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My current attempt to write a book includes this subject, what I call the contextualization of earth and animal worship. There are times when people who live in cities decide they want to "get closer to the earth" or worship animals because they feel some spirituality coming from those things. I think this is a fundamentally correct idea. The context of the Old Testament in condemning earth and animal worship is not that it rejects the existence of a spirituality within those things. I think it was a presumption in that era that the earth and animals have a form of spiritual presence. The Old Testament condemns nature and animal worship because it was an advancement of theology from crude nature worship (e.g., the "golden calf") into a more advanced form of spirituality, one that has a cognizable God capable of a plan and a purpose. The New Testament was of course a further advancement, one that took place when Greco-Roman philosophical ideas merged into and sometimes modified the Old Testament.
The problem with earth and animal worship isn't that such things can't be spiritual but that they are less developed. They are a more primitive form of spirituality. Having little to no inherent direction, nature worship can quickly become harmful. Spirituality that includes an anthropomorphic God is superior because unlike an animal, God has an intent. The problem we face today is not really one of being forced to compete against cruder forms of spirituality, it is a problem of being forced to compete with a total lack of spirituality. While nature and animal worship was a foe for Christians in the past, today I imagine it might be an asset.
I have come to suspect that before people can appreciate a thoroughly developed conception of spirituality like Christianity, they need to first have some familiarity with spiritual things in their cruder forms. I can't get into it right now but at some point I want to start practicing the "ancient art" of falconry and I would like to start a church that incorporates animals, hiking and natural activities into its ministry. This would not be as a worship of those things but as an introduction to spirituality in general. I suspect that such an introduction is increasingly necessary in our modern world where people ride machines to work, eat from plastic containers and work at desks, all things that insidiously wear us down and separate us from our better selves.
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