THEOLOGY AND RELIGIOSITY EFFECTS ON ENVIRONMENTALISM

Lynn White and others contend the dominion belief that the Bible autho rizes humans to use nature to our own advantage justifies exploitation of the earth. Extreme versions of this view hold Judeo-Christian reli gious institutions accountable for the environmental crisis. This stud y assesses those arguments with original survey data from a state-wide sample. Dominion beliefs are prevalent in this sample, especially amo ng those with little formal education or information about environment al matters. These findings are consistent with White's thesis. But, do minion beliefs are not predictable on the basis of such conventional r eligiosity indicators as religious salience or worship frequency. Thes e data do not show a significant association between dominion beliefs and Biblical literalism or support for creationism in schools even tho ugh deductive logic would lead one to assume such a pattern. We conclu de that dominion beliefs may be a correlate of environmental apathy, b ut they are not significantly associated with conventional religiosity on the individual level. On the institutional level this study finds no empirical basis for singling out-churches as culpable for environme ntal problems. Continued expansion of stewardship interpretations of f aith will be well received by many church members.