Patrick Gordon-Wendell Berry's view on organized Religion

Wendell Berry complains that the organized church typically makes peace with a destructive economy and divorces itself from economic issues because it is economically compelled to do so. The church is too closely tied with militarism and exploitative industry. If they began to actively try and conserve the environment, they would step on a lot of powerful people’s toes. He deepens the need for a commitment through the study of the Bible. He argues that if it is read deeply and sympathetically, gives powerful support for respecting the sanctity of creation. Through this interpretation, he states that God’s spirit is in our wilderness. Furthermore, he calls us to celebrate our relationship with the Earth as a sacrament. He states that “to approach the Earth as a sacrament is to embrace its materiality while reverencing its worth beyond the horizon of visible use”. He praises that, although some land might not bear fruit in the beginning, it all has an inherent worth that can eventually be brought forth; and even though we cannot totally live in harmony with all creation, if we kill respectfully and only for our direct benefit it too is a sacrament.

In “Making Nature Sacred” the author talks about a Quaker John Woolman. Woolman describes an experience he had in his childhood to explain human connection with the “brute creation.” He says that when he was a child he threw a rock at a robin and killed her. He then climbed up the tree and killed all of the babies in the robin’s nest. He felt it was the right thing to do. It was his ethical duty considering he killed their mother. He even quotes Prov. 12:10 as he decides what to do. “The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.” Rather than having to suffer a cruel death with no mother to give them food and nuture, he thinks it's better to save them from that and just killing them. I don't know if I could have done that but he had said he felt it was his duty. My neighbor killed a bird when we were all younger and I remember him talking about how he didn't feel bad but felt cooler. It is so sad to see people's different morals through something as small as killing a bird.