Todd Wynward's Rewilding the Way: Break Free to Follow an Untamed God is a richly woven theological tapestry of the relationship between Christian faith and a vital environmentalism.
Wynward doesn't wary of tackling some big themes that pervade in our culture -- things like over-consumption, climate change and affluenza. But that exploration doesn't begin from a moralistic perspective; instead, what we have here is a beautiful theological vision. Rewilding the Way asks some important questions: "What does it mean for Christians to live in this world, but not of this world?" "Where is Jesus leading us -- particularly into the untamed parts of the world we might not otherwise engage?" "How do we Christians negotiate our responsibilities of family and work as Christians?" Drawing from his own wilderness experience, Wynward advocates a return to
the wild. He asks his readers to go cimarron, "a Spanish term for a
slave or domesticated animal gone free". Rewilding the Way pushed me to think again about my life from a Christian perspective. He taught me to turn to Scripture and the parables of my own life to think and practice a discipleship of Jesus that is far from the tamed discipleship that pervades in our culture.
Make no doubt about it: Rewilding the Way is a difficult book to read. Because it starts with grace and ends with grace -- this is a narrative of discipleship that looks at love, and the peacefulness and wholeness that comes with that love, to revision life as a spiritual freedom. Wynward asks us to think again about what it means to love God and love others in our own world. And as he rightly insists, that means asking tough questions our economic choices and lifestyles, considering how we really live in the world.
There's no condemnation here, but there is a realism that recognizes the fallenness of the world, and what that fallenness means when we Christians think about how we make decisions and what impact those decisions might have on God and others. At the end of the day, God's love is displayed in our world -- particularly in the lives of those who follow an untamed God.
__________________
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, as part of the Speakeasy book review program, in exchange for my honest review here.
Wynward doesn't wary of tackling some big themes that pervade in our culture -- things like over-consumption, climate change and affluenza. But that exploration doesn't begin from a moralistic perspective; instead, what we have here is a beautiful theological vision. Rewilding the Way asks some important questions: "What does it mean for Christians to live in this world, but not of this world?" "Where is Jesus leading us -- particularly into the untamed parts of the world we might not otherwise engage?" "How do we Christians negotiate our responsibilities of family and work as Christians?" Drawing from his own wilderness experience, Wynward advocates a return to
the wild. He asks his readers to go cimarron, "a Spanish term for a
slave or domesticated animal gone free". Rewilding the Way pushed me to think again about my life from a Christian perspective. He taught me to turn to Scripture and the parables of my own life to think and practice a discipleship of Jesus that is far from the tamed discipleship that pervades in our culture.Make no doubt about it: Rewilding the Way is a difficult book to read. Because it starts with grace and ends with grace -- this is a narrative of discipleship that looks at love, and the peacefulness and wholeness that comes with that love, to revision life as a spiritual freedom. Wynward asks us to think again about what it means to love God and love others in our own world. And as he rightly insists, that means asking tough questions our economic choices and lifestyles, considering how we really live in the world.
There's no condemnation here, but there is a realism that recognizes the fallenness of the world, and what that fallenness means when we Christians think about how we make decisions and what impact those decisions might have on God and others. At the end of the day, God's love is displayed in our world -- particularly in the lives of those who follow an untamed God.
__________________
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, as part of the Speakeasy book review program, in exchange for my honest review here.