"Christian Futures: Christian Animism"
World Religions and Ecospirituality
One of I4C's values, spirituality, we understand as "practices that shape us, particularly our relations to each other and ultimately to the Earth; these practices manifest a great diversity ranging from those of world religions to individual expressions".
I4C is explicitly and intentionally spiritual without any specific religious affiliation - "spiritual but not religious" to use the common phrase. ​However it is also true that many of us belong to particular world religions with their corresponding spiritual practices: many of us are "spiritual and religious" (to use an accurate but not common phrase). We believe that all the world religions have some degree of "ecospirituality" as part of their understanding of the sacred - some more, some less - even if it has not been dominate or central in their history to date. Ecospirituality foregrounds the crucial, constitutive importance of the natural world, the Earth, for such practices.
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I4C is committed to retrieving, recovering, exploring, refining, these ecospiritual resources within world religions, and asking members of those world religions whether they should not be more central. We are convinced they should be, especially now and into the future.
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We're going to begin some of this work with this proposed retreat series
focused on the Christian tradition we're calling "Christian Futures: Christian Animism".
Christian Futures
What will Christianity in the future look like? What should it look like? How might our global polycrisis, foremost among which is the ecological crisis, inform and catalyze the transformation of Christianity, in particular as a spiritual tradition? Above all, might Christian spirituality become far more explicitly and avowedly
an Earth-based ecospirituality?
I4C is embarking on exploring these questions over future years in a retreat series called "Christian Futures".
Christian Animism
The first in our intended retreat series is focused on "Christian Animism". Rev. Shawn Sanford Beck, author of a book by that title, introduced I4C to this concept at a retreat he facilitated, as well as exploring related themes like "green priestcraft", and the relationship between Christianity and Druidism.
I4C has invited Shawn back to co-facilitate this retreat along with Christopher Peet at the CHANGE Center. The retreat is planned for September 2026.
