Rewilding the Church

DURING the first weeks of coronavirus lockdown, stories surfaced of wildlife reappearing in places from where it had been absent for a long time.

Some dramatic examples, such as dolphins in Venice’s canals, proved to be bogus, but many were genuine. Mountain goats really were running amok in a town in Wales. Pink flamingos returned in huge numbers to a Mumbai beach. Urban dwellers were treated to the fragile joy of nature’s avian symphony, as birdsong was no longer blocked out by the ambient groan of traffic. In modest ways we were given glimpses of the extraordinary potential for nature to thrive when given the chance, to bounce back with abundant life when released from human management.

Jesus urges us to consider carefully the ecosystems of which we are part. The words he uses to invite his followers to ‘look at the birds’ and ‘consider the lilies’ mean to ‘take a really good look’. Birds and animals, soils and vegetation, the complex connections between them all, have lessons to teach us.

In common with the natural world, the Church has, at its core, an astonishing capacity for growth and renewal. With the power of the resurrected Jesus at its heart, unconstrained, the Church’s tendency is towards abundance and regeneration. A survey of Church history shows an inextinguishable capacity for renewal, similar to nature’s remarkable ‘bouncebackability’. Yes, congregations die. Indeed, denominations die. However, the body of Christ will outlive all its challengers and challenges.

In recent years the term ‘rewilding’ has emerged to describe the process of letting nature have its way. Advocates of rewilding argue that much of what is done in the name of conservation is little more than the preservation of man-made landscapes through human intervention. It’s time, they assert, to step back and allow the processes within nature to reshape the environment. Where key species have been lost, they may be reintroduced. Where that has happened, the impact has sometimes been dramatic, as the influence of the re-established species cascades throughout the ecosystem.

In the mid-1990s a small population of wolves was reintroduced to the Yellowstone National Park in the western United States. Since the wolf’s extinction from the area in the 1920s, elk had grazed unimpeded. Following the reintroduction, not only was the elk population diminished, their behaviour altered. The presence of wolves changed their feeding habits. Plants and trees that had been heavily browsed began to thrive again. Changes in the course of rivers, an increase in the beaver population and adaptations to soil composition are among the numerous knock-on effects from the return of one single species.

In 2016 I was writing the final chapter of The Invisible Church, a book reflecting on the findings of research into Christians in Scotland who are disengaged from traditional church congregations. The closing chapter was entitled ‘Glimpses of the Way Ahead?’ and endeavoured to discern the trajectory of the Church, based on the available data. While wrestling with that chapter, a reading group I belong to happened to be reading Feral by George Monbiot, a book on rewilding. Writing one book and reading the other, the parallels between tired, over-managed landscapes needing to be allowed to recover and regenerate and churches that have domesticated the adventure of faith and need to be released to rediscover the way of the wild Messiah struck me with great force. Could it be that the large and growing population of Christians practising their faith outside of any institutional manifestation of Church are part of God’s purposes to ‘rewild’ the Church? Could it be that our appetite to plan, manage, contain and control has not only led to an environmental crisis, but has also disrupted the natural patterns in the life of the Church? Might the same human instincts that have disrupted our natural environment have also constrained the Church? And if God is in the business of rewilding the Church, what might it look like for us to join in that process and be rewilded ourselves? What would it mean in practice to ‘reintroduce’ Jesus, the one C S Lewis dubbed ‘the Great Interferer’?

Photo: iStock 

After the publication of The Invisible Church I continued to tussle with the metaphor of rewilding as it might apply to the Church. The connections that Jesus himself highlighted between the dynamics of creation and those of God’s Kingdom encouraged me to persevere. Alongside this, myself and colleagues extended the research that underpinned The Invisible Church by re-interviewing and re-surveying churchless Christians who participated in our studies five years before, turning our original snapshots into a longitudinal study, learning more about these people and following their journeys in faith. The metaphor of rewilding has provided a valuable means of bringing together the findings of that empirical research and the insights of theological reflection and these are shared in the recently published book, Rewilding the Church.

Biologists refer to the instinctive potential of a living thing to grow and reproduce as ‘biotic potential’. Small, simple organisms tend to have the highest biotic potential. So, for example, an E-coli bacterium can reproduce nearly one million cells, while a blue whale grows and produces offspring at a relatively glacial pace. The apostle Paul had witnessed the extraordinary biotic potential of the Church unleashed as communities of faith sprang up and multiplied even in the most hostile environments. He urged people to recognise the ‘immeasurable greatness of [God’s] power’ at work within and among them. Today we see evidence that God’s rewilding of the Church is reflected in a simplification, a flourishing of the small and simple and the rapid decline of the large and the complex.

Rewilding is always a means rather than a specified end. Indeed, the outcome of rewilding cannot be predicted. Where the Christian faith has been reduced to something predictable and safe, we have stepped aside from the way of Jesus. The wild Messiah refuses to be tamed. The One who invites us ‘follow me’ is unpredictable and unfettered. In nature, when natural processes are allowed to reign, a sustainable authentic landscape emerges; in the Church, when our focus is on being the people Jesus calls us to be, what emerges will be living, growing, everchanging Church.

Promoters of rewilding in the natural world point to the importance of culling or eradicating ‘invasive species’, organisms that have no legitimate place in a particular ecosystem and adversely affect the habitats they invade. The Church too is hampered and undermined by invasive species. As the letter to the Hebrews instructs, we are to ‘throw off everything that hinders and entangles’.

God is rewilding the Church. That inexpressible power at the heart of the Church may be hindered, but cannot be quenched. We are called to be rewilded, urged to allow the Great Interferer to have his way, to transform us from the inside out; we are invited to co-operate with the great regeneration of creation and invited to be part of what is emerging. We are beckoned along a trajectory of hope, inspired and energised by the new-everymorning love of God. Hear the call to participate in the ultimate adventure. Jesus says, ‘Follow me’. ¤

Steve Aisthorpe is a mission development worker in the Faith Nurture Forum of the Church of Scotland, based in the north of Scotland. Rewilding the Church is out now, published by Saint Andrew Press.

This article appears in the September 2020 Issue of Life and Work

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