The Christian faith is an earth-based, creation-focused spirituality. Calling us to live each day with integrity and love, in harmony with wild nature in a way that sees humanity as an integral part of it. With it’s vision and hope finding complete fulfillment on this planet and within the wider cosmos.

 

The understanding that God’s living presence is found within all matter making it both sacred and alive, is found in the teaching of Jesus, the foundational Hebrew biblical texts, and among the earliest Christian communities. So also is the recognition that everything is connected, a person (or potentially so) and is therefore to be nurtured and respected (see: ‘Essence of Animism’ where these themes are developed more fully).

 

‘Animism’ is a difficult word (see: ‘What is Animism?’); but it is also the only word, worldview or spirituality that fully embraces and celebrates this vision. We believe it is the original biblical Christian belief; this is why we choose to speak of ‘Christian Animism’.

 

The greatest challenge facing the world today is the ecological crisis. It is also first and foremost a spiritual crisis. Solutions therefore depend on finding fresh spiritual perspectives and resources, expressed in new ways of thinking, behaving and living. For Christians, and any others looking for a path forward, we offer ‘Christian Animism’. We also wish to learn from those following different eco-spiritual journeys, like Pagans and others with perspectives and actions that are also life-giving.

 

Animism refers primarily to the spiritual understandings, worldviews and lifeways of Indigenous and tribal peoples. So to speak of ‘Christian Animism’ (as some do) simply as ‘the belief that all of creation is filled with and animated by God’s presence’, while true, is not enough. For all their diversity global Indigenous and tribal communities broadly share the core understandings and perspectives mentioned above. Therefore, to use the term ‘Christian Animism’ with any integrity these must be reflected on, not only from a Jesus perspective, but also by drawing on their deep wisdom too.

 

Christian Animism is actually not a new concept. For example, Celtic Christianity, in the way it wove together its faith in Jesus with its Pagan-Druid worldview, clearly fits this description. As does the teaching and actions of Francis of Assisi. Today, many Indigenous peoples influenced by the Christian faith continue to show that the two understandings are completely compatible.[1]

 

 

 

[1] See for example, Peelman, A. 1995, Christ is a Native American, Orbis; Rainbow Spirit Elders. 1997, Rainbow Spirit Theology, ATF Press; Te Ahukaramu (Ed). 2003, The Woven Universe: selected writings of Rev Maori Marsden, Te Wananga-o-Raukawa