Christophe Monnot, director of the survey “Towards a spiritualization of ecology? », supported by the Swiss National Fund, is a lecturer at the University of Strasbourg and a researcher at the University of Lausanne. He explains how ecologists find forms of spirituality to enchant their commitment to safeguarding our “common home”, the Earth.
Is spirituality a “new fuel” for ecology?
We have two close circles – on the one hand, the ecologists, on the other, the progressive spiritual clerics – who use their mutual values. On the one hand, the actors from the milieu of the Churches and movements of “contemporary spirituality” are asking questions of an ecological order, and claiming a necessary “internal transition” in order to resolve, at the root, the root causes of the climate crisis. On the other hand, the environmental movement, faced with the complexity of the problem, uses stories, rituals of a spiritual order, such as connecting to the Earth, or religious, such as safeguarding our “common home”. The Earth becomes a person, a sacred entity, Gaia, to be honored – hence practices like climate marches, Earth fasts, etc. We are witnessing a blurring of the boundaries between ecology, spirituality and religion. And to a renegotiation of the place of the human being in his environment. However, to rediscuss these human-environment relationships, we have little narration outside the great spiritual and religious stories.
Are we witnessing a return to religion through ecological commitment?
Overall, religion is losing momentum throughout Europe. These niches of populations who re-enchant their ecological commitment can give the impression of a return of the spiritual, but these are dotted practices. We do a “work that connects” internship; thousands of people go to the Objectif Terre festival in Lausanne, where “alchemical songs” or the “tao of love” are offered; we do an ascetic course to recharge our batteries, etc. And then nothing spiritual for six months. The environment of ecology, it is people of left, having absorbed the secularity, and which find forms of spirituality to enchant their ecological commitment. On arrival, we do not observe a return to religion, but rather the emergence of an ecospiritual discourse which becomes mainstream. In this regard, it is more familiar to hear in these circles “I believe in the energy of trees that communicate” than “I believe in the risen Jesus Christ”. But we are quite far from sectarian excesses.
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