The God of Wild Places

A pastor walks out of the church and into the woods, in pursuit of the God he's lost.

Millions of Americans, disillusioned with organized religion, yearn for meaning and transcendence in their lives, and many of them are finding that in nature. When pastor and theologian Tony Jones, PhD, had his crisis of faith, brought on by personal trauma and broken relationships, he sought solace in the outdoors—paddling a canoe, hunting with his dog, butchering deer.

When he walked out of the church and into the woods, he left the orderly pews and numbered hymns for chaotic spaces and untamed wilderness. And he re-discovered God — a God who brings peace in the midst of storms, a God who lives in the community of our fellow creatures, a God who's acquainted with death. This is the God of wild places.

In The God of Wild Places, Tony mines his own experiences, recent research in evolutionary psychology, and ancient wisdom from various spiritual and philosophical traditions to fashion lessons about solitude, the predator-prey relationship, the importance of place, risk, failure, and death, and the chaotic presence of God.

Tony's guidance in The God of Wild Places promises to introduce a generation of Americans to the transcendence available only in untamed spaces; his writing draws on wisdom from Christianity to Buddhism, Kant to Cioran, Jim Harrison to Annie Dillard. This is a journey of loss and discovery through forests and fields, lakes and streams, from knowing to unknowing, from finding to losing—from life to death, and then back to life.

This new paperback edition features a fresh preface from Tony, reflecting on the book's reception and the continuing search for the divine in nature.