inkwater Press, 2004), 31.

24. Aaron R. Kelson, “‘A Plea for the Horse’: George Q. Cannon’s Concern for Animal Welfare in Nineteenth-Century America” BYU Studies 38, no. 3 (999): 49.

25. Joseph F. Smith, quoted in Stratton, Kindness to Animals and Caring for the Earth, 84.

26. Joseph F. Smith, quoted in ibid., 58.

27. Ronald Smith, “Institutional Innovations among the Mormons: Collective Action in Irrigation,” 2000, Working Paper, Department of Political Science, University of Indiana, http://www.indiana.edu/~workshop/papers/smith112700.pdf (accessed January 21, 2011).

28. Alexander, “Stewardship and Enterprise,” 350.

29. Ezra Taft Benson, quoted in Stratton, Kindness to Animals and Caring for the Earth, 19.

30. Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture, rev. ed. (Washington D.C.: Sierra Club Books, 1996), 152.

31. Hugh Nibley, “Subduing the Earth: Man’s Dominion,” in Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless: Classic Essays of Hugh W. Nibley, (Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center), 106; http://rsc.byu.edu/archived/nibley-timely-and-timeless-classic-essays-hugh-w-nibley-2nd-edition (accessed on February 17, 2011).

32. http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_us1304485#m_en_us1304485 (accessed February 17, 2011).

33. George B. Handley, “The Environmental Ethics of LDS Belief,” BYU Studies 40, no. 2 (2001): 187-211.

34. Sterling M. McMurrin, The Theological Foundations of the Mormon Religion (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1965), 19.

35. Orson Pratt, “Great First Cause, or the Self-Moving Forces of the Universe,” rpt., in The Essential Orson Pratt, foreword by David J. Whittaker (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1991), 196.

36. Brigham Young, March 28, 1856, Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. (London and Liverpool: LDS Booksellers Depot, 1855-86), 3:279.

37. Theodore Hiebert, The Yahwist’s Landscape: Nature and Religion in Early Israel (Minneapolis, Minn.: Augsberg Fortress, 2008), 63.

38. Quoted in Stratton, Kindness to Animals and Caring for the Earth, 107.

39. James Lovelock, Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (1979; rpt., New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), vii.

40. Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme, The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era—A Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos (New York: Harper San Francisco, 1992): 243.