Dark Green Religion, by Bron Taylor, University of California Press, 2010

To read the preface, first, and for further information, see http://www.brontaylor.com/environmental_books/dgr/DarkGreenReligion.html

chapter 1

Introducing Religion and Dark

Green Religion

This chapter explores terms that are central to this study: religion, spiri-
tuality, nature religion, green religion, and dark green religion. Although
this sort of linguistic labor may seem most pertinent to those with back-
grounds in anthropology and religious studies, it should be even more
valuable to those with little background in the academic study of reli-
gion. The rationale for this starting point is simple: terminology mat-
ters. It shapes methods and focuses attention in illuminating ways. Ter-
minology also carries assumptions that may occlude phenomena that
might well be relevant to any given inquiry. It is important in this inves-
tigation, therefore, to reflect critically on the terms employed.
What, for example, is the difference between religion and the absence
of religion—or between religion and spirituality—or between what I am
calling nature religion, green religion, and dark green religion? Where
are the boundaries between them? Do such distinctions illuminate or
confuse our understanding of the world we inhabit?

Religion and Family Resemblance Analysis

There has been much debate, of course, about the origin, definition,
and utility of the word religion. One of the reasons for this lack of con-
sensus is the difficulty of agreeing on what characterizes “religious”
phenomena. Does religion have a substantive essence? Or does it func-
tion typically or universally in certain ways? Since people began thinking
1
2 INTRODUCING DARK GREEN RELIGION

analytically about religion, many competing definitions have been of-

fered. No consensus has emerged, however, including as to whether any
specific traits or characteristics are essential to the phenomena. Such
questions are certainly relevant to discussions surrounding what I am
calling dark green religion. Are specific things essential to it, such as be-
liefs about supernatural or nonmaterial beings, as some scholars con-
tend? Or is a nebulous sense that “nature is sacred” sufficient to justify
using the term religion?
Unfortunately, selecting the earliest uses of the word does not set us
on uncontested terminological ground.1 In the last analysis, observers
must choose the lenses, the definitions, that they think will best guide
their inquiries and illuminate the phenomena they seek to understand.2
As good a starting place as any is the scholarly work that has traced early
forms of the idea of religion to the Latin root leig, meaning “to bind” or
“tie fast,” or religare, which could be rendered “to reconnect”—from
the Latin re (again) and ligare (to connect). Examining such roots in the
context of contemporary understandings, we might conclude that reli-
gion has to do with that which connects and binds people to that which
they most value, depend on, and consider sacred.
Yet there are dangers in specific definitions, especially for those who
seek to understand the phenomena and compare different types of it in
various times and places. As the anthropologist Benson Saler put it,
“Explicit definitions are explicit heuristics: they guide or impel us in cer-
tain directions. By doing so they tend to divert our attention from infor-
mation beyond the channels they cleave, and so choke off possibilities.”3
It is important, therefore, both to recognize the danger of explicit defi-
nitions (they might lead us to ignore important phenomena or dynam-
ics) as well as their value (they might focus analytic attention and yield
insights).
Taking into account the dangers and value of definitions, Saler and
others advocate looking at “family resemblances” or taking a “polyfocal
approach” to the study of religion, exploring, analyzing, and comparing
the widest possible variety of beliefs, behaviors, and functions that are
typically associated with the term. The heart of such an approach is to
(1) note the many dimensions and characteristics of religious beliefs and
practices; (2) reject a presumption that any single trait or characteristic is
essential to religious phenomena and refuse to become preoccupied with
where the boundaries of religion lie; and (3) focus instead on whether
an analysis of religion-resembling beliefs and practices has explanatory
power.4
 INTRODUCING DARK GREEN RELIGION 3

Analyzing family resemblances is valuable despite the absence of any

clear, essential, universal trait that everyone will agree constitutes reli-
gion’s essence. Such an approach to conceptualizing religion leaves in
play and open to contestation the definition of religion, and even chal-
lenges whether choosing a definition is important. Finally, it insists that
the critical thing is to learn interesting things about human beings, their
environments, and their earthly coinhabitants.5 With this strategy for
analyzing religion (and religion-resembling phenomena) in place, a few
other terms critical to this study require elaboration.

Spirituality
In contemporary parlance people increasingly speak of spirituality
rather than religion when trying to express what moves them most
deeply; and many consider the two to be distinctly different. Most of
the characteristics scholars associate with religion, however, are found
whether people consider themselves spiritual or religious. From a fam-
ily resemblance perspective, therefore, there is little analytical reason to
assume these are different kinds of social phenomena. It is important,
however, to understand what most people understand the distinction
to entail, especially because the term spirituality is more often than re-
ligion associated with nature and nature religions.
In common parlance, religion is often used to refer to organized and
institutional religious belief and practice, while spirituality is held to in-
volve one’s deepest moral values and most profound religious experi-
ences.6 But there are additional ideas that are more often associated
with spirituality than religion. Spirituality is often thought to be about
personal growth and gaining a proper understanding of one’s place in
the cosmos, and to be intertwined with environmentalist concern and
action.7 This contrasts markedly with the world’s predominant religions,
which are generally concerned with transcending this world or obtain-
ing divine rescue from it.
Although those who consider themselves spiritual but not religious
generally consider spirituality to be superior to religion, spirituality is
also a term increasingly used by traditionally religious people. They
use it similarly to how the “spiritual but not religious” crowd speaks of
the sacred importance of everyday life. Thus, spirituality can also be un-
derstood as a quest to deepen, renew, or tap into the most profound
insights of traditional religions, as well as a word that consecrates
4 INTRODUCING DARK GREEN RELIGION

otherwise secular endeavors such as psychotherapy, political and envi-

ronmental activism, and one’s lifestyle and vocational choices. Such
understanding of the term fosters a “rethinking of religious bound-
aries.”8
Unless one considers belief in divine beings or forces to be essential
to a definition of religion, most contemporary spirituality can easily be
considered religious. Those who have studied contemporary spirituality
find a common feature of it to be a sense that nature is sacred and that
ethical responsibilities naturally follow such a realization. Who are the
individuals and groups that have such perceptions? Anna King pointed
in the right direction when she urged scholars to look for spirituality not
only in small, marginalized religious sects but also in “movements such
as Amnesty International [and] Greenpeace.” Empirical studies have be-
gun to demonstrate that many people in advanced industrial cultures
resonate deeply with what could be called nature spirituality or nature
religion. Some of these people view the world as full of spiritual intelli-
gences with whom one can be in relationship (an animistic perception),
while others among them perceive the earth to be alive or even divine (a
more pantheistic belief).
In an analysis of a large social-science database generated in 2000, for
example, James Proctor examined the relationship between religion and
trust in various forms of authority. He found two sources of authority
most prevalent: traditional religious authority (grounded in what he la-
beled theocracy) and religious ecology (which he called ecology, as
shorthand). In both Europe and North America, large numbers of peo-
ple express “deep trust in nature as inherently spiritual or sacred,” Proc-
tor discovered, and in many countries, such religiosity is even more
prevalent than in the United States. He concluded, “Institutional reli-
gion is inextricably bound up with relations of trust in authority, and
thus is functionally similar to [political] regimes rarely understood as re-
ligious. We should therefore be cautious in bounding the domain of religion
too narrowly.”9
This assertion is pertinent to my current objective, which is to rattle
assumptions as to what counts as religion in order to awaken new per-
ceptions and insights. Are the people whose spirituality is intertwined
with environmental concern, or who perceive and trust in nature and
understand it to be sacred, engaged in nature religion?
 INTRODUCING DARK GREEN RELIGION 5

Nature Religion
Nature religion is most commonly used as an umbrella term to mean
religious perceptions and practices that are characterized by a reverence
for nature and that consider its destruction a desecrating act. Adherents
often describe feelings of belonging and connection to the earth—of
being bound to and dependent upon the earth’s living systems.10
Over the last few centuries a number of phrases have been used to
capture the family resemblance of nature religions, including natural
religion, nature worship, nature mysticism, and earth religion. Meanwhile,
words have been invented to reflect what is taken to be the universal
essence of such religiosity, such as Paganism, Animism, and Pantheism.
In both popular and scholarly venues the term nature religion, which
began to be employed regularly at about the time of the first Earth Day
celebration in 1970, is used increasingly to represent and debate such
nature-as-sacred religions.
The idea of nature religion has a long history that parallels impor-
tant watersheds in the study of religion. Indeed, the most common con-
temporary understanding of nature religion resembles the nature-
venerating religiosity described in E. B. Tylor’s Primitive Culture (1871),
Max Müller’s Natural Religion (1888), James G. Frazer’s The Worship of
Nature (1926), and Mircea Eliade’s Patterns in Comparative Religion
(1958).11 Despite changes in scholarly fashions, there have been impor-
tant continuities in both popular and scholarly contestations over na-
ture religion. The most common debate has been between those who
consider nature religions to be religiously or politically primitive, regres-
sive, or dangerous, and those who laud such religions as spiritually per-
ceptive and ecologically beneficent.
Negative views of nature religions likely originated with Abrahamic
religious traditions, which have long had antipathy toward pagan and
polytheistic religions. Throughout their histories, the Abrahamic reli-
gions often sought to force nature religions and the peoples who prac-
ticed them into decline or extinction through conversion, assimilation,
and sometimes through threats and violence. Such persecution was of-
ten justified in religious terms, including through beliefs that assimila-
tion was spiritually beneficial.
The tendency to view the practitioners of nature religions as primi-
tive (though not always dangerous) intensified as Occidental culture
placed increasing value on reason and as many thinkers became less
religious. The German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
6 INTRODUCING DARK GREEN RELIGION

(1770–1831), for example, advanced an idealistic philosophy that viewed

nature religions as failing to perceive the divine spirit moving through
the dialectical process of history.
More important for the historical study of religion in general and
scholarly reflection on nature religion in par ticular was the influence
of Charles Darwin’s (1809–1882) theory of evolution.12 Generations of
scholars came to view nature religions as grounded in primitive misper-
ceptions that natural forces are animated or alive. John Lubbock cited
as an example Darwin’s observation that dogs mistake inanimate ob-
jects for living beings, and Lubbock surmised that religion had its ori-
gin in a similar misapprehension by primitive humans.13 E. B. Tylor,
whom many consider to be the father of anthropology, would coin the
term Animism for the attribution of consciousness to inanimate objects
and natural forces, asserting that this misapprehension was grounded in
the dream states and sneezing of “primitive” or “savage” peoples, and
arguing that this kind of perception is the root of human religious con-
sciousness.14 Not long afterward, Max Müller, considered by some to be
the father of the academic study of religion, traced the origin of Indo-
European religion to religious metaphors and symbolism grounded in
the natural environment, especially the sky and sun.15
Both classical Paganism and polytheistic religions involved suppli-
cation to or veneration of celestial bodies and other natural entities and
forces. According to Sir James Frazer, belief and ritual related to the
sun, the earth, and the dead were especially common in the world-
wide emergence and ancient history of religion.16 The idea of religion
as involving nature-related beliefs and practices became widely influ-
ential, as did Frazer’s “worship of nature” rubric to describe such re-
ligions:

[By] the worship of nature, I mean . . . the worship of natural phenomena con-
ceived as animated, conscious, and endowed with both the power and the will
to benefit or injure mankind. Conceived as such they are naturally objects of
human awe and fear . . . To the mind of primitive man these natural phenom-
ena assume the character of formidable and dangerous spirits whose anger it is
his wish to avoid, and whose favour it is his interest to conciliate. To attain
these desirable ends he . . . prays and sacrifices to them; in short, he worships
them. Thus what we may call the worship of nature is based on the personifica-
tion of natural phenomena.

This early nature religiosity, Frazer thought, was replaced first by poly-
theism and then by monotheism as part of a “slow and gradual” pro-
 INTRODUCING DARK GREEN RELIGION 7

cess that was leading inexorably among civilized peoples to the “despir-
itualization of the universe.” Most scholarly observers during the nine-
teenth and early twentieth centuries agreed that monotheistic religions,
or no religion, would eventually supplant nature religions. They assumed
that although nature religions might be regressive, they were not dan-
gerous, at least not to cultural and material progress.
More recently, however, a chorus of voices have suggested that some
nature religions are indeed dangerous. In Nature Religion in America
(1990), for example, Catherine Albanese broadly defined nature religion
to include cases in which nature is an important symbolic resource but
is not itself considered sacred. She argued that many forms of nature
religion mask an impulse to dominate both people and nature, citing as
evidence how the “religions of nature,” which had prominent adher-
ents among the most influential of figures during the formation of the
United States, justified the subjugation of both the natural world and
the continent’s aboriginal peoples. Albanese’s assertions caused conster-
nation among many who had a positive attitude toward nature religions.
She also blurred the boundaries as to what counts as religion by consid-
ering examples that did not always, at first glance, appear religious, such
as the macrobiotic dietary movement.17
At about the same time, a number of studies found worldview affini-
ties and historical connections between some nature religions (especially
northern European Paganism and various pagan revival movements)
and racist subcultures and political movements, including extremist en-
vironmentalism. Among the most influential studies were those by
Anna Bramwell. She argued that the environmental movement, which
can be traced roughly to the middle of the nineteenth century, repre-
sents an entirely new “nature worshipping” ideology that, while it can
be fused to many ideologies, has often had strong affinity with racist
ideologies and political movements (such as Nazism) and programs
(such as eugenics) that reject Enlightenment rationality in favor of a ro-
mantic, agrarian ideal.18
Of course, historical understandings of nature religion are contested.
Many other scholars consider such religions to be spiritually perceptive,
humane, and ecologically beneficent. Historical studies of such spiritual
beliefs and practices demonstrate not only fear of and hostility toward
them but also their persistence and diversity. In a seminal study of such
religiosity in the Occident, the geographer Clarence Glacken argued that
an organicist worldview, which believes the world to be alive, interde-
pendent, and sacred, was one of the two most prevalent, long-standing
8 INTRODUCING DARK GREEN RELIGION

general ways people have oriented themselves to nature and religion and
have understood how religion and culture are related. Urging his read-
ers not to “forget the echoes of the primordial Mediterranean world: its
age-old veneration of Mother Earth” or its “astrological paganism,”
Glacken’s work helped pave the way for the scholarly pursuit of nature
religion. Other studies, such as by Donald Worster, underscored that,
whereas belief in specific earthly and celestial nature gods may have de-
clined or disappeared, the perception that nature’s places and forces are
alive and sacred—the underlying perception that gave rise to classical
Paganism and other nature religions—has not withered away. Even in
the modern West, such perception has been resilient, even episodically
threatening the hegemony of the monotheistic consensus and, later on,
challenging secular, science-based worldviews.19

Early Exemplars: Spinoza and Rousseau

Two thinkers writing at the dawn of the Age of Reason, the Jewish phi-
losopher Baruch (or Benedictus) Spinoza (1632–1677) and the French
social theorist Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), are worth spotlight-
ing as examples of the resilience of nature religion. They were also in-
spirational figures to dark green religion.
Spinoza articulated a sophisticated organicism, or monistic panthe-
ism, that influenced generations of future nature religionists.20 Those
embracing or influenced by such philosophy include some of the great-
est theologians and philosophers of the nineteenth and twentieth cen-
turies: Friedrich Schleiermacher and Albert North Whitehead (and his
progeny of “process” philosophers and theologians who have expressed
either pantheistic or panentheistic worldviews), as well as leading pro-
ponents of “deep ecology” such as Arne Naess and George Sessions.21
The affinity of the deep ecologists for Spinoza makes sense, for if every
being and object is a manifestation of God or God’s activity, then every-
thing has value, which presents a fundamental challenge to the prevail-
ing anthropocentrism.22 (Although deep ecology is not equivalent to
dark green religion, they have many affinities.)
Rousseau’s religious thought and political philosophy became even
more influential than Spinoza’s pantheistic philosophy in promoting
nature religion. Most important for the present purpose is that Rousseau
rejected Europe’s Abrahamic orthodoxies in favor of a deistic “natural
religion” in which God’s existence could be perceived in the order of
 INTRODUCING DARK GREEN RELIGION 9

nature. For Rousseau, natural religion and an epistemological turn to

nature could lead the way to a life free from the alienation and materi-
alism of Western civilization.23
Rousseau’s memoir Reveries of a Solitary Walker (1782), written in
the last years of his life, provides insight into his deepest feelings. In it
he described a series of long walks, noting that although he had loved
being in nature as a free and natural young man, during that stage of
his life he had “hardly ever contemplated [nature] otherwise than as a
total and undivided spectacle.”24 Walking and writing as an old man, in
contrast, he was focusing like a naturalist on “the details of the great pag-
eant of nature.” A number of remarkable passages conveyed his mysti-
cal sense of oneness with nature and the cosmos in a way that presaged
future forms of nature religion:

The more sensitive the soul of the observer, the greater the ecstasy aroused in
him by this harmony. At such times his senses are possessed by a deep and de-
lightful reverie, and in a state of blissful self-abandonment he loses himself in
the immensity of this beautiful order, with which he feels himself at one. All
individual objects escape him; he sees and feels nothing but the unity of all
things. His ideas have to be restricted and his imagination limited by some par-
ticular circumstances for him to observe the separate parts of this universe
which he was striving to embrace in its entirety.

Passages like this and in his well-read novel Julie, or the New Heloise
(1761) were especially responsible for kindling the nature-revering ro-
mantic movements in Europe and North America.25 Rousseau also ar-
ticulated many of the key ideas typically found in dark green religion,
including a critique of materialism as a distraction from what makes
people truly content or happy, namely, intimate contact with and open-
hearted contemplation of nature, which was itself an epistemological
principle;26 a belief that indigenous peoples lived closer to nature and
were thus socially and ecologically superior to “civilized” peoples and
from whom civilized people had much to learn;27 a conviction that peo-
ple in the state of nature and uncorrupted by society have a natural pre-
disposition toward sympathy and compassion for all creatures and a
corresponding conviction that a good society would cultivate and not
destroy such affections; and finally, belief in an expansive self in which
one’s own identity includes the rest of nature and a felt unity with and
empathy for it.28 This latter sentiment anticipated and spurred similar
ones among romantic movement figures and, much later, among pro-
ponents of deep ecology.
10 INTRODUCING DARK GREEN RELIGION

In related ways, Spinoza and Rousseau contradicted claims that

nature-based religions, as opposed to “revealed” religions, were primi-
tive and dangerous. They asserted that nature religion offers instead an
attractive antidote to the West’s spiritual malaise, social violence, eco-
nomic inequality, and callousness to nonhuman nature: a harmonious
future characterized by fulfilling relationships among the earth’s diverse
forms of life.

Green and Dark Green Religion

It is important to distinguish between green religion (which posits that
environmentally friendly behavior is a religious obligation) and dark
green religion (in which nature is sacred, has intrinsic value, and is
therefore due reverent care). These two forms are often in tension and
sometimes in direct conflict. Exploring their similarities and differences
further sets the stage before turning in the following chapters to the di-
verse examples of four types of dark green religion.
Rousseau is an especially important early exemplar of dark green re-
ligion. But his writings did more than encourage the emergence and
proliferation of diverse forms of dark green religion (although they were
not called by that term). His explicit and implicit criticisms of revealed
religions, including his belief that they distort human societies into
forms that detract from the freedom and well-being of all natural be-
ings, eroded support for such religions and have continued to gain
traction ever since. In some cases, Rousseau’s critiques caused soul
searching and reform movements within the criticized religions. Since
the 1960s this reformist trend has become so pronounced that some
scholars and laypeople have come to speak about “the greening of reli-
gion” or “religious environmentalism,” by which they mean religions
that are becoming more environmentally friendly.29 In this work I speak
of green religion or the greening of religion when discussing religious
environmentalism or its development.
Much of this innovation was precipitated by criticisms that echoed
those made by Rousseau, the most famous of which was articulated by
the historian Lynn White Jr. in 1967. White contended that Christianity
bore a heavy burden for the environmental crisis, arguing the following:

1. Christianity but not Asian religions promoted a dualistic attitude be-

tween people and nature that fostered exploitation: “Christianity, in
absolute contrast to ancient paganism and Asia’s religions . . . not
 INTRODUCING DARK GREEN RELIGION 11

only established a dualism of man and nature but also insisted that it
is God’s will that man exploit nature for his proper ends.”
2. Paganism and Animism (typically associated with indigenous peo-
ples) were more environmentally friendly than Christianity, a reli-
gion that made people callous toward nonhuman creatures: “By de-
stroying pagan animism, Christianity made it possible to exploit
nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural objects.”
3. Christianity was “the most anthropocentric religion the world has
seen” and as a result helped precipitate the environmental crisis.30

White thought that Western people, even those who were no longer re-
ligious, were deeply conditioned by Christianity’s anthropocentrism
and irreverence toward nature. Although he averred that animistic in-
digenous cultures and religions originating in Asia were more naturally
inclined toward environmentally beneficent attitudes and behaviors, he
doubted such religions would appeal to many Westerners, so he pro-
posed that they seek inspiration from the ecologically holy (if some-
what heretical) St. Francis of Assisi. White believed that St. Francis’s
spiritual biocentrism provided an antidote to the West’s pernicious
anthropocentrism.31 Drawing on St. Francis, White argued that humil-
ity is a virtue “not merely for the individual but for man as a species.”
Moreover, “More science and more technology are not going to get us
out of the present ecologic crisis until we find a new religion, or rethink
our old one.”32 For White, religion was the decisive variable that had
fueled but could now reverse environmental decline, especially if it re-
jected an instrumental and anthropocentric worldview in favor of reli-
gious biocentrism.
Although White was not alone in articulating such views, he did so
in a prominent venue (the widely read journal Science) and at an auspi-
cious cultural moment—the apex of the 1960s cultural upheavals. This
period was characterized by growing receptivity to the religious beliefs
and practices of indigenous and Asian peoples at the same time that
many were rejecting mainstream Western religions. Fused with intensi-
fying environmental alarm, this religion-related ferment provided fer-
tile cultural ground for a robust debate about the relationships between
people, religion, and nature.
Christians and some others in the Abrahamic traditions who en-
countered such views tended to respond in one of four ways: either
apologetically, arguing that properly understood their traditions were
environmentally sensitive; or confessionally, acknowledging guilt (at
12 INTRODUCING DARK GREEN RELIGION

least in part) and undertaking internal religious reform to make their

religions environmentally responsible. These two responses were a part
of the greening of Christianity that has been underway since the late
1960s.33 The third response was indifference, viewing the criticisms and
environmental concern as of minor or no importance to their religious
faith; and a fourth type was hostility, seeing such a concern as antithet-
ical to Christianity. These latter two responses ironically provided evi-
dence for White’s thesis.
These four types of response came from both laypeople and scholars.
Scholarly experts began probing sacred texts for their environmental
values, and some laypeople began to organize to encourage the green-
ing of their traditions. Before long, the soul searching that White’s the-
sis precipitated within Occidental religions spread to religions originat-
ing in Asia. This occurred, in part, because of scholarly reactions to
White’s thesis, including an important paper published by the geogra-
pher Yi-Fu Tuan shortly after White’s. Tuan challenged the idea of a
naturally environmentalist Asia by arguing that in China there was mas-
sive deforestation long before it could have been corrupted by an anti-
environmental Christian civilization.34 After Tuan, more scholars began
to ask why environmental decline had been so pronounced in Asia if, as
many believed, the religions there were environmentally friendly. Just
as White’s thesis had precipitated apologetic, confessional, indifferent,
and hostile reactions within the world’s Abrahamic traditions, the diverse
reactions to White’s thesis triggered similar responses among religion-
ists and scholars engaged with Asian religions.
In the case of both Western and Asian religions, religious studies
scholars played a significant role in the efforts to understand the environ-
mental strengths and weaknesses of their traditions. Scholars of religion
have often played twin roles as observers and participants in the religions
they study, so it is unsurprising that in the face of newly perceived envi-
ronmental challenges they would rethink the ethical responsibilities of the
traditions they know best. Quite a number of them, indeed, became di-
rectly involved in efforts to push the traditions they were analyzing to-
ward ethics that make environmental sustainability a central objective.
The greening of the world religions is not, however, the focus of the
present volume, except to the extent that such green religion is also dark:
on the one hand, perceiving nature as sacred and due reverent care; and
on the other, arousing the concern that inheres in all holistic ethics—that
the well-being if not rights of individuals could be endangered by efforts
to ensure the flourishing of some supposedly sacred whole.