Religion is not ethics, but the fruits of religion are ethical. Therefore, religion must recognize that environmental ethics, ethics of life and of religion are urgent issues and it must respond to them without fail. To recognize and deal with these issues, religion must reconstruct and change itself in order to aim toward the future. There will be a crisis in religion if it does not revolutionize and creatively concern itself with the fruits it will bear in the future. In concrete terms, the earth's vegetation is being destroyed, tidal flats have been extinguished, and the sea, the sky, and the earth have been polluted by toxic substances. Civilization is dying now. In this critical situation people do not want to read or hear about faith or follow religions. However, even in the situation in which they cannot believe in love or compassion, they are still able to come to understand the actual world and recover their faith and belief, if and only if they see, feel and comprehend what is actually happening around them. As parents, for example, if our children talk with us about dead fish floating on the river, we know that strontium 90 has soaked into their bones, and we understand what the destruction of nature means. All parens share this feeling of pain and suffering. This is truly what religion teaches; that is, compassion. People expand the circle of compassion when they suffer together with the earth. An individual begins to reflect on himself and ask himself who he is for the first time only when he becomes one who experiences love and compassion as well as pain and suffering. He might discover that in sharing his pain and suffering with others he is not the only one who is saved and healed. When an individual realizes that life is interwoven with relationships with others, his actions become guided by the heart of supporting others. We must see our true and essential selves from this point of view. We are parts of an interconnected life-system. Therefore, whether or not we are able to affirm ourselves as parts of the whole may be the ultimate key for life today.
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