Debra Rienstra - Refugia Faith: Seeking Hidden Shelters, Ordinary Wonders, and the Healing of the Earth

Praise for Refugia Faith

Debra Rienstra has hit on a truly powerful new metaphor for helping us feel our way through an almost impossible moment in our career as a species. Her idea of refugia offers some combination of solace, realistic hope, and inspiration; one prays that, in particular, people of faith will use this as a goad and a help to take the actions we all know we must. This book is a small classic.

Bill McKibben, author of The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back on His Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened

At a time when we are too often consumed with talk of scarcity, devastation, deconstruction, polarization, and alienation, Refugia Faith offers more than a breath of fresh air. It presents us with a glimmer of genuine hope, a hope that resides in the small places. Filled with beauty, wisdom, and a vision for how things might be, this book itself serves as a refuge for the weary, discouraged, and disheartened. Imaginatively conceived and gorgeously written, it is a work of profound insight and deep goodness.

Kristin Kobes Du Mez, New York Times best-selling author of Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation

For most of us, a crisis like climate change is cause for panic and withdrawal. Rienstra beautifully, winsomely invites us to flip this script. Rather than viewing it as an insurmountable challenge, she argues that the climate crisis is an opportunity for transformationif only we have the courage, imagination, and resiliency to seize it.

Kyle Meyaard-Schaap, vice president, Evangelical Environmental Network; named to Midwest Energy Groups 40 Under 40 and American Conservation Coalitions 30 Under 30 for his work on climate change education and advocacy; Yale Public Voices on the Climate Crisis Fellow for 2020; featured in news outlets such as PBS, NPR, CNN, NBC News, New York Times, Reuters, and U.S. News and World Report

Now more than ever I believe we need refugia in our country, communities, and churches. Debra Rienstras Refugia Faith is a reminder and challenge to seek a new way amid the climate crisisto deconstruct our current way of life and create a new order that rightfully places God at the center. Only then will we be in right relationship with creation. I highly recommend this book for people of faith as we live in the tension between our current climate-related suffering and the hope for what is possible for our planet.

Karyn Bigelow, co-executive director at Creation Justice Ministries

When you talk with Debra Rienstra, it doesnt take long to realize she has a deep consciousness of what is happening in our world on the ecological front, the dire consequences we all face, and the faith to which she anchors her understanding. Fortunately for us, her reality-based knowledge and her amazing hope for the future are available in Refugia Faith: Seeking Hidden Shelters, Ordinary Wonders, and the Healing of the Earth. She offers actionable hope for those who have become discouraged or even fatalistic about our ecological future. Get ready to rediscover your sense of wonderment!

Randy Woodley, author/activist and co-sustainer, Eloheh Indigenous Center for Earth Justice and Eloheh Farm & Seeds, Yamhill, Oregon

I didnt know what refugia meant until I read this book, I cant tell one plant or tree from another, and I likely suffer from what is popularly known as nature deficit disorder. In short, I am not Debra Rienstras target reader. But thats why I loved this smart, funny, passionate book. It has connected the dots for me, beautifully and cogently, and shown me whats at stake environmentally and theologically when I fail to care.

Jana Riess, senior columnist for Religion News Service and author of Flunking Sainthood

Refugia Faith provides a lyrical and personal reflection on the critical need for Christians to respond to the environmental crises that surround and threaten the earth. Rienstra is a steady guide in helping readers navigate the vast terrain of ecotheology, offering insightful and inspirational commentary. Readers will benefit from the thoughtful portraits and deliberate insistence that we reexamine our relationship to Gods good creation.

Paul Galbreath, professor of theology, Union Presbyterian Seminary, Charlotte, North Carolina

What would happen if Christians determined to become known as the people of refugia? That question, posed by Debra Rienstra on her blog site in 2019, sparked her podcast series that led to this book. And what a masterful book it is! Blending beautiful and prophetic prose, Rienstra tells the stories of individuals and faith communities who are striving to be the people of refugia, nurturing ecological communities and their souls in the face of frightful challenges. Read this to be encouraged and to find hope for the future.

David S. Koetje, professor of biology, Calvin University, Grand Rapids, Michigan

Refugia Faith is one of the best books in print on how people of faith can summon the hope and the courage needed to heal and restore our home planet. Employing an astonishingly wide range of sourcesfrom Paul Santmire on the Christian tradition to E. O. Wilson on biophilia, from Dantes beatific vision to Robert Bullards take on environmental racism, from David Ackerly on bioclimates to John Calvin on creation as a theatre of divine gloryRienstra weaves a brilliant web in beautiful prose to make her case for the importance of refugia: small, humble, safe places where ecological restoration can take root. The web also includes rich readings of biblical texts and insightful theological reflections, as well as personal vignettes of people and places that illustrate different kinds of refugia. And perhaps most notable is her unflinching honesty about the obstacles ahead, combined with her clear-eyed hope about living in a world facing climate crisis. Take up and read.

Steven Bouma-Prediger, Leonard and Marjorie Maas Professor of Reformed Theology, Hope College, Holland, Michigan, and author of For the Beauty of the Earth: A Christian Vision for Creation Care and Earthkeeping and Character: Exploring a Christian Ecological Virtue Ethics

Refugia Faith is a very personal journey combining Debra Rienstras faith, family history, and tender sense of place in west Michigan. Her destination offers a badly needed return to a countercultural Christianity, to refugia in the face of looming climate catastrophe. Its a vision for a faith that is more communal, more local, more just, and more lovingespecially to our more than human kin. One can almost miss how her scholarship is wonderfully interdisciplinary, weaving together climate science, theology, ecology, history, and literature, rendered as it is with grace and bracing clarity. But more importantly, its beautiful.

Tim Van Deelen, professor of wildlife ecology, University of WisconsinMadison; interested in population biology and conservation and the ecology of the Great Lakes region; graduate of Calvin University with graduate degrees from the University of Montana and Michigan State University

Debra Rienstra

Fortress Press

Minneapolis

REFUGIA FAITH

Seeking Hidden Shelters, Ordinary Wonders, and the Healing of the Earth

Copyright 2022 Debra Rienstra. Printed by Fortress Press, an imprint of 1517 Media. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Email or write to Permissions, Fortress Press, Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440-1209.