The Rediscovery of Nature (Religion and the Environmental Crisis)

After several centuries of an ever-increasing eclipse of the religious significance of nature in the West and neglect of the order of nature by mainstream Christian religious thought , many Christian theologians have in the past two or three decades become interested once again in nature. It has taken the disastrous consequences of the environmental crisis and the threat to the very fabric of life to arouse religious thought in the West to the religious significance of the order of nature and the need to revive a theology concerned with Creation as well as redemption. Diverse paths have been chosen to face this challenge, some seeking to go back to the traditional roots of Christianity, others to turn East to Indian and Far Eastern religions, and yet others to search for the wisdom of the Native Shamanic religions, especially those of the Americas. And there are many who have sought to transform Christianity itself, including some of its most cherished doctrines and symbols in order to create a new religious attitude more conducive to the needs of the environment. Judaism in the West has also responded to the challenge of the environmental crisis mostly in a fashion parallel with that of Christianity, although it has not been willing to sacrifice much of its doctrines and sacred history.