Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future / Edition 1

by Bron Taylor

Overview

In this innovative and deeply felt work, Bron Taylor examines the evolution of “green religions” in North America and beyond: spiritual practices that hold nature as sacred and have in many cases replaced traditional religions. Tracing a wide range of groups—radical environmental activists, lifestyle-focused bioregionalists, surfers, new-agers involved in “ecopsychology,” and groups that hold scientific narratives as sacred—Taylor addresses a central theoretical question: How can environmentally oriented, spiritually motivated individuals and movements be understood as religious when many of them reject religious and supernatural worldviews? The “dark” of the title further expands this idea by emphasizing the depth of believers' passion and also suggesting a potential shadow side: besides uplifting and inspiring, such religion might mislead, deceive, or in some cases precipitate violence. This book provides a fascinating global tour of the green religious phenomenon, enabling readers to evaluate its worldwide emergence and to assess its role in a critically important religious revolution.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520261006
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	11/03/2009
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	360
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Bron Taylor is Professor of Religion and Nature at the University of Florida. He is Editor-in-Chief of the multi-volume Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature and the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, and Editor of Ecological Resistance Movements: The Global Emergence of Radical and Popular Environmentalism.

Table of Contents

Preface
Readers' Guide

1. Introducing Religion and Dark Green Religion
2. Dark Green Religion
3. Dark Green Religion in North America
4. Radical Environmentalism
5. Surfing Spirituality
6. Globalization with Predators and Moving Pictures
7. Globalization in Arts, Sciences, and Letters
8. Terrapolitan Earth Religion
9 .Conclusion: Dark Green Religion and the Planetary Future

Afterword on Terminology
Acknowledgments
Appendix: Excerpts with Commentary on the Writings of Henry David Thoreau
Notes
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"This ambitious work seeks to set forth a new religious tradition characterized by its central concern for the fate of the planet."—Nova Religio: the Journal of Alternative & Emergent Religions

"Dark Green Religion is intelligent, well-written, and very much worth reading."—Worldviews

"Names levels of spirituality that are often unacknowledged, unattended to, or rejected, and demonstrates how a new global spirituality (DGR) is becoming a force for positive change on our planet."—Isle:
Interdis Stds
In Lit & Environ

"Recommended."—Choice

Editorial Reviews

Dark Green Religion is intelligent, well-written, and very much worth reading.

Worldviews

"Taylor examines the evolution of 'green religions' in North America, that is, spiritual practices that hold nature as sacred and have in many cases replaced traditional religions."

Compendium Newsletter

Far from a disinterested study, Taylor views the alleged decline of traditional religions not as secularization as much as this new natural religion replacing older more outmoded ones.

Religion Watch

This ambitious work seeks to set forth a new religious tradition characterized by its central concern for the fate of the planet.

Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions

Recommended.

CHOICE

. . . thought-provoking, useful, and enlightening . . . [There is] no other scholar working in this field who is as conversant as Taylor in science, history of science, environmental history, and environmental literature, nor are there many who can present all these data in a style with such broad appeal. Taylor’s book is a major achievement.

Journal of the American Academy of Religion

[Taylor] names levels of spirituality that are often unacknowledged, unattended to, or rejected, and demonstrates how a new global spirituality (DGR) is becoming a force for positive change on our planet. . . . [A] fascinating study.

Isle: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature & Environment

"Taylor examines the evolution of 'green religions' in North America, that is, spiritual practices that hold nature as sacred and have in many cases replaced traditional religions."

The Compendium Newsletter - Leslie Lewis

“Recommended.

Choice

“Taylor aims to illustrate the existence of an ideological current in contemporary North American society that has nature as its focus, and to argue that this is socially and politically significant.

Environment & History - Emma Tomalin