I am going to share my response here. We are both aimed at pushing the evolution of traditional religion into an ethical and planetary valuing practice of faith.
Michael,
As usual, I can applaud what you are saying. Your perspective on recasting religious faith into evidence-based belief systems is crucial, in fact, necessary to avoiding an ecological apocalypse. If I have a complaint, it is your use of re-purposed religious language. And I want to say this in a very circumspect way because I don't want to sound like I am right and you are wrong because the larger truth is that we are probably both right depending upon the audience that we are speaking to. You are trying to salvage the language of the church by giving it new and more honest meanings. That is, after all, what Bultmann was asking us to do nearly a hundred years ago.
My gut reaction, however, to listening to your sermon, is that the use of Christ, or Christian, Christ-ian, God, language forms a kind of mental exit ramp that makes me stop listening. I want to acknowledge that the use of that language may be "on ramps" for people who are still more "churched" than I am, but with that being said, let me make my case:
You say that "reality is God." I am more inclined to speak simply of the "is-ness" of existence. What is testable, repeatable, observable, i.e., that which we have a rational reason to believe is truth. So, basically, our perspectives are in tune except for when you say "God, or reality, is telling us...." or "God, or reality, is revealing to us." That seems to, once again, give the is-ness of existence a personality, a will, an intention, a desire to communicate.
When we watch any of the "Nature Speaks" videos, sure, it is personification of aspects of nature or of nature as a whole, but still, we all recognize the voices of favorite actors and we know that it is not intended to be taken literally. When you or I stand up in a church and begin a sentence, "God is saying to us," or "God is telling us," I would argue that our audience hears us as being rather literal and that, again, from my perspective, leads us off point.
So, I get that you want to transfer religious energy from worshiping a supernatural theistic person into a passionate reverence for creation but I am not sure, at least for me, that exchange either works or is possible. Tradition expressions of Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and a lot of the varieties of Hinduism and Buddhism, anchor their worship, reverence, devotion, and even sacrifices in their aspirations regarding an after-life and or appeasement of invisible deities, demons, and spirits. Once you take away the invisible and the imaginary and we are faced with a knowable reality, then trying to borrow from the universe of superstition and magical thinking seems like a dubious project to me. I hope this makes sense.
In appealing to our sense of the universe as a "thou" rather than an "it" we trying to put survival of the human race as a first priority, not simply to respect nature as a God but to save our own asses and the lives of our children and grandchildren.
As a kind of conversational shorthand, I sometimes simply call myself an atheist or I say that I am post-theist because, so far as any commonly known religion goes, yea, I don't believe in those deities. Given time and opportunity, however, I do believe in God, a God expressed only in the mystery and the wonder of the universe itself. Maybe that is a "universal spirit" or a "spirit of the universe," known only through the is-ness of the universe when it shakes hands with my own existential reaction to the dawning awareness of the is-ness of the universe. That God does not speak, tell us anything, or act. It is, as I said, an experience of the laws of physics, the nature of biology, the amazing ways in which chemistry and geology interface, and the mind-blowing beauty of it all. This is why that I prefer panentheism to pantheism or simple humanism though I accept that the distinction is not likely to be important to most people . . . it still seems vital to me.
To be fair, this beautiful, amazing, mysterious presence does not create a "religion" because this God does not regard something like the holocaust as having been good or bad, nor the oil spill of the Deep Horizon, or the Syrian refugees left to drown or starve as they flee the horrors of war. My religion, my practice, is, at least in part, a choice. I choose to find life to be, at some level, sacred (in the sense that it should not be disregarded or used up randomly) and while all biological life expires, suffering and premature death are bad/evil/wrong and regardless of the silence of the God of the Universe on such matters, my spiritual practice demands that I do what I can to alleviate suffering and to preserve life. I'm not sure how a theology professor would feel about the conception of a morally indifferent deity and a morally specific practice but, from my background in philosophy, I will simply call up the existential out and say, "It pleases me to think so." I have an evolving ethical perspective that moves within the framework of the mystery of the universe. And, as you have pointed out, that ethic gets to be more reality centered when it is less anthropocentric and becomes more life centered.
I think that your body of work is very important and you are my most reliable resource for insights into environmental sciences and ethics. I will add, however, that your work should not be seen to stand alone. Sure, you are talking about what we need to do so that human life remains possible on the only planet we can reach that can sustain life . . . that is the ultimate big picture! Still, for faith to be applicable in the present moment, we cannot disregard the issues of racial and sexual prejudice, income disparity, child abuse, access to health care, nutrition, housing and education, and a host of other ethical challenges. You are an advocate for a sane and sustainable faith, but you should always have me on stage with you to tell the rest of the story!
These are just my opinions. I am prepared to be persuaded that I am mistaken.