Writers like Annie Dillard and Wendell Berry extol the vision of God in creation. Christian saints who embody ecological wholeness, like St. Francis of Assisi and Hildegard of Bingen, enjoy surprising popularity. And Jewish scholars cull the Hebrew scriptures to find new understandings of early Israel as a people serving the land. All this contrasts sharply with the past. Historically, Western religions have been ambivalent or hostile to nature.
Some scholars even attribute the environmental crisis to western religion.
Backed by God's command to subdue nature, Western Europeans wreacked ecological havoc on the world. Seattle proved that religious belief is not at enmity with the Earth. Among those wanting to save it were many thousands of religious people. Typically, Wiccans, Buddhists, Roman Catholics and Presbyterians do not have much in common. For nearly two millennia, this dualism reigned in the West.