Wild Religion

For class this last week, we engaged chapter 4 in Mark Wallace’s When God Was a Bird: Christianity, Animism, and the Re-Enchantment of the World, focused on John Muir (1838-1914), a naturalist, author, farmer, environmental philosopher, and early advocate for the preservation of wilderness in the United States. We named the reality of Muir’s conflicted and at times bigoted attitudes to the Indigenous peoples of this continent, which represents both a fault line that runs through the predominantly white modern environmental movement and a caution to the work we’re undertaking at Hennepin. We also reflected on Muir’s affirmation of the ”Two Books of Revelation” and asked: How might we incorporate more readings from the Book of Nature in worship, Christian education, and pastoral training? Drawing on Muir’s “Sequoia Religion,” we invited persons to share times they’ve experienced sacred presence in the more-than-human natural world, as well as times they’ve experienced the pain of losing a beloved geography, place, or living organism due to environmental violence.