Green Religion Research Articles

Emergent forms of ‘Dark Green Religion’ and the (ecofascist) future of environmental education in the United States

What is the future of environmental and climate change education in the United States given the emergence of neofascist and Christian Nationalist political movements during a time of social secularization? In this essay we discuss the politically heterogenous appeal of environmental concern in America, the tenuous nature of environmental education’s current Left-liberal political valence, and implications for climate change education amidst ongoing culture wars. We proceed by examining Bron Taylor’s influential typology of Dark Green Religions and consider how the American political Right may emerge as having their own Dark Green Religious movement. We are concerned that the field of environmental education remains ideologically blinkered toward other normative educational projects on the political Right, a situation that leaves us unprepared for how projects such as climate change education can be appropriated for reactionary and sometimes violent ends. We argue that the field of environmental education needs to pay greater attention to the multifarious political and cultural conditions that shape its enactment and develop considerations for an anti-fascist environmental education accordingly.

Orthodox View on the Philosophy of Ecologism

The paper deals with the understanding of a group of modern philosophical and ideological concepts and beliefs that arose around the idea of the Planet as a kind of independent superorganism, capable of reasonable self-regulation in order to maintain life in all its diversity, as a single religious phenomenon, which the author proposes to call planetarism. The author places environmentalism, animal rights activism, and movements in defense of the rights of sexual and other minorities under a single defi nition of planetarism, characterized by him as a new green religion. All the components of the new religion are being developed under the slogan of saving the Planet that is a single source and a common home for all forms and manifestations of life. From this point of view, everything that is around is born by the Planet, and everything that is born by it has the right to exist. The author off ers a basis for comparative analysis of religious teachings, defi ning it as a universal structure of religions. Comparing planetarism with the structure and character of modern theistic and nontheistic world religions that have had the greatest impact on the development of European countries, the author proves that planetarism corresponds to the concept of religion and speaks about its peacefulness. At the same time, the development and aggressive dissemination of its values and ethical attitudes lead to a prominent reaction from adherents of traditional religions, provoking civil and international confl icts. The author concludes that it is necessary to recognize the religious nature of planetarism, primarily to protect the traditional values of Christianity and to form a dialogue between the church and society.

‘We’ll All Dance each Springtime with Jack-in-the-Green’

The Green Man is a familiar image in British popular culture who is celebrated in a variety of ways, not least in an ever-growing number of festive processions in towns, villages, and cities, particularly around Beltane (May Day). Combining two scholarly voices, this article offers a survey of the Green Man image and related ritual phenomena in what we refer to as the ‘Green Man complex’. Here we address the Green Man’s role in what could be the mobilization of responses to the current ecological crisis, as well as his relationship to growing trends in dark green religion. Last, we turn our attention to the theoretical innovations that current Green Man phenomena invites: more than ‘symbolic’ or ‘representational’, the Green Man is a source for contemporary Pagan ritual religious creativity that is being used in animistic, embodied, territorializing, and reciprocal fashions to direct human attention toward the other-than-human vegetable kingdom.

Is the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines Turning Dark Green? Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines’ Environmentalism from Anti-Mining to Climate Crisis Response

Abstract The article examines whether the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has become “dark green.” It explores CBCP’s pastoral letters on environmental issues from 1988 to 2019. Using the framework outlined by Bron Taylor in Dark Green Religion: Nature, Spirituality, and the Planetary Future, I argue that there are shifts in the environmental consciousness of the Catholic Bishops, as evident in the pastoral letters. Since 1988, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines has exhibited a reliable commitment to environmentalism and its prophetic mission amidst various environmental challenges.

Losing (and Finding) Her Religion

Terry Tempest Williams is one of America’s preeminent environmental voices, often infusing her essays with religious rhetoric and symbolism when describing scenes of intimate encounters with nature. While scholars have previously examined the author’s disintegrating relationship with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, scant attention has been devoted to considering what Williams’s beliefs and notions of faith have, correspondingly, turned toward. By tracing Williams’s evolving attitudes toward nature, religion, and environmentalism as they emerge in several of her most recognized works, I chart how the author both lost her familial religion and embraced an entirely new sense of spirituality—one rooted in nature and fully aligned with Bron Taylor’s theoretical conception of ‘dark green religion’. Sketching her trajectory gives further credence to Taylor’s construction, particularly its explanatory power for understanding the recurring and increasingly vocal spiritual calls issued for environmental protection by practitioners such as Williams.

Review: Urban Religious Events: Public Spirituality in Contested Spaces, edited by Paul Bramadat, Mar Griera, Marian Burchardt, and Julia Martínez-Ariño

Review: <i>Urban Religious Events: Public Spirituality in Contested Spaces</i>, edited by Paul Bramadat, Mar Griera, Marian Burchardt, and Julia Martínez-Ariño

Investigation into the development of a methodology for the study of environmental discourses

The need to decolonise the academy and academic writing requires that methodology for research be chosen carefully. The methodology of a study reflects the researcher’s point of departure or worldview, as well as their belief system. The current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has drastically influenced the functioning of higher education institutes, as well as how scholars plan and execute their research. This includes investigation into the global environmental crisis that is widely researched from various disciplines. These disciplines tend to develop and favour different methodologies. The purpose of this presentation was to report on the inquiry into a suitable methodology to study social discourses about the environmental crisis. The methodologies investigated were an eco-linguistic approach to Critical Discourse Analysis, combined with eco-criticism, which was linked to the concept of an eco-sophy, using the framework of Dark Green Religion. The umbrella-concept of Dark Green Religion as a theoretical framework allows the comparison and incorporation of disparate methodologies as well as discourses. This framework also gives prominence to the role of religion in societal response to the environmental crisis. Due to the study being situated in an African context and striving to implement a decolonising discourse, some suggestions were made on decolonising research methodology in higher education.Contribution: This article’s contribution to new knowledge centred around situating current and new research in Africa in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and deliberating on the impact for future studies. The conclusion was drawn that the COVID-19 pandemic can be a catalyst for re-interpreting research methodology from a decolonised perspective.

On Bron Taylor’s Dark Green Religion: Contribution and Critiques from Social Theory

&#x0D; In 2010, Bron Taylor published his seminal book Dark Green Religion: Nature, Spirituality and the Planetary Future, which rapidly became a “must-read” in the ongoing ecology-religion debates. A decade later, this work gained broader visibility and diffusion with a German translation. This paper aims at introducing the first two chapters of Angelica Federici’s and Eleonora D’Alessandro’s translation in Italian to a European continental audience. It first provides a brief genealogy of the ecology-religion debates and how it structured into an interdisciplinary field of research. Then, it details how the concept of dark green religion is useful for expanding ongoing scholarly discussions. On a more critical note, and from the perspective of social theory, the author suggests two critiques that challenge religious scholars and social scientists to extend current thought and reflection on dark green religion.&#x0D;

Bron Taylor’s Dark Green Religion after Twelve Years

&#x0D; Bron Taylor’s book Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future, published in 2010, remains to be an important resource still today. This article discusses the book in the light of Bron Taylor’s work in the field of religion and ecology, interpreting the “global greening of religion” as a strong movement that is driven by discourse communities, consisting of scholars (both from the humanities and the natural sciences), writers, artists, practitioners of all walks of life, politicians, and environmental activists. After briefly discussing examples from recent literature and fiction, the article reviews some influential tendencies within the field of religion and ecology that followed the publication of Dark Green Religion. Besides further research that tests the book’s main hypotheses, these tendencies include a new interest in animism as a key concept both for practitioners and researchers.&#x0D;

Toying with Animism

Scholars increasingly stress that getting serious about the environment will require a shift from Abrahamic and naturalist imaginaries that distinguish between culture and nature to, variously, “ecospirituality,” “dark green religion,” or animism. The first part of this article critiques this work on the grounds that it reifies rigid distinctions between “belief systems” or “ontologies,” and thus misrepresents both what needs to be aimed at and how to get there. In search of an alternative, the next two parts of this article draw on autoethnographic findings with non-Indigenous people involved in resisting resource extraction. I suggest that playfulness is an important component both of the imaginaries to be found among resisters and of the means of arriving at those imaginaries.

Biodynamic Wine-crafting in Switzerland

Over the past two decades, Swiss wine-crafting professionals (vignerons) have increasingly turned their attention toward a ‘holistic’ and ecosystemic understanding of their vineyards. Among them, a growing professional segment has engaged in an esoteric agronomy inspired by Rudolf Steiner: Biodynamics. This approach is illustrative of Bron Taylor’s dark green religion applied to agronomy. This ethnographic study describes and analyzes how Swiss vignerons translate and adapt the legacy of Steiner in their everyday lives. After detailing how practitioners frame their engagement in this agronomy, the author distinguishes two processes in the translation and adaptation of Rudolf Steiner’s insights: (a) secularization, which bridges the guidelines of biodynamics and common secular naturalistic ideas; and (b) spiritualization, which relies on supernaturalistic conceptions in line with ‘expressive selfhood’ and the quest for well-being. The author argues that these two processes do not stand in mutual opposition, but rather have been intertwined in Euro-American modernities.

A Dark Green Religious Analysis of the Life and Work of Wangari Maathai (1940 - 2011)

Dark Green Religion (DGR), is an umbrella term formulated by Bron Taylor, to describe nature revering movements that do not fit into the category of organized religion. These movements use religious-like emotions to express their convictions and display a sincere commitment towards the environment. A central focus of DGR is a deep-felt kinship with all living organisms on Earth (arising from a Darwinian understanding that all forms of life have developed from a common ancestor), accompanied by feelings of humility coupled with a critical view of human moral superiority. This article presents a Dark Green Religious analysis of the life and work of Wangari Maathai (1940-2011). She was the first woman in East Africa to receive a doctorate, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her work with the Green Belt Movement (GBM). In the DGR analysis, it is illustrated that the principles of belonging, interconnectedness and sacredness are revealed through Maathai’s written legacy. Evidence is also presented that she could be viewed as an example of Naturalistic Gaianism, one of the four types of DGR. In conclusion, a link between ecofeminism and DGR is proposed by highlighting the shared concepts between the two phenomena.

Dark Green Religion

I wrote the following remections in the hope they will encourage further research and debate about the phenomena I explored in Dark Green Religion: Nature Spiritualty and the Planetary Future. These remections are adapted from the ‘Vorwort zur deutschen Neuausgabe: Dunkelgrüne Religion—Zehn Jahre danach’, with which I introduced the German edition.

James Miller, &lt;i&gt;China’s Green Religion: Daoism and the Quest for a Sustainable Future&lt;/i&gt;

James Miller, China’s Green Religion: Daoism and the Quest for a Sustainable Future

Maria Nita, &lt;i&gt;Praying with Environmental Christians: Green Religion and the Climate Movement&lt;/i&gt;

Maria Nita, Praying with Environmental Christians: Green Religion and the Climate Movement

Nepantla Environmentalism: Challenging Dominant Frameworks for Green Religion

AbstractScholarship on religious environmentalism and green religion in the United States has privileged the actions of progressive white activists who view nature through an Enlightenment framework. In response to a call in the 2015 JAAR’s roundtable on climate destabilization and religion to engage in discourse about “the myriad causes and myriad possible solutions to our environmental crisis,” this article examines religious environmentalism from a nondominant perspective. Based on ethnographic research among Latinx churchgoing Catholics in Los Angeles, I have identified a widespread ethic of living lightly on the earth, which I call nepantla environmentalism. It is grounded in an immanent, relational worldview in which God is present in the material and the human-nature boundary is porous. A focus on nepantla environmentalism calls attention to the raced and classed biases embedded in dominant understandings of green religion in the United States. It demonstrates that there are different ways of being a religious environmentalist.

Nita, Maria. 2016. &lt;i&gt;Praying and Campaigning with Environmental Christians: Green Religion and the Environmental Movement&lt;/i&gt;

Nita, Maria. 2016. Praying and Campaigning with Environmental Christians: Green Religion and the Environmental Movement. London: Palgrave Macmillan. xi + 261 pp. ISBN: 978-1-137-60034-9 £99.99 (hbk); 978-1-349-95608-1 £99.99 (pbk); 978-1-137-60035-6 £79.50 (e-book).

Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping

This article argues that the religious thought and rituals of Reverend Billy Talen are a form of dark green animist religion and function as a response to perceived human destruction of the biosphere. An overview of environment-centered religions mobilized by concerns over planetary metrics is presented, followed by a case-study analysis of Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping. It is argued that the religion espoused by Reverend Billy is an example of how contemporary concerns for environmental and social health are influencing contemporary religious thought and production. The religious activism of Reverend Billy and his church, aimed at liberating life from “consumerism” and fundamentalism, presents an “ideal type” example of the development of Earth-centered protest religions that may be found at the margin of capitalist society. As evidenced by Reverend Billy, aspects of this religious development will be predicated upon anti-globalization discourses and concerns for ecosystem health and sustainability.

Mediating Green and Dark Green Religion in American Literature

When the term “Anthropocene” was first coined in 2000 by Dutch Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist, Paul J. Crutzen, and American biologist, Eugene F. Stoermer, no Earth scientist predicted its...

Green Religion as a Way of Life: Thoreau and His Ecocentric Esthetics of Existence

Any discussion of green religion should begin by calling attention to the ambiguity and irony of the term itself. In his 2004 Futures essay “A Green Future for Religion?,” Bron Taylor speaks to thr...