UN Agency Promotes Pantheism, Denigrates Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is supporting the campaign by radical environmentalists to create a new world
religion. This campaign is intimately connected to the UN drive to formulate an "Earth Charter," in which the "planetary ethics" that
green activists seek to impose upon all human societies would be codified.
On October 20-21 in New York, UNEP co-sponsored a conference entitled "Religion and Ecology: Discovering the Common
Grounds." Among the notables participating were Maurice Strong, Chairman of the Earth Council and Secretary-General of the 1992
Earth Summit; and Tim Wirth, president of Ted Turner's United Nations Foundation and formerly U.S. Undersecretary of State for
Global Affairs, where he served as point man on population and environmental issues for the pro-abortion Clinton Administration.
Last week's session represented the culmination of a ten-conference series held between May 1996 and July 1998 at the Harvard
University Center for the Study of World Religions. A background paper prepared by Mary Ellen Tucker, the Bucknell University
religion professor who directed the series along with her husband John Grim, reflects the series' anti-traditional perspective. The
objective, Tucker writes, is the "creative revisioning of mutually enhancing human-earth relations" away from the orthodox
monotheistic understanding, which places man at the center of God's Creation. "If religions have traditionally concentrated on
divine-human and human-human relations, the challenge is that they now explore more fully divine-human-earth relations."
Tucker specifically identifies the great monotheistic religions as those most culpable in devaluing nature. "For the most part, the
worldviews associated with the Western Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have created a dominantly
human-focused morality. Because these worldviews are largely anthropocentric, nature is viewed as being of secondary
importance." In contrast, Confucianism and Taoism are praised for their "life-affirming" outlook, as are the religions of indigenous
peoples.
Similar attitudes infused the presentations at last week's UNEP-sponsored discussions. Stephen Rockefeller, who is directing the
drafting of the Earth Charter, participated in a concluding session that discussed the Charter's implications. One of the speakers
was Wangari Maathai of the Kenyan Green Belt Movement, who characterized herself as a "student" of Maurice Strong. The Earth
Charter is a new set of Commandments, Maathai declared. "This is like rewriting the Bible."
The Earth Charter will be formally unveiled in the year 2000 at the "Millennium People's Forum" and subsequently submitted to the
UN General Assembly. But the pantheistic and anti-humanity thrust of the Charter is already plainly evident in its last draft, which
repeatedly deifies "Earth" and declares that "Earth itself is alive."
The draft Charter also promotes abortion. Number 11 of its 18 "interrelated principles" reads as follows: "Secure the right to sexual
and reproductive health, with special concern for women and girls." "Sexual and reproductive health" is the euphemism commonly
employed by pro-abortion activists for abortion and artificial contraception. cafhri.org
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