Reconsidering Nature Religion

(Paperback)

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Nature religion is a much broader and more pervasive part of our culture than we may know. In the late twentieth century, for example, certain nature-based New Age perspectives and practices emergeddevelopments whose seeds were planted in the nature religion of nineteenth-century America. In Reconsidering Nature Religion, Catherine Albanese looks at the place where nature and religion come together, and explores how this operates in contemporary life and thinking. Nature, she says, functions as an absolute that grounds and orients life. Religion concerns the ways that people use this absolute of nature to form a meaningful life. And religion itself provides ways of interacting with nature. Nature religion is one essential way that people relate to the ordinary and extra-ordinary aspects of their worlds. It was so for people like the famous naturalist John Muir, and remains so for us today. For all of us, nature works in a religious way that informs and transforms life.

Reviews

"This is a delightful, short, and almost lyrical piece that seeks to demonstrate, in sweeping terms, the passionate religious bases of such modern impulses as New Age, animal communication, vegetarianism, and environmentalism. It stands in the tradition of the programmatic, incisive essay and is a satisfying read -- historically, conceptually and literarily." Linda Mercandante Ph.D., Methodist Theological School in Ohio. Blurb from reviewer. -- Linda Mercandante * Blurb from reviewer *
Drawing on such diverse and eclectic sources as Native Americans, Edward Abbey, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Aldo Leopold, Catherine Albanese deftly argues that a range of practices, including osteopathy, environmentalism, and animal communication, properly fall under the rubric "Nature Religion," which she devised more than a decade ago. This fascinating book represents an important advance on her earlier thinking. Randall Balmer Ann Whitney Olin Professor of American Religion Barnard College, Columbia University Blurb from reviewer. -- Randall Balmer * Blurb from reviewer *
This is a remarkable work. In a brief span Albanese demonstrates the historical roots of the religious dimensions of today's environmental and ethical movements, and does it with reliability, richness of detail, and eminent readability. Peter W. Williams, author of Popular Religion in America and America's Religions. Blurb from reviewer. -- Peter W. Williams * Blurb from reviewer *
"Catherine Albanese has consistently, throughout her distinguished career, invited her readers to explore the breadth of American religion, drawing them beyond conventional understandings of what it has meant to live in the world religiously. In this fine book she explores, in a lucid and imaginative way, the implications of her argument that the American fascination with nature has repeatedly displayed religious sensibilities and assumed religious forms. She instructs and delights, and she allows us to see the seemingly familiar in fresh and surprising ways." E. Brooks Holifield, Charles Howard Candler Professor, Emory University Blurb from reviewer. -- E. Brooks Holifield * Blurb from reviewer *
"This is a delightful and almost lyrical piece that seeks to demonstrate, in sweeping terms, the passionate religious bases of such modern impulses as New Age, animal communication, vegetarianism, and environmentalism. A satisfying read-historically, conceptually, and literarily." -- Linda Mercadante * Blurb from reviewer *
"Catherine Albanese deftly argues that a range of practices, including osteopathy, environmentalism, and animal communication, properl fall under the rubric 'Nature Religion,' which she devised more than a decade ago. This fascinating book represents an important advance on her earlier thinking." -- Randall Balmer * Blurb from reviewer *
"This is a remarkable work. In a brief span Albanese demonstrates the historical roots of the religious dimensions of today's environmental and ethical movements, and does it with reliability, richness of detail, and eminent readability." -- Peter W. Williams * Blurb from reviewer *
"In this fine book, Albanese explores, in a lucid and imaginative way, the implications of her argument that the American fascination with nature has repeatedly displayed religious sensibilities and assumed religious forms. She instucts and delights, and she allows us to see the seemingly familiar in fresh and surprising ways." -- E. Brooks Holifield * Blurb from reviewer *