ECOLOGY AND NATURE RELIGION*

The term nature religion or the plural nature religions most commonly is used as an umbrella term for religious perceptions and practices that despite substantial diversity are characterized by a reverence for nature and consider nature sacred. Over the last few centuries a number of phrases have been used to capture the family resemblance, including natural religion, nature worship, nature mysticism, and earth religion, and words have been invented to reflect what is taken to be the universal essence of such religiosity, such as paganism, animism, and pantheism. The term nature religion, which began to be employed regularly within religious subcultures at about the time of the first Earth Day celebration in 1970, is used increasingly to represent and debate such “nature-as-sacred ” religion in both popular and scholarly venues. History of the Idea of Nature Religion. Regardless of the terminology, the idea has a long history that in significant ways parallels the evolution of the academic study of religion. Indeed, the most common contemporary understanding of nature religion resembles the nature-venerating religiosity described in E. B. Tylor’s Primitive Cultur