Ecospirituality for Scholar-Practitioners
A Review of
Radical Kinship: A Christian Ecospirituality
Rachel Wheeler
Paperback: Fortress Press, 2024
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Reviewed by Justin Cober-Lake
Ecospirituality has been around for centuries, but since the middle of the last century, the concept has gained increasing prominence as we’ve faced a growing environmental crisis. In her new book Radical Kinship, Rachel Wheeler uses ancient roots and contemporary theory to point readers to forward-thinking practices. With a concern for relationships among humans and what she calls “other-than-humans,” Wheeler guides us through challenging ideas and provocative actions in consideration of our interconnectedness. Using deep research and personal experience, she writes with contemplative urgency in a time of fast-paced disconnection and ecological concern.
Early on, Wheeler provides a succinct definition of ecospirituality to focus the work: “ecospirituality describes the experience of relationship with the sacred in the context of belonging within our Earth and cosmic home. Ecospirituality encompasses attitudes and practices that enliven our experience of ourselves as members of the Earth community and that activate our ability to live in a manner expressive of gratitude, respect, care, and joy” (11). It’s a tight definition worthy of extensive unpacking, much of which Wheeler did in her previous book Ecospirituality: An Introduction. The idea of relationship to the already available sacred remains central to her thinking. We aren’t on a quest to find some distant transcendence, but we look to recognize the imminence of the sacred around us, particularly through ecological considerations.
Christianity, broadly considered, has not always brought such concerns into practice, and Wheeler writes in part to change that aspect. Drawing from the desert tradition, “ecologically informed engagement with Biblical texts,” and new interpretive frameworks, she asks us to consider our concepts of kinship (to include non-human connections) and rewilding (in short, acknowledging human limitations and giving nature its true opportunity to do what it does) in our approach to a more expansive spirituality (5). That includes both appreciating our surroundings and learning to limit our actions so as to cause no further harm. Wheeler also suggests that we may need to do repair work, both physically and in the way we think, creative narratives, and more.
Much of this book, especially in its early chapters, is heady work. Wheeler discusses, for example, “phytomorphic ecospirituality,” or “the resemblance we bear to all beings vegetal” (66). While she explains the idea clearly, her thoughts often come from far enough outside mainstream Christian thinking that they pose innate challenges for most readers. As she turns her focus to practices, the book picks up, and the theoretical foundations gain life in action. Wheeler invites us to reconsider both how we spend our mental time – Where is our focus? What are our distractions? – and our physical engagement, writing, “It matters that we are able to make contact materially through our skin…touching the world that sustains us and to sense the vital exchange that happens” (110). Wheeler raises a number of important questions for us, risking change and sacrifice while realizing that this reconsideration “involves balancing wonder and familiarity” as we process loss and seek grounding in a rootless age (140). These disciplines should help us cultivate not just “our inner ecologies in a particular, desired way” but also “the connections between ourselves and others” (86). Wheeler steadily contemplates experience in the context of relationship, often finding novel approaches to unique questions.
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Wheeler offers a considerable amount of valuable insight, but any recommendation of the book must come with a notable caveat, present in the recognition of the niche audience for which she writes. At various points throughout the book, she directly addresses herself to (and includes herself among) “scholar-practitioners,” meaning, it seems, academics already invested in the idea of ecospirituality and its attendant practices. Having that ideal reader will limit the entry possibilities for others, not that accessibility can’t be gained, but that it makes the book less useful as a starting point. Both parts of that compound description assume a basic familiarity with concepts and jargon, and – more inhibiting, perhaps – a comfort with some basic tenets. Wheeler writes in ways that will be odd for those with no background in the subject, whether thinking about nature’s feelings toward us, using new pronouns for animal life (thus maintaining a creature’s non-object-nature without imposing gender guesses on it), or even “contributing my life fluids to the undernourished soil” (in other words, urinating in the yard) (38). To many readers, Wheeler will come across as an oddball unless they have some background in the field. For that reason, Ecospirituality: An Introduction likely makes a better entry point, as its subtitle suggests, while Radical Kinship stands to serve more committed scholar-practictioners.
But that should stand as more of a note than a criticism, because Wheeler has successfully and interestingly addressed her core readers. She raises “a lot of ideas of what comprises kinship, of how fluid these relationships can feel, and of how to create and sustain belonging” (192), The practices are part of noticing, reconnecting and living with integrity (193). Wheeler’s challenges and encouragement should help us keep those concepts toward the front of our minds.
Justin Cober-Lake
Justin Cober-Lake a pastor in central Virginia. He holds an M.A. in American Studies from the University of Virginia and has worked in academic publishing for the past 15 years. His editing and freelance writing have focused mostly on cultural criticism, particularly pop music.
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