Devoted to Nature

Devoted to Nature explores the religious underpinnings of American environmentalism, tracing the theological character of American environmental thought from their Romantic foundations to contemporary nature spirituality. During the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, religious sources were the central conceptual ingredients of the American environmental imagination, shaping ideas about the natural world, establishing practices of engagement with environments and landscapes, and generating new modes of social and political interaction. Following a lineage of environmental historians who acknowledge the movement's religious roots, this study offers a potent theoretical corrective designed to clarify how such religious characteristics remained publicly vital components of the movement well into the 20th century. In particular, Berry argues that an explicitly Christian understanding of salvation grounded the environmental movement's orientation toward the natural world. Theologically derived concepts about salvation, redemption, and spiritual progress not only provide the basic context for Americans enthusiastic about the out-of-doors, they also establish the horizons of possibility for the national environmental imagination.