In Devoted to Nature, American University religion and philosophy professor, Evan Berry seeks to prove that the conceptual origins of environmentalism are “rooted in religious thought and practice” (2). Achieving this aim would fill a gap in scholarship because, as he correctly states in the introduction, environmental historians traditionally uphold a relationship of antagonism between Christianity and nature. More precisely, Berry sets out to link Christianity and eco-friendly thought by arguing “an explicitly Christian understanding of salvation grounded the environmental movement's orientation towards nature” (5). To prove his thesis, Berry focuses on exposing the “connective tissue” expressed in thought and action by individuals and communities in both Europe and North America over the course of the last several centuries (2).
The book begins by exploring theological views of nature held by early Christian church fathers such as Saint Augustine. Berry finds the Western world initially avoided finding pleasure in the natural world, until the fourteenth century, when views shifted toward appreciation. Repeatedly referencing Marjorie Hope Nicholson's Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1959) to describe this transition, he states that Europeans learned to value and enjoy the natural world by, among other things, soul-searching while venturing into the wilderness. Berry then offers numerous examples that tie eco-friendly perspectives and religion together, citing church leaders and philosophers from Europe to the United States, including French Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau and American transcendentalist and nature enthusiast Henry David Thoreau.
Although Berry successfully demonstrates a relationship between faith/religion and nature, it is difficult to see how the Christian idea of salvation specifically led to environmentally friendly rhetoric. Indeed, this proves to be the one major obstacle throughout the book. Although he makes salvation the focal point of his argument, the term is never really defined. He does infer through numerous examples that salvation is a spiritual feeling of health, control, and renewal, which nature lovers attain by participating in recreational activities. Nature is thus the place people can visit to gain health and satisfaction, just as one might from exercising or eating healthy food. This is not what most Christians would understand as “salvation,” however. Largely an anthropocentric aspect of Christian religious faith, salvation is traditionally thought of as guaranteeing the individual soul a place in heaven. This problem notwithstanding, Berry is able to show that a spiritual, if not uniquely Christian, perspective undergirded with nature-friendly views developed in the Western world.
Of the book's four chapters, the second offers perhaps the most persuasive evidence by focusing on the activities of early twentieth-century U.S. Protestant nature enthusiasts. Examples include ordained minister and Sierra Club president, William Frederic Badé, who helped organize open-air Easter Sunday Vespers in California, and the members of the Mountaineers Club who set up “Sunrise Services in the Hills” and rewrote the lyrics of “Nearer My God to Thee” to praise the beauty of God's creation. By keeping to the same relative time period and location and featuring examples of religiously inspired activities within nature preservation organizations, Berry makes a convincing argument.
In other chapters Berry raises a variety of wide-ranging and fascinating topics, but often fails to fully explore them. For instance, while discussing religion and outdoor leisure time in the early twentieth century, Berry mentions the fact that church groups paired outdoor recreation events with “matchmaking” opportunities. This topic, however, only takes up part of a paragraph, leaving the reader wondering how large a role nature played in matchmaking or whether it functioned simply as a convenient and private venue for courting. In another section, the author explains that Mormons connected to nature by recalling their pioneering past. This idea is especially interesting, but many questions remain unanswered. How did Mormons describe the relationship between their pioneering ancestors and the landscape? Were they shaped by the environment or did they survive and prosper by bending it to their will? How did they think the environment directly influenced their religious faith and community? Exploration of potential answers to these questions could have added a deeper level of analysis. Nevertheless, the topics broached by Berry are intriguing and suggest that there are many promising areas for future study connecting religion and nature.
Overall, this book contributes to the growing scholarship on Christian faith and the environment. It fills in the theology and history of the Protestant environmental activity that began in the later 1980s, as described in Robert Booth Fowler's The Greening of Protestant Thought (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), and expands the scope of issues treated in Mark Stoll's Protestantism, Capitalism, and Nature in America (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1997). With these publications, Berry and other scholars are trying to correct the narrative established by medieval historian Lynn White Jr., who persuasively blamed Christianity for contemporary environmental problems in his 1967 essay “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis.” At that time White's argument was easy to believe and is still hard to relinquish, as conservative Protestants in today's religious right movement reject popular environmental protection efforts. Illuminating Christianity's positive impact on environmental thought is challenging, but Berry has made strides toward conveying this relatively new perspective.
