5x15 hosts Karen Armstrong for a conversation on her powerful new book Sacred Nature - an urgent manifesto and a practical guide on how to rekindle our spiritual bond with nature, drawing on the wisdom of the world's religious traditions. She is in conversation with 5x15 co-founder Rosie Boycott.
Armstrong is one of the world’s leading commentators on religious affairs. She spent seven years as a Roman Catholic nun before going on to become an acclaimed writer and broadcaster.
In Sacred Nature, Armstrong argues that if we want to avert environmental catastrophe, it is not enough to change our behaviour: we need to learn to think and feel differently about the natural world - to rekindle our spiritual bond with nature. For most of human history, and in almost all the world's cultures, nature was believed to be sacred, and our God or gods to be present everywhere in the natural world.
When people in the West began to separate God and nature in modern times, it was not just a profound breach with thousands of years of accumulated wisdom: it also set in train the destruction of the natural world. Taking themes that have been central to the world's religious traditions - from gratitude and compassion to sacrifice and non-violence - Armstrong offers practical steps to help us develop a new mindset to reconnect with nature and rekindle our sense of the sacred.
Sacred Nature reveals the most profound connections between humans and the natural world. It speaks to anyone interested in our relationship with nature, worried about the destruction of our environment, and searching for new ways of thinking to shape the action needed to save our planet.
Karen Armstrong is one of the world's leading commentators on religious affairs. She spent seven years as a Roman Catholic nun but left her teaching order in 1969 to read English at St Anne's College, Oxford. In 1982, she became a full-time writer and broadcaster. She is the author of sixteen books and has been awarded with honours and prizes across the globe, including the British Academy's inaugural Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for improving transcultural understanding in 2013.
Rosie Boycott is a member of the House of Lords and has a long and distinguished career as a journalist, publisher and author, including having been the editor of several national newspapers in the UK.
Praise for Karen Armstrong:
‘Karen Armstrong is a genius’ A.N. Wilson
'One of our best living writers on religion' Financial Times
‘Karen Armstrong is one of the handful of wise and supremely intelligent commentators on religion' Alain de Botton
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