Nature religion
A nature religion is a religious movement that believes nature and the natural world is an embodiment of divinity, sacredness or spiritual power.[1] Nature religions include indigenous religions practiced in various parts of the world by cultures who consider the environment to be imbued with spirits and other sacred entities. It also includes modern Pagan faiths, which are primarily concentrated in Europe and North America.
The term "nature religion" was first coined by the American religious studies scholar Catherine Albanese, who used it in her work Nature Religion in America: From the Algonkian Indians to the New Age (1991), and she later went on to use it in other studies. After Albanese developed the term, it has been used by other academics working in the discipline.
Use within academia[edit]
In April 1996, the University of Lancaster in North West England held a conference on contemporary Paganism entitled "Nature Religion Today: Western Paganism, Shamanism and Esotericism in the 1990s[5]", and ultimately led to the publication of an academic anthology of the same name two years later.[6][7] This book, Nature Religion Today: Paganism in the Modern World, was edited by members of the University's Department of Religious Studies, a postgraduate named Joanne Pearson and two professors, Richard H. Roberts and Geoffrey Samuel.[8]
In his study of Wicca, the Pagan studies scholar Ethan Doyle White expressed the view that the category of "nature religion" was problematic from a "historical perspective" because it solely emphasises the "commonalities of belief and attitude to the natural world" that are found between different religions and in doing so divorces these different belief systems from their distinctive socio-cultural and historical backgrounds.[9]