Focus Introduction: Aquatic Nature Religion

Outdoor adventure and other recreational practices can express, evoke, and reinforce religious perceptions and orientations to natural and social worlds. Some participants in them understand nature itself to be sacred in some way and believe that facilitating human connections to nature is the most important aspect of their chosen practice. Such activities can be construed by scholars as "nature religion," and profitably analyzed by comparing characteristics commonly associated with religion to the beliefs and practices of participants engaged in these activities. Here I introduce as "Aquatic Nature Religion" three case studies that explore the religious, or religion-resembling aspects, of surfing, fly fishing, and whitewater kayaking. These studies provocatively challenge conventional understandings of religion and pose anew the boundary question: Where does religion end and phenomena that are not religious begin?