A Wild Faith
- Sam Donaldson
- May 4
- 7 min read
Updated: Jul 3
In C.S. Lewis’s much loved allegory of faith Narnia, we are told that Aslan “is not a tame lion”, while in the John 3 we read:
"You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it’s headed next. That’s the way it is with everyone ‘born from above’ by the wind of God, the Spirit of God."
At SEARCH we have been experimenting with the phrase “rewilding churches for changing
times” as a way of summing up our current approach. But before exploring a little of what that phrase might mean, we need to start by asking ourselves, what is “rewilding?”
In his book “Rewilding the Church” Steve Aisthorpe writes:
"A word that first graced the pages of dictionaries in 2011 is ‘rewilding’. As happens with new-born words, its meaning continued to evolve. To begin with, it referred to the process of restoring an area of land to its natural uncultivated state. It became associated with the reintroduction of species of wild animals that had been exterminated in the past. In 2013 a widely acclaimed book entitled "Feral" by environmental journalist and activist, George Monbiot, suggested that rewilding ‘is not an attempt to restore [ecosystems] to any prior state, but to permit ecological processes to resume’. Critiquing traditional approaches to conservation as seeking ‘to manage nature as if tending a garden’, he points out that much of what we cherish as natural landscape is actually a manmade desert compared to what would occur if the processes of nature were allowed to have their way."
Or as Nora Bateson puts in in her poem ‘Wild’:
De-mapping = unclaiming
De-harvesting = allowing fertilizing to occur
De-modelling = untying from existing establishment
De-strategizing = allowing unimagined possibilities
Wild underground unsaid unknown undefined = a possibility zone.
The system cannot change the system.
Below is an inspiring video about a “rewilding” experiment at Knepp, that gives a wonderful flavour of the life and vitality that rewilding can bring:
So, if that’s “rewilding”, what might “rewilding churches for changing times” really mean?
Just like the word “rewilding”, this phrase is still evolving, and we recognise there are lots of ways to understand it. Below are a few different ways that the phrase particularly resonates with me:
1) Get Outside and Get Your Hands Dirty!
There have been streams within Christianity that have emphasised the “transcendence” and “otherness” of God, so much so that at times this has given the sense that God has nothing to do with our messy bodily lives down here on this wild earth, and is only accessible inside immaculate sacred buildings or through strict and ordered holy rituals, led by anointed priests garbed in pristine white robes.
However the poet and farmer Wendell Berry writes:
"There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places."
In the spirit of the quote above, “Rewilding churches for changing times” challenges this idea of a far off God and points to a God who may be far more intimately present in our everyday lives, in our earthy, gritty reality, than we might ever dare to imagine. The theologian Sallie MacFague argues that we need to learn how to see the earth as “the body of God”. Similarly, the Franciscan Richard Rohr invites us to the rediscovery of the “Universal Christ”:
“Rewilding churches for changing times” reminds me of all this. It tells me to get outside more often, to get my hands in the soil, and to meet God in this messy, material world. It invites me to take St Francis as a model and guide, as one who knew the sun as his brother and the moon as his sister, who felt a deep solidarity with brother wind and sister water, with all creatures great and small, and met God in sister-mother earth: The Canticle of Creatures
2) Embrace Being Out of Control!
We are living in an era when we human beings have been relentlessly striving to control life like never before. We have felled forests and hunted animals to such an extent untold species have been driven to total extinction. We have created systems that mean that our lives are now dictated to by our clocks and diaries, with data being collected from every action we take, while everything is risk-assessed and managed, squeezing the life-blood out of adventure and spontaneity. Control, control, control, everywhere we turn.
Throughout history churches too have often succumbed to the temptation to control, policing free-thinking, discouraging the expression of passion and emotion, and condemning anything that might shake the foundations of the status quo. “Rewilding churches for changing times” reminds me to be careful whenever I see myself succumbing to this temptation to control life - my own and others - and instead calls me to courageously lean into the risk of uncontrolled time and space, opening up room for experimentation and exploration and emergence. As the Jesuit Anthony De Mello puts it in his wonderful reflection ‘The Exposure’:
Life abhors security:
for life means taking risks, exposing self to danger, even death.
Jesus says that those who wish to be safe will lose their lives; those who are prepared to lose their lives will keep them…
Life goes hand in hand with change. What does not change is dead. I think of people who are fossils. I think of times when I was fossilized: no change, no newness, the same old wornout concepts and patterns of behaviour, the same mentality, neuroses, habits, prejudices.
Dead people have a built in fear of change. What changes have there been in me over the past six months? What changes will there be today?
3) Unlearn Something New Every Day!
The first step in “rewilding” is to stop the patterns and practices that have been in place, to put a halt to what is currently wounding and destroying the land. In that same spirit, writing thousands of years ago, the Taoist sage Lao Tzu wrote:
One who seeks knowledge learns something new every day. One who seeks [wisdom] unlearns something new every day. Less and less remains until you arrive at non-action. When you arrive at non-action, nothing will be left undone.
In our world that prizes knowledge and busyness above all, “rewilding churches for changing times” calls forth in me a counter-cultural readiness to “unlearn” as much as to “learn”, a willingness to embrace uncertainty and “not-knowing” as much as grasping at “certainty” and “knowing”. It calls for simplicity and for the stripping away of anything cumbersome (or "ecclesiastical mercy-killing” as Richard Foster puts it!). Likewise it calls forth different ways of being and doing that are not frantic or forced, but organic, effortless, emergent, so that I might “work from a place of rest”. As Jesus puts it in Matthew 11:
"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly."
4) Nurture Healing and Wholeness!
While there have been strands within Christianity that have focussed heavily on “sin” and salvation from eternal damnation, it can be helpful to remind ourselves that the root of the word salvation lies in “salve” or “healing”. Just as “rewilding” seeks to heal much of the damage done by intensive monocultural farming and extractivism, “rewilding churches for changing times” reminds me how we are all in need of healing and a deeper experience of wholeness, in our own lives, but also in our families, communities, places and world.
In this spirit, the theologian Carol P Christ gives a brilliant example of the kind of healing ethos needed in these changing times:
nurture life;
walk in love and beauty;
trust the knowledge that comes through the body;
speak the truth about conflict, pain and suffering;
take only what you need;
think about the consequences of your actions for seven generations;
approach the taking of life with great restraint;
practice great generosity;
repair the web.
5) Celebrate Diversity!
Unlike bland, monoculturally-farmed fields, “rewilding” looks for vibrant, diverse, sustainable ecosystems, full of wildflowers, bugs, birds and creatures of all kinds. In the past, Christian churches have tended to try to maintain unity through enforced uniformity, controlled from the top and centre, resulting in relatively monochrome expressions of faith, not dissimilar to monoculturally farmed fields. “Rewilding churches for changing times” calls forth a more “de-centred” celebration of difference and diversity, more akin to a wildflower meadow than a monocultural field. It reminds me to celebrate diversity and particularity and uniqueness, whilst also looking for the common ground from which unity can grow.
6) Move and Play!
And lastly, while certain streams of Christianity have tended to resist change at all costs (somewhat ironically forgetting that the beginnings of Christianity were defined by seismic shifts and rapid changes), “rewilding churches for changing times” reminds me of the inherently dynamic and ever-changing nature of life. It reminds me that it is pointless burying my head in the sand like an ostrich or futilely forbidding change like King Cnut sat at the water’s edge. Instead it calls me to remain agile and light on my feet and to find ways to move and play with change in creative and fun ways.
It tells me:
“You can't stop the waves
But you can learn to surf!”
So, these are just six ways that our phrase “rewilding churches for changing times” resonates with me.
But, more importantly, how does our phrase resonate with you?
