Lan T. Chu, Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa, Kalzang Bhutia, and Youssef Chouhoud (eds.), On the Significance of Religion in Climate Change (London: Routledge, 2025), 102 pp., $25.99 (pbk), ISBN: 9781032332598.
Brooks Lamb, Love for the Land: Lessons from Farmers Who Persist in Place, The Agrarian Studies Series, James Scott (ed.) (Yale: Yale University Press, 2023), xvii + 263 pp., $20.00 (pbk), ISBN 978-0-300-28010-4.
Christopher Ives, Zen Ecology: Green and Engaged Living in Response to the Climate Crisis (New York: Wisdom Publications, 2025), x + 253 pp., $24.95 (pbk), ISBN: 978-1-61429-954-7, $18.99 (eBook), ISBN: 978-1-61429-978-3.
Raimundo C. Barreto, Graham McGeoch, and Wanderley Pereira da Rosa (eds.), World Christianity and Ecological Theologies (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2024), 338 pp., £26.99 GBP (eBook), ISBN: 9798889831.
Graham St John, Strange Attractor: The Hallucinatory Life of Terence McKenna (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2025), 517 pp., $35 (pbk), ISBN: 978-0-262-04957
The article examines recent scientific developments in Europe within the parameters of what Bron Taylor (2010) defines as ‘dark green religion’. Using the language of discourse and dispositive research, it describes emerging orders of knowledge as the work of discourse communities formed primarily by scholars, artists, and practitioners of ecological ethics and cosmologies. In addition to changes within academic structures, a new field of ‘undisciplined’ knowledge production transcends disciplinary boundaries and creates spaces for experimenting with new knowledge outside of universities. By expanding the definition of discourse communities beyond human participants, scholars form transversal alliances with human and nonhuman actors, embrace the subversive power of art, and challenge hegemonic orders of knowledge. The result is a form of science that no longer rests on old binaries but instead thinks and acts in terms of planetary collaboration. These subversive efforts can be called ‘dark green sciences’.
Research on the Enlightenment has shown the deep historical roots of arguments for nature preservation and animal welfare. Religion’s decisive role in this development, however, is often overlooked. To address this, I examine the eco-spirituality of Scottish revolutionary John Oswald (c. 1760–1793). Oswald, a militant Jacobin whom many consider an atheist, advocated vegetarianism, challenged human-centric views, and expressed a profound spiritual connection to nature. I highlight Oswald’s belief in multispecies interconnection, animistic kinship, and his ethical stance that all beings have intrinsic value, and I suggest that his ecological ideas were grounded in Enlightenment discourses on human progress, New Science, and egalitarianism during the Age of Revolution. I argue that his groundbreaking vision presaged important shifts in spiritual and ecological perceptions, and even radical environmental ideologies. Thus, the Enlightenment era laid the groundwork for generations of ‘dark green’ spiritualities, which gained prominence after the Darwinian revolution.
Adrian J. Ivakhiv, The New Lives of Images: Digital Ecologies and Anthropocene Imaginaries in More-than-Human Worlds (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2025), 436 pp., $35.00 (pbk), ISBN: 978-1-5036-4398-7.
The Alps, with their thousands of mountain peaks, are considered the epitome of nature in Europe. How do people view this nature? Is it also perceived and revered as a religious phenomenon, and if so, to what extent? This is the central question of this paper. For theoretical classification, I use Bron Taylor’s pioneering study on Dark Green Religion, first published in 2010. For the empirical assessment, I focus on three episodes that took place in Italy between 2021 and 2023. These include the attempted sanctification of a mountain in the Gran Paradiso National Park, a UN mountain celebration at the Holy See in Rome, and finally, a public controversy over summit crosses. They illustrate a remarkable variety of debates and voices that can be heard on this topic today which can only be understood when viewed against their historical background. The Alps have long been part of Christian counties sharing the religion’s problematic relationship with nature. How this relationship has changed in recent times can be assessed by closely observing the statements made by the actors in this field.
The novel types of dark green nature spirituality that are now proliferating in the Western world have been given systematic attention in Bron Taylor’s writings. I probe Taylor’s speculations on the shadow potentials of these new spiritualities by asking if fascist ecology is dark green in Taylor’s sense. I do so by developing a thematic analysis of the French intellectual Alain de Benoist, whose works have been central for a contemporary fascist engagement with questions of ecology. My findings suggest that while Benoist’s ideology shares certain affinities with dark green religion, clear divergences exist between the two ecological worldviews. Benoist’s rejection of planetary oneness and his reluctance to separate with even weak notions of human superiority are obstacles for any reduction of fascist ecology to dark green religion. Future research, however, would need to analyse other ideological iterations of fascist ecology and turn beyond its intellectual expressions towards its concrete practices.
Melody Jue, Coralations (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2025), 88 pp., $10 (pbk), ISBN: 9781517918125.
Barbara Jane Davy, Wyrd Ecology: Heathen Ritual and Gifting Relations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2025), x + 229 pp., $125.00 (pbk), $34.99 (pbk), ISBN: 9780197804919.
In Dark Green Religion (2010), I argued that growing numbers of people worldwide regard nature as sacred and worthy of reverent care, and that these orientations exert increasing cultural and political influence. These claims have stimulated sustained scholarly debate, inspiring the conference and research collaboration that produced this thematic double issue on ‘Dark Green Religion in Europe’. To frame this inquiry, I provide a synthetic overview of the dark green analytic construct, the typical features of the nature spiritualities I have spotlighted, and the expanding body of evidence on which the framework rests, including developments since the book’s publication. Drawing on examples from popular culture, environmental movements, media, museums, and emerging intellectual currents, I argue that European cases both reflect and contribute to these global developments. I conclude that accumulating evidence confirms the construct’s explanatory power and the expanding cultural influence of what, as shorthand, I sometimes call Gaian Animism.
Suzanne Owen and Angela Puca (eds.), Pagan Religions in Five Minutes (Sheffield: Equinox Publishing, 2024), 342 pp., £ 22.95 (cloth), ISBN: 9781800505254.
When, in which contexts, and on what scales are Indigenous religion(s) in Sápmi articulated as Dark Green Religion, and based on which of Bron Taylor’s four types? To address these questions, I move between urban areas in the south and settlement areas in the north, and between different formation, ranging from Sámi shamanism to indigenous Sámi Christianity and traditional spirituality. I conclude with a scalar and spatial mapping of differences and intersections. While dominant in the settlement areas, traditional forms of Lutheran Christianity are neither Dark Green nor indigenous religion(s) (based on my definition of the term). Animism serves as a common ground for shamans, indigenous Christianity, and traditional spirituality, but ranging from naturalistic forms in the settlement areas to spiritualistic forms in the urban south. Gaian spirituality is articulated in urban contexts, as well as in global venues and popular culture.
Ellen Bernstein, Toward a Holy Ecology: Reading the Song of Songs in the Age of Climate Crisis (Rhinebeck, NY: Monkfish Book Publishing Company, 2024), 170 pp., $17.95 (pbk), ISBN: 9781958972199.
Adaptations to ritual practices are occurring in Delhi, including the use of artificial immersion ponds within two Hindu festivals: दुर्गा पूजा (Durga Puja) and छठ पूजा (Chhath Puja). Taalaab (artificial ponds) are now mandated as permanent practice, changing social relations between worshippers, and cultural connections with the River Yamuna, now distanced from rituals where it once had a prominent place. We present interview data from worshippers at annual iterations of both festivals (2021–2023), as well as Puja organizing committee members, documenting their attitudes to and feelings about changing practices. Too great a focus on technical or regulatory aspects of water management can unleash unexpected social consequences, which are enmeshed in broader cultural, religious, and socio-political systems. This paper illustrates complex responses from one geographical and religious context, to argue that understandings of intended (environmental) and unintended (social) consequences, both positive and negative, should be considered within water management strategies.
Carlyn Ena Ferrari, Do Not Separate Her from Her Garden: Anne Spencer’s Ecopoetics (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2022), 155 pp., $27.50 (pbk), ISBN: 9780813948775.
Religion can act as a catalyst for—or barrier toward—engaging in pro-environmental action. We aim to understand why the highly traditional Jewish Orthodox communities of Toronto, Montreal, and North American more broadly, seldom participate in environmental action. We employ qualitative methodology by conducting in-depth semi-structured interviews and coding data through inductive thematic analysis and framing theory. We find significant barriers to the communities engaging in environmental action, including: (1) the association of environmentalism with left-wing/progressive movements; (2) the communities’ lack of capacity to prioritize environmental action; and (3) the perceived inconvenience of environmental action, especially as challenged by customary requirements. We also find that opportunities for these communities to engage in environmental action include: (1) finding and leveraging halakhic/traditional support of environmentalism; (2) aligning environmental programming to Orthodox belief, expectations, and requirements; and (3) increasing environmental education that emphasizes the importance of environmental action within Orthodox communities.
Contemporary Western Paganism, originating in Britain through the efforts of Margaret Murry, Gerald Gardner, Doreen Valiente, and Robert Cochrane as well as various Druidical orders, has spread to North America, the rest of Europe and beyond. The widely diverse ‘Pagan Tent’ has come to include both telluric and gnostic forms of spirituality as well as much of what can be identified as the New Age Movement. Along with its decided proclivity toward ritual performance and ritualistic expression in connection with the irrealis, the sacralization of nature is central to virtually all pagan conviction. The Dark Green Religion analytic is herewith investigated and appraised in its applicability to the increasing eco-pagan concern with biodiversity and environmental activism.
