Karen Armstrong on Sacred Nature

Join 5x15 in July to hear one of the world’s leading commentators on religious affairs, Karen Armstrong, explore our spiritual bond with nature

Karen Armstrong has been hailed as one of our best living writers on religion. In her hugely powerful book, Sacred Nature, she 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.

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’s book offers practical steps to help 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, and will speak to anyone 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 cross bench peer in the House of Lords. For ten years she was chair of The London food Board, responsible to the Mayor of London for food policy in the City. She is a well known food activist with particular interest in food poverty, health, environment and agricultural sustainability. She is a trustee of the Food Foundation and Feeding Britain and chair of Veg Power. She was the co-founder of the feminist magazine Spare Rib and the editor in chief of three national newspapers: The Independent on Sunday, the Independent and the Daily Express.