Bron Raymond Taylor (born 15 April 1955) is an American scholar and conservationist. He is professor of religion and nature at the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preem ...

and has also been an affiliated scholar with the Center for Environment and Development at the

University of Oslo The University of Oslo (; ) is a public university, public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation#Europe, oldest university in Norway. Originally named the Royal Frederick Univ ...

. Taylor works principally in the areas of religion and ecology,

environmental ethics In environmental philosophy, environmental ethics is an established field of practical philosophy "which reconstructs the essential types of argumentation that can be made for protecting natural entities and the sustainable use of natural resourc ...

and

environmental philosophy Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, referring respectively to all living and non-living things occurring naturally and the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism ...

. He is also a prominent historian and

ethnographer Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

of environmentalism and especially radical environmentalist movements, surfing culture and nature-based spiritualities. Taylor is also editor-in-chief of the ''Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature'' and subsequently founded the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, serving as its president from 2006 to 2009. He also founded the society's affiliated ''

Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture The ''Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture'' (''JSRNC'') is a peer-reviewed academic journal on religious studies. The journal is the official journal of the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture. The ...

'', serving as its editor since 2007.

Dark green religion

Taylor is credited with coining the term "dark green religion" or "dark green spirituality", which he broadly defines as a religion, or a "religion-resembling" set of beliefs and practices, characterized by a central conviction that "nature is sacred, has intrinsic value, and is therefore due reverent care."Taylor, Bron (2010). Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future. University of California Press, Berkeley. Tied in with this belief is a felt kinship with non-human entities and a conscious awareness of the interconnected and interdependent nature of life on the planet. Taylor argues that dark green religion possesses many of the characteristics of established religions, such as sacred texts (a book such as ''

Walden ''Walden'' (; first published as ''Walden; or, Life in the Woods'') is an 1854 book by American transcendentalism, transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau. The text is a reflection upon the author's simple living in natural surroundings. T ...

'', for example), prophets (writers and activists such as

Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau (born David Henry Thoreau; July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading Transcendentalism, transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon sim ...

John Muir John Muir ( ; April 21, 1838December 24, 1914), also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the national park, National Parks", was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologi ...

and

Rachel Carson Rachel Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964) was an American marine biologist, writer, and conservation movement, conservationist whose sea trilogy (1941–1955) and book ''Silent Spring'' (1962) are credited with advancing mari ...

), rituals ( "soul surfers" meeting the ocean at dawn) and elements some consider dangerous (radical "eco-terrorists"). Dark green religion also has an inherently political component with regards to

environmentalism Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement about supporting life, habitats, and surroundings. While environmentalism focuses more on the environmental and nature-related aspects of green ideology and politics, ecolog ...

; the idea that nature is sacred comes with an ethical responsibility to treat it as such. As outlined in '' Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future'', Taylor asserts that belief in the sacrality of nature may or may not involve a belief in supernatural beings or forces. An

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

who reads evolution as an epic narrative of spiritual significance may be engaging in dark green religion, as would a

pantheist Pantheism can refer to a number of philosophical and religious beliefs, such as the belief that the universe is God, or panentheism, the belief in a non-corporeal divine intelligence or God out of which the universe arisesAnn Thomson; Bodies ...

who is humbled by the structure of the cosmos. Those who perceive the Earth to be like an organism if not also a sentient being ( Gaianism), or intuit that animals and trees possess spiritual intelligences (

animism Animism (from meaning 'breath, spirit, life') is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. Animism perceives all things—animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather systems, human handiwork, and in ...

), may also be viewed as engaging in dark green religion, according to Taylor. Dark green religion often finds common ground with religious traditions such as

paganism Paganism (, later 'civilian') is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Christianity, Judaism, and Samaritanism. In the time of the ...

and

shamanism Shamanism is a spiritual practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into ...

, as well as philosophical belief systems such as

deep ecology Deep ecology is an environmental philosophy that promotes the inherent worth of all living beings regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs, and argues that modern human societies should be restructured in accordance with such idea ...

Aldo Leopold Aldo Leopold (January 11, 1887 – April 21, 1948) was an American writer, Philosophy, philosopher, Natural history, naturalist, scientist, Ecology, ecologist, forester, Conservation biology, conservationist, and environmentalist. He was a profes ...

's theory of

land ethic A land ethic is a philosophy or theoretical framework about how, ethically, humans should regard the land. The term was coined by Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) in his '' A Sand County Almanac'' (1949), a classic text of the environmental movement. ...

, and

James Lovelock James Ephraim Lovelock (26 July 1919 – 26 July 2022) was an English independent scientist, environmentalist and futurist. He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that the Earth functions as a self-regulating syst ...

Gaia hypothesis The Gaia hypothesis (), also known as the Gaia theory, Gaia paradigm, or the Gaia principle, proposes that living organisms interact with their Inorganic compound, inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a Synergy, synergistic and Homeostasis, s ...

. Taylor's conviction that "religion" is a paradigm that can be understood to include entirely naturalistic worldviews puts him at odds with many of the new atheist thinkers such as

Christopher Hitchens Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British and American author and journalist. He was the author of Christopher Hitchens bibliography, 18 books on faith, religion, culture, politics, and literature. He was born ...

and especially

Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, zoologist, science communicator and author. He is an Oxford fellow, emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Simonyi Professor for the Publ ...

, whom he discusses directly in his book. Taylor contends that dark green religiosity has deep roots and has manifested itself in a diversity of ways throughout human history. He finds eco-spiritual synchronicity, for example, in phenomena as seemingly disparate as surfing magazines and the writings of

Edmund Burke Edmund Burke (; 12 January ew Style, NS1729 – 9 July 1797) was an Anglo-Irish Politician, statesman, journalist, writer, literary critic, philosopher, and parliamentary orator who is regarded as the founder of the Social philosophy, soc ...

. Other cultural actors and elements explored by Taylor include

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...

Jane Goodall Dame Jane Morris Goodall (; born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall; 3 April 1934), formerly Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, is an English zoologist, Primatology, primatologist and Anthropology, anthropologist. She is considered the world's foremo ...

Edward Abbey Edward Paul Abbey (January 29, 1927 – March 14, 1989) was an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues, criticism of public land policies, and anarchist political views. His best-known works include the nov ...

Alice Walker Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which she was awa ...

, tree-sitting activists, the

Earth Liberation Front The Earth Liberation Front (ELF), also known as "Elves" or "The Elves", is the collective name for Wiktionary:autonomy, autonomous individuals or covert cells who, according to the ELF Press Office, use "economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to ...

, the

Animal Liberation Front The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) is a Far-left politics, far-left international, Leaderless resistance, leaderless, decentralized movement that emerged in Britain in the 1970s, evolving from the Bands of Mercy. It operates without a formal lead ...

Al Gore Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American former politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. He previously served as ...

, ''Orion'' magazine and Disney films such as ''

The Lion King ''The Lion King'' is a 1994 American animated musical coming-of-age drama film directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, produced by Don Hahn, and written by Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts, and Linda Woolverton. Produced by Walt Disney ...

'' and ''Pocahontas''. Taylor has also written about

James Cameron James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian filmmaker, who resides in New Zealand. He is a major figure in the post-New Hollywood era and often uses novel technologies with a Classical Hollywood cinema, classical filmmaking styl ...

's film ''Avatar'' and its relevance to dark green religion. He argues that the widespread popularity of the film, in which nature is regarded as sentient and sacred, is a testament to the growing appeal of dark green spirituality around the world. Taylor also finds an emerging global receptivity to dark green religious sentiment in political institutions such as the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

. He has observed that, as concerns over the state of the environment intensify, global summits aimed at addressing the

ecological crisis An ecological or environmental crisis occurs when changes to the environment of a species or population destabilizes its continued survival. Some of the important causes include: * Degradation of an abiotic ecological factor (for example, incr ...

have assumed a decidedly spiritual tenor. He points to the opening ceremony of the 2002

World Summit on Sustainable Development The World Summit on Sustainable Development 2002, took place in South Africa, from 26 August to 4 September 2002. It was convened to discuss sustainable development organizations, 10 years after the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. (It was t ...

as one example of this trend. He argues that current trends in earthen spirituality might even presage the emergence of a “civil earth religion” that promotes loyalty to the biosphere rather than to nation states.

Dark green versus green religion

Taylor makes a distinction between dark green religious phenomena (which emanate from a belief that nature is sacred), and the relatively recent "greening" of certain sectors of established religious traditions (which see

eco-friendly Environment friendly processes, or environmental-friendly processes (also referred to as eco-friendly, nature-friendly, and green), are sustainability and marketing terms referring to goods and services, laws, guidelines and policies that c ...

activities as a religious obligation). Many of the central figures and seminal texts of dark green religion, as curated by Taylor, express a strong condemnation of Abrahamic theism, which, dark green religionists allege, as Lynn Townsend White, Jr. did in a famous ''Science'' essay in 1968, is deeply linked to an

anthropocentric Anthropocentrism ( ) is the belief that human beings are the central or most important entity on the planet. The term can be used interchangeably with humanocentrism, and some refer to the concept as human supremacy or human exceptionalism. From a ...

worldview that sees human beings as above nature and divinely endowed with the right to dominion over the

biosphere The biosphere (), also called the ecosphere (), is the worldwide sum of all ecosystems. It can also be termed the zone of life on the Earth. The biosphere (which is technically a spherical shell) is virtually a closed system with regard to mat ...

. Those aligned in the dark green religion camp have alleged that this

cosmogony Cosmogony is any model concerning the origin of the cosmos or the universe. Overview Scientific theories In astronomy, cosmogony is the study of the origin of particular astrophysical objects or systems, and is most commonly used in ref ...

has played a major role in the desecration and exploitation of the natural world. For this reason, those engaged in dark green religion are often skeptical that conventional religions can play a constructive role in halting and reversing ecological degradation. While the environmentalist efficacy of the stewardship model, which some think is mandated by Judaism, Christianity and Islam alike, remains a hotly disputed issue, many dark green thinkers believe that efforts to preserve the ecosystem will not succeed unless underlying spiritual attitudes are shifted towards a more biocentric perspective. To this point, in a 2010 interview with the online magazine ''

Religion Dispatches ''Religion Dispatches'' is a secular daily non-profit online magazine covering religion, politics, and culture. RD covers topics of religious thought, past and present, that underwrite social structures (with a special focus on inequality and inj ...

'', Taylor stated, "Although it is not my intent to annoy those with conventional religious understandings, few such religionists will welcome the evidence assembled in ''Dark Green Religion'', or my supposition based on this evidence, that eventually their religions are likely to be supplanted by naturalistic forms of nature spirituality."Taylor, Bron
"Losing Old Gods, Finding Nature"

, 21 January 2010. Taylor has thus drawn criticism from those who believe that conventional religious ethics and infrastructure can be effective agents of environmental preservation.

Selected publications

"Surfing into Spirituality and a New, Aquatic Nature Religion"
''

Journal of the American Academy of Religion The ''Journal of the American Academy of Religion'', formerly the ''Journal of Bible and Religion'', is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Academy of Religion (AAR). The ''JAAR'' was es ...

'', 75(4):-951, 2007.
"The Religion and Politics of Earth First!"
''

The Ecologist ''The Ecologist'' was a British environmental journal/magazine, published from 1970 to 2009. Founded by Edward Goldsmith, it addressed a wide range of environmental subjects and promoted an ecological systems thinking approach through its news ...

'', 21(6):258-266, November/December 1991.
"Bioregionalism: An Ethics of Loyalty to Place"
'' Landscape Journal'', 19(1&2):50-72, 2000.
"Earthen Spirituality or Cultural Genocide?: Radical Environmentalism's Appropriation of Native American Spirituality"
''

Religion Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...

'', 27(2):183-215, April 1997.
"Green Apocalypticism: Understanding Disaster in the Radical Environmental Worldview"
'' Society and Natural Resources'', 12(4):377-386, June 1999.
"Religion, Violence, and Radical Environmentalism: from Earth First! to the Unabomber to the Earth Liberation Front"
''

Terrorism and Political Violence ''Terrorism and Political Violence'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering terrorism and counter-terrorism published by Routledge. It was established in 1989 by David C. Rapoport (University of California, Los Angeles), who remains editor- ...

'', 10(4):1-42, Winter 1998.
"Earth and Nature-Based Spirituality: From Earth First! and Bioregionalism to Scientific Paganism and the New Age"
''

'', 31(3):225-245, July 2001.
"Earth and Nature-Based Spirituality: From Deep Ecology to Radical Environmentalism"
''

'', 31(2):175-193, April 2001.
"Diggers, Wolves, Ents, Elves and Expanding Universes: Bricolage, Religion, and Violence from Earth First! and the Earth Liberation Front to the Anti-Globalization Resistance"
Chapter 3 in ''The Cultic Milieu: Oppositional Subcultures in an Age of Globalization'', Eds. Jeffrey Kaplan and Heléne Lööw, Altimura, 26–74, 2002.
"Resacralizing Earth: Environmental Paganism and the Restoration of Turtle Island"
Chapter 3 in ''American Sacred Space'', Eds. D. Chidester and E.T. Linenthal, Indiana University Press, Religion in America Series, 97–151, 1995.
"Deep Ecology and its Social Philosophy: A Critique"
Chapter 14 in ''Beneath the Surface: Critical Essays on Deep Ecology''. Eds. E. Katz. A. Light, D. Rothenberg, Boston, MIT Press, 269–299, 2000. *'' Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future''. University of California Press, Berkeley, 2010.