Nature In A Religious Right Perspective

Abstract

This chapter investigates Reconstruction theology by demonstrating that the idea of nature played other roles in the quest to save humanity's proper place in God's hierarchical creation, such as through the religious community's construction of Christian nationalism. During the 1970s, religious communities built a unique history of the United States by making their faith a primary reason for the success of the country. The chapter highlights the idea of humanity as a creation of God and the idea of earth's wilderness as the realm where humans were meant to dominate, but not abuse. The chapter discusses politically conservative evangelicals who depicted the unconquered forests of North America as healthy obstacles, which encouraged “real Americans” of the past to conform to their God-ordained, gender-specific family norms. It describes the struggle with the wilderness that politically conservative evangelicals believed their religious ancestors gained ownership of the land, which became the United States.