Sacralisations of nature beyond church-based religion in modern western societies

Abstract

In environmental ethics and landscape research, sacralisations of nature have commonly been considered in the context of so-called nature religions or ethnic religions of traditional societies. However, an analysis of the cultural history of the perception of nature indicates that sacralisations of nature – contrary to classical theories of modernisation and secularisation – have remained widespread and influential in modern Western societies too. Some of these sacralisations represent (new) forms of church-based or church-oriented religion or religiosity, while others lie beyond it. I confine here myself to the latter, not to denigrate the relevance of the former but to highlight that sacralisations of nature are common even among people who are non-church-going and regard themselves as non-religious and that sacralisations thereby constitute essential non-instrumental, non-material appreciations and valuations of nature in modern Western societies. By way of examples, I reconstruct eight such types of sacralisations of nature beyond church-based religion.