Letter: Can Nature-worship be the basis of a new religion?

IN MY opinion, David Nicholson Lord has entirely misrepresented the situation. At a time when church attendance is not, as in past ages, either compulsory or socially desirable, nearly 10 per cent of the population are practising Christians. The quoted 60,000 Travellers comprise only 0.01 per cent of the people of this country. Christianity, on these figures alone, hardly seems a spent force. Of course Christians do not see God within nature. We believe He created it. To look for God in nature would be like looking for an artist within his picture.

The majority of people do not worship nature. The real idol that we worship is the god of Mammon - materialism. It is short-term greed that fells the rain forests and kills the whales and, in my opinion, it is Christianity, not a depersonalised nature-mysticism, that might stop us destroying our planet out of reverence for God's creation.

Jacqueline Orman

Ruardean, Glos