NATURE RELIGIONS AND REVOLUTIONARY SOCIAL CHANGE:
NATURE RELIGIONS AND REVOLUTIONARY SOCIAL CHANGE: ADVANCING A PRACTICAL THEOLOGY FOR SPIRITUAL ACTIVISM By Wayne Martin Mellinger, Ph.D. INTRODUCTION By far the greatest challenges that humanity has ever confronted are global climate change and the other environmental problems created by modern industrial civilization. Monthly the news seems to get worse as we learn that the ecological crisis is far bigger than we first thought and the time left before we face a potential environmental collapse is far shorter. Some well-informed researchers say that it is already too late to avoid catastrophic destruction of civilization or to “save the planet”. Joanna Macy, a prominent Buddhist eco-activist, labels our current era “The Great Turning” because it can be a period of transition from the old industrial system, which must be brought to an end, and the new sustainable system, which must emerge very soon 1 . As she notes, the Earth is both the sto...