Gratitude for the Wild: Christian Ethics in the Wilderness by Nathaniel Van Yperen (review)

Gratitude for the Wild is Nathaniel Van Yperen's contribution to a series that offers interdisciplinary explorations at the juxtaposition of religious ethics and twenty-first century environmental challenges. Van Yperen compellingly embraces this series' focus by meditating on the theological and ethical meaning of wilderness for our contemporary age, drawing from theology, philosophy, and literature as well as his own experiences with the wild. In particular, this text has much to offer those who are skeptical of strictly romantic notions of "the wild" as well as those for whom anthropocentric defenses of wilderness are unsatisfactory.

This slim volume centers the role of affection—particularly gratitude and piety—for Christian ecological ethics and considers how wilderness is uniquely capable of fostering those affections. In the first and second chapters, Van Yperen critically examines the concept of wilderness itself and how encounters with the wild can "redirect the orientation of the individual as consumer to participant within a world that is bigger than our desires" (47). By resisting pure sentimentality and taking seriously the dangers and threats the wild contains, which he convincingly explores through the life of "grizzly man" Timothy Treadwell, Van Yperen invites the reader to consider wilderness as a school for decentering ourselves and our ends and cultivating humility in the face of uncertainty.

Van Yperen further elucidates his ethic through engaging James Gustafson's theocentric approach to the concept of natural evil, a concept that Van Yperen argues is often applied to the wolf. He articulates Gustafson's rejection of anthropocentrism in favor of a humility which recognizes that "responsibility … is participating in what God is empowering one to do in a world that is bigger than the self or society" (54). While historically wolves have been constructed as evil, Van Yperen uses Gustafson's approach to argue that such a construction is premised on centering human needs and desires. Proper human responsibility, in Van Yperen's view, requires an acceptance of the mystery that God's ends exceed and sometimes run counter to human ends.

In his final chapter, Van Yperen highlights the necessity of any wilderness ethic to address the "matters of race, identity, and belonging" (74) that have plagued conversations about the wild. He suggests that Martin Luther King Jr.'s embrace of Thoreau provides a pathway for unifying social justice and environmental concerns. He concludes that "King's mode of ethical engagement does not depend upon axiological consensus regarding intrinsic value …, nor does it condemn problem-solving to existing moral resources. Rather, it calls us to a higher task of promoting a revolution of our values to new possibilities, new ends" (88).

Gratitude for the Wild makes an important contribution to Christian ecological ethics. Van Yperen situates himself alongside Willis Jenkins within environmental pragmatism while also recognizing pragmatism's limitations. Namely, he asks the reader to consider that our conception of what is possible and desirable has been limited by our practices. To push back against those limitations, we ought to embrace practices that help us to cultivate gratitude and humility in the face of a world that is bigger, more mysterious—more wild—than our current imagination. By incorporating the work of Terry Tempest Williams and others, he suggests dwelling in the wilderness as one such practice. He seamlessly weaves together a unique mixture of writing styles and disciplines (theological reflection, literature, personal narrative) that effectively and provocatively demonstrate that developing a robust Christian ecological ethic requires engaging with a diversity of sources. While each chapter can cogently stand alone, taken together they create a promising approach to thinking about wilderness that resists the pitfalls of that term's intellectual past.