Abstract

Although Lynn White, jr. is best known for the critical aspects of his disputed 1967 essay, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,” this article combines archival research and findings from his lesser-known publications in an attempt to reconcile his thought on democracy with the Earth Charter and its assertion that “we are one human family and one Earth Community with a common destiny” . Humanity is first and foremost, White believed, part of a “spiritual democracy of all God's creatures” in which humans and nonhumans should treat each other with mutual compassion and courtesy. It is argued that the Christian, animal-inclusive “biodemocracy” envisioned by White is both compatible with, and potentially in conflict with, the tenets of the Earth Charter. This article also considers further implications of these findings for the larger fields of ecotheology and religion and ecology