I wouldn’t be the first to point out that popular environmentalism has a lot in common with pantheism. But one doesn’t have to make environmentalism a religion in order to see that the movement shares concerns with traditional religious worldviews. For example, the present Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox Church, Bartholomew, has earned the nickname “the Green Patriarch” for his efforts in encouraging Christian stewardship of the world’s resources. Oxford has released a new book by Robert Nadeau, Rebirth of the Sacred: Science, Religion, and the New Environmental Ethos (2012), that explores the relationship between spirituality and environmentalism. The publisher’s description follows.

There is also a large and growing consensus in the scientific community that resolving the environmental crisis will require massive changes in our political and economic institutions and new standards for moral and ethical behavior. In this groundbreaking book, Robert Nadeau makes a convincing case that these remarkable developments could occur if sufficient numbers of environmentally concerned people participate in the new dialogue between the truths of science and religion.

Those who enter this dialogue will discover that the most fundamental scientific truths in contemporary physics and biology are analogous to and fully compatible with the most profound spiritual truths in all of the great religious traditions of the world. They will learn that recent scientific Read more