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RELIGION AND ECOLOGY 61 2. How can marginalized, apocryphal, and ignored texts and teachings that support an environmental ethic be restored to the canon? 3. How can new beliefs, values, and practices be developed, consistent with the religious tradition, that will support an environmental ethic?” (Hubbell — Ryan 2022: 138). The same researchers also warn, with reference to other colleagues as well (see Rigby 2017; Simkins 2018), that without political, economic, and social transformation, the new ideas will not automatically change the world (Hubbell — Ryan 2022: 139). An abundance of literature is available on the theme of religion and environmentalism. People with religious beliefs who are well-versed in environmental issues and the re-interpretation of ecological works have important roles in tackling the environmental crisis. This recognition has led to great activity among scholars, theologians, and practitioners of diverse fields. One discipline is confessional literature, which reinterprets the traditions and doctrines of a given faith. This re-interpretive work sometimes results in new trends such as engaged Buddhism, elaborated by Buddhist monk and activist Thich Nhat Hahn, or Catholic Thomas Berry’s geo-religion which combined various religious teachings and earth sciences to focus on the miracle of the Creation. Constructive literature consists of scholarly works that assess how diverse religions respond to the Anthropocene crises; how environmental changes shaped religions in the past, and how climate change may influence them in the future (Jenkins et al. 2017; Szerszynski 2017); how the eco-conscious utterances of central actors and institutions influence their flocks (Vatican, Dalai Lama, Council of World Religions); how eco-justice and care for Creation create new interfaith and ecumenical alliances. There are, at the same time, religious groups which reject an eco-conscious ethic or take a theoretical and practical position directly opposed to the (protection of the) environment (on this, see Kearns 2011; Taylor 2016). A broad area of religion and the environment concerns religious activism (see Gottlieb 2006a; 2006b; 2017). Research is taking place into how the call to service of any given religion implies manifestations of environmental themes, ecojustice, or activities which promote solutions to environmental problems. Excellent examples of this trend are the British Christian and Islamic climate activists who see their ecological activism (participation in climate movements, praying and fasting for the Earth) as a mode of exercising their religion (Nita 2014). Eco-spirituality, nature religion, native faiths Next to the so-called “greening” of the major world religions, it is far more difficult to conceptualize that nature-centric spirituality not bound to any extant religion or church, which has been shown to be gaining ground in environment-conscious thought (Taylor 1995, 2010). This attitude is best expressed by the term ecospirituality, which implies a profound experience of unity with nature and of the equivalence and interdependence of each and every living being. Eco-spirituality is often characterized by pantheism and a general holistic approach. Some of its adherents profess an ecocentric environmental ethic, seeing the human being as but one among the multitudes of beings in interaction, and not as the peak of
