Losing (and Finding) Her Religion

Abstract

Terry Tempest Williams is one of America’s preeminent environmental voices, often infusing her essays with religious rhetoric and symbolism when describing scenes of intimate encounters with nature. While scholars have previously examined the author’s disintegrating relationship with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, scant attention has been devoted to considering what Williams’s beliefs and notions of faith have, correspondingly, turned toward. By tracing Williams’s evolving attitudes toward nature, religion, and environmentalism as they emerge in several of her most recognized works, I chart how the author both lost her familial religion and embraced an entirely new sense of spirituality—one rooted in nature and fully aligned with Bron Taylor’s theoretical conception of ‘dark green religion’. Sketching her trajectory gives further credence to Taylor’s construction, particularly its explanatory power for understanding the recurring and increasingly vocal spiritual calls issued for environmental protection by practitioners such as Williams.