Worldly Wonder: Religions Enter Their Ecological Phase

The author calls upon the world's religions to assist in combating the destructive trends of our time, mobilizing a virtual "alliance of religion and ecology" against unlimited economic growth, rampant consumption, and unrestrained globalization. World religions have begun to move from a preoccupation with God-human relations and human-human relations to encompass human-earth relations. They are now entering their planetary or (Gaian) phase. In its new alliance with ecology, religion should move from isolated orthodoxy to interrelated dialogue, revivify its rituals and symbols in light of environmental crisis, align its moral authority with liberation rather than oppression, favor a this-worldly rather that other-worldly soteriology, and advance from anthropocentric to anthropocosmic ethics.