Grover Cleveland, William Harrison, Theodore Roosevelt. John Muir, Rachel Carson, David Brower. At first glance, we might say that what connects these names is their environmental legacy. On closer examination, we learn that each of them, president or activist, was raised Presbyterian. Lapsed or active in their faith, each shaped our nation’s relationship with nature. Their efforts challenge the influential argument made by another lapsed Presbyterian, Lynn White Jr., in his 1967 article in Science, “The historical roots of our ecologic crisis.” White contended that Christianity bore the blame for our environmental crisis by championing consumerism over stewardship, and his assertion has influenced subsequent scholarship.
Historian Mark Stoll shatters the argument that people of faith are the death of creation. In “Inherit the Holy Mountain: Religion and the Rise of American Environmentalism,” Stoll demonstrates that a Calvinist, Reformed upbringing profoundly influenced the values and convictions of the overwhelming majority of the women and men who became our great environmental leaders in the 19th and 20th centuries. This common-sense argument is surprisingly revolutionary, but it makes perfect sense to those of us who grew up learning that we are stewards of God’s creation, that nature is the second-best teacher of God’s work after Scripture and that God calls us to lives of righteous activity.
Presidents Cleveland, Harrison and Roosevelt packed their cabinets with like-minded Presbyterians. Thanks to them, we have our vast system of national parks and reserves. Presbyterians working with Roosevelt (who earned the reputation as a “preacher of social righteousness” from the likes of Gifford Pinchot, Jane Addams and Henry Cabot Lodge) popularized the use of the terms “conservation” and “stewardship” in relation to nature. The language these three presidents used to talk about natural resources and our duty to treat them with care echoed Calvin’s doctrines of creation and stewardship.
Although each had abandoned the pews of their childhood Presbyterian churches for the soaring glories of western mountains or the mysteries of the ocean by the time they became famous, Muir, Carson and Brower emerged from deeply religious United Presbyterian Church of North America homes. Instilled in them was the belief that while we receive unmerited grace through Jesus Christ, we seek righteousness, justice and the furtherance of God’s glory in this world. For them, the wonders of God’s creation facing degradation by human avarice demanded our attention and protection. Their Presbyterian upbringing shaped them for the passionate advocacy of land, tree, bird and water that continues with renewed urgency in the midst of our own environmental crises.
Stoll notes that the late 20th century environmental movement became more ecumenical and more secular. It lost the moral and political focus brought by Presbyterians to the highest reaches of office. Yet we see that concern still in creation care teams at churches across the country. Calvin’s commitments teach us still that we serve God by stewarding God’s earth.
From the riches of our shared history: wisdom to guide us.
Beth Shalom Hessel is the executive director of the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia.
