Maria Nita

• PhD
• Lecturer at The Open University

The article examines “sky saviour” themes in a number of sources in the Western cultural domain, from biblical texts to contemporary paranormal fantasy, in contrast with some countercultural and ecocritical reformulations that are earth-centred. I postulate “narratives of empowerment” as representations of humans’ relationships with remembered and...

The article investigates discourses of ‘spirituality’ in the field of Health Studies, among scholarly voices and the voices of the practitioners and patients these studies reflect. It examines current trends in contemporary spirituality as well as links with debates involving science, religion and secularisation. The article argues that, in the pub...

Four free pop festivals, held in Windsor and Watchfield in 1972-75, attracted significant public attention. This article discusses the aims and ideals of the festivalgoers, the confused reactions of the authorities, the ambivalence of the Anglican Church and the hostility of some conservative groups. We argue that the free festivals mark an importa...

The article examines the Greenbelt festival in the UK, looking at how Green and Liberal Christians experiment with sacred spaces during worship occasions, talks and workshops. I show that Greenbelt represents a syncretic encounter between the modern festival culture on one hand and Christian community experiments and aspirations on the other, some...

How do participants in ecological rituals engage with and relate to place? How do they draw on their respective religious traditions and existing green practices in their perceptions of sacred space and ritual place? How do religious and non-religious green activists relate to the planet, given its prominence as a central symbol in climate change d...

The green movement has been dominated by various campaigns over the past four decades, such as anti-nuclear in the 1980s or road protests in the 1990s, and many others, from opposition to GM crops or airport expansion to the present anti-fracking campaign. The climate and transitions movements have many genealogical links with previous campaigns, o...

Given the fact that my research with environmental Christians is based on primary data, I present here a set of methods and models that will help me analyse and discuss the data. I do this in two sections: in the first section, I discuss the research field and its boundaries from an Actor–Network–Theory (ANT) standpoint and I outline my approach to...

Community building is perhaps an overused notion but it nevertheless represents an important driver in green Christian networks and activist networks more widely. As I have showed in previous chapters, many environmental organisations, like the transition towns movement, are predicated on building sustainable communities. The present chapter will i...

I attempt here to map the field of green Christianity by looking at the larger field of the green movement and progressively narrow the focus to Christian environmentalism, thus providing a solid background for future discussions. The present chapter will thus take turns to examine ecology and the environmental movement, the climate movement, eco-t...

In this chapter, I will attempt to profile the Christian networks I have researched making use of my theoretical model for networks, and describe my own participation with them. The networks will be described against the backdrop of the climate and transition movements, which I examined in the previous chapter. I will describe three main networks:...

Having agreed a methodology, the next question must be where do we apply it? What exactly do we study and why? Why study an activist network and if we are choosing to study one, an important question is what exactly is a network? The same goes for religious identity and religious practices. To aid my own analysis as well as propose models for futur...

In this chapter, I attempt to offer a profile for green Christian activists. My data shows that more than half of climate activists self-identify as ‘non-religious’ and in some cases they are opposed to institutionalised religions, a fact that is recognised by other studies and scholars. By discussing the results of my survey as well as other secon...

For the last two chapters I will turn to rituals, performances and worship occasions, the outward expression of environmentalism. Ritual is ubiquitous in the green movement. For many activists direct action has a spiritual dimension and my data indicates that in the climate movement direct action is in fact highly ritualised and perceived as an opp...

Although silence is a powerful way of expressing communion with non-humans as I showed in the previous chapters, green prayers are often used in collective worship by green Christians to express anger, despair and hope in the face of the ecological crisis. During my involvement with environmental Christians, I collected numerous green prayers and t...

This book presents an ethnographic study of environmental Christian networks involved in the climate and transition towns movements. Maria Nita examines the ways in which green Christians engage with their communities and networks, as well as other activist networks in the broader green movement. The book interrogates key categories in the field of...

Cherry, Stephen M., and Helen Rose Ebaugh, eds. 2014. Global Religious Movements across Borders: Sacred Service. Farnham: Ashgate. xiv + 220pp. ISBN 978 1 4094 5687 2. Hbk. £65. ISBN 978 1 4094 5688 9. Pbk. £19.99. Harvey, Sarah, and Suzanne Newcombe, eds. 2013. Prophecy in the New Millennium: When Prophecy Persists. Farnham: Ashgate. xiii + 295pp....