Refugia Faith

Seeking Hidden Shelters, Ordinary Wonders, and the Healing of the Earth

Debra Rienstra

Released: Feb 22, 2022
Publisher: Fortress Press
Retail Price: $23.99
Length: 216 pages
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN: 9781506473796

"Debra Rienstra has hit on a truly powerful new metaphor for helping us feel our way through an almost impossible moment in our career as a species. Her idea of ‘refugia’ offers some combination of solace, realistic hope, and inspiration; one prays that, in particular, people of faith will use this as a goad and a help to take the actions we all know we must. This book is a small classic.”

Bill McKibben

Author of The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back on His Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened

Refugia Faith: Seeking Hidden Shelters, Ordinary Wonders, and the Healing of the Earth explores how Christian spirituality and practice must adapt to prepare for life on a climate-altered planet.

Refugia (reh-FEW-jee-ah) is a biological term describing places of shelter where life endures in times of crisis, such as a volcanic eruption, fire, or stressed climate. Ideally, these refugia endure, expand, and connect so that new life emerges.

Debra Rienstra applies this concept to human culture and faith, asking, In this era of ecological devastation, how can Christians become people of refugia? How can we find and nurture these refugia, not only in the biomes of the earth, but in our human cultural systems and in our spiritual lives? How can we apply all our love and creativity to this task as never before?

Rienstra recounts her own process of reeducation–beginning not as a scientist or an outdoors enthusiast but by examining the wisdom of theologians and philosophers, farmers and nature writers, scientists and activists, and especially people on the margins.

By weaving nature writing, personal narrative, and theological reflection, Rienstra grapples honestly with her own fears and longings and points toward a way forward–a way to transform Christian spirituality and practice, become a healer on a damaged earth, and inspire others to do the same.

Refugia Faith speaks to people securely within the faith as well as to those on the edge, providing a suitable entry for those who sense that this era of upheaval requires a transformed faith but who don’t quite know where to begin.

Endorsements

“At a time when we are too often consumed with talk of scarcity, devastation, deconstruction, polarization, and alienation, Refugia Faith offers more than a breath of fresh air. It presents us with a glimmer of genuine hope, a hope that resides in the small places. Filled with beauty, wisdom, and a vision for how things might be, this book itself serves as a refuge for the weary, discouraged, and disheartened. Imaginatively conceived and gorgeously written, it is a work of profound insight and deep goodness.

Kristin Kobes Du Mez

New York Times best-selling author of Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation

“When you talk with Debra Rienstra, it doesn’t take long to realize she has a deep consciousness of what is happening in our world on the ecological front, the dire consequences we all face, and the faith to which she anchors her understanding. Fortunately for us, her reality-based knowledge and her amazing hope for the future are available in Refugia Faith: Seeking Hidden Shelters, Ordinary Wonders, and the Healing of the Earth. She offers actionable hope for those who have become discouraged or even fatalistic about our ecological future. Get ready to rediscover your sense of wonderment!"

Randy Woodley

Author/activist and co-sustainer Eloheh Indigenous Center for Earth Justice and Eloheh Farm & Seeds, Yamhill, Oregon

“For most of us, a crisis like climate change is cause for panic and withdrawal. Reinstra beautifully, winsomely invites us to flip this script. Rather than an insurmountable challenge, she argues the climate crisis is an opportunity for transformation—if only we have the courage, imagination, and resiliency to seize it.”

Kyle Meyaard-Schaap

Vice President, Evangelical Environmental Network

“Now more than ever I believe we need ‘refugia’ in our country, communities, and churches. Debra Rienstra’s writing is a reminder and challenge to seek a new way amid the climate crisis to deconstruct our current existence and actively create a new order that rightfully places God at the center—allowing us to be in the right relationship with creation. I highly recommend this book for people of faith as we live in the tension between climate-related suffering and the hope of what is possible for our planet."

Karyn Bigelow

Co-executive director at Creation Justice Ministries, Washington, DC

“I didn’t know what refugia meant until I read this book, I can’t tell one plant or tree from another, and I likely suffer from what is popularly known as ‘nature deficit disorder.’ In short, I am not Debra Rienstra’s target reader. But that’s why I loved this smart, funny, passionate book. It has connected the dots for me, beautifully and cogently, and shown me what’s at stake environmentally and theologically when I fail to care."

Jana Riess

Senior columnist for Religion News Service and author of Flunking Sainthood

“Refugia Faith provides a lyrical and personal reflection on the critical need for Christians to respond to the environmental crises that surround and threaten the earth. Rienstra is a steady guide in helping readers navigate the vast terrain of eco-theology, offering insightful and inspirational commentary. Readers will benefit from the thoughtful portraits and deliberate insistence that we re-examine our relationship to God’s good creation."

Paul Galbreath

Professor of Theology, Union Presbyterian Seminary, Charlotte, North Carolina

“A bold, humble, realistic, and hope-eliciting invitation to a counter-cultural, redemptive Christian way of life. Each chapter invites us into the deep work of repentance, teaching us to turn away from death-dealing habits of heart and mind and to turn toward a Spirit-shaped cluster of redemptive virtues and healing practices. There truly is so much more to life than despair, alienation, consumption, avoidance, resignation, passivity, and indifference—praise God!”

John D. Witvliet

Director, Calvin Institute of Christian Worship and Professor, Calvin University and Calvin Theological Seminary

“What would happen if Christians determined to become known as ‘the people of refugia’?” That question, posed by Debra Rienstra on her blog site in 2019, sparked her podcast series that led to this book. And what a masterful book it is! Blending beautiful and prophetic prose, Rienstra tells the stories of individuals and faith communities who are striving to be the people of refugia, nurturing ecological communities and their souls in the face of frightful challenges. Read this to be encouraged and to find hope for the future.”

David S. Koetje

Professor of Biology, Calvin University, Grand Rapids, Michigan

“Refugia Faith is one of the best books in print on how people of faith can summon the hope and the courage needed to heal and restore our home planet. Employing an astonishingly wide range of sources—from Paul Santmire on the Christian tradition to E. O. Wilson on biophilia, from Dante’s beatific vision to Robert Bullard’s take on environmental racism, from David Ackerly on bioclimates to John Calvin on creation as a theatre of divine glory—Rienstra weaves a brilliant web in beautiful prose to make her case for the importance of refugia: small, humble, safe places where ecological restoration can take root. The web also includes rich readings of biblical texts and insightful theological reflections, as well as personal vignettes of people and places that illustrate different kinds of refugia. And perhaps most notable is her unflinching honesty about the obstacles ahead, combined with her clear-eyed hope about living in a world facing climate crisis. Take up and read.”

Steven Bouma-Prediger

Leonard and Marjorie Maas Professor of Reformed Theology, Hope College, Holland, Michigan, and author of Earthkeeping and Character: Exploring a Christian Ecological Virtue Ethics

“Refugia Faith is a very personal journey combining Debra Rienstra’s faith, family history, and tender sense of place in west Michigan. Her destination offers a badly needed return to a counter-cultural Christianity, to refugia in the face of looming climate catastrophe. It’s a vision for a faith that is more communal, more local, more just, and more loving—especially to our more than human kin. One can almost miss how her scholarship is wonderfully interdisciplinary, weaving together climate science, theology, ecology, history, and literature, rendered as it is with grace and bracing clarity. But more importantly, it’s beautiful.”

Tim Van Deelen

Professor of Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin—Madison

Discussion Guide

A good reading group can serve as a small refugium space. So I hope you will let this discussion guide enrich your experience of reading the book with a group of friends, a church group, a book group, or some other gathering of people where there is shared trust, a willingness to be challenged, and some joy.

Resources

Click the tabs to see the resources I’ve collected for each category.

Where to Start

How to Find Joy in Climate Action: TED Talk with Ayana Elizabeth Johnson (2022)

Marine biologist and policy expert Ayana Elizabeth Johnson goes beyond the usual answers to the question “what can I do” and offers advice about finding a joyful way forward.

How to Visualize Climate Change: Basic Analogies with Climate Adam and Katharine Hayhoe (2024)

A great video to explain climate basics through several good analogies. Climate Adam (Dr. Adam Levy) and Dr. Katharine Hayhoe are climate scientists with a gift for communicating accurate information in winsome ways. A charming and funny introduction to the very, very basics.

Is There Any Good News about Climate Change? with Simon Clark (2024)

Atmospheric physicist and climate communicator Simon Clark explains that while we have not reached needed goals yet, we have made SO MUCH progress!

Here Comes the Sun by Bill McKibben (2025)

Everyone should read this book. The transition to clean energy is happening fast, but so many people still don’t understand what’s happening and why, especially in the US. McKibben brings the latest receipts. The two big takeaways: renewables are now cheaper than fossil fuels, and renewables by their nature end a world order in which petrostates and the fossil fuel industry hoard unbelievable power. Our job now is to speed up what’s already happening and reap the democratic benefits.

What If We Get It Right? by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson (2024)

A persuasive and invigorating book. Johnson tells the hard truth about climate change, then interviews dozens of incredible people at work in dozens of fields from agriculture to clean energy, all working toward a more just and sustainable global future. Johnson also hosts a fine podcast. A paperback will be released in 2026 with updated content.

Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World by Katharine Hayhoe (2022)

Katherine Hayhoe is a world-renowned climate scientist, a Christian, and a consummate communicator. This indispensable book covers the facts about climate change, but it focuses on communicating wisely and effectively with others about the climate crisis. (See also Hayhoe’s TED Talk and YouTube channel.)

The Most Important Thing You Can Do about Climate Change: Talk about It: TED Talk with Katharine Hayhoe. (2018)

Katharine Hayhoe’s TED talk has been viewed more than 4 million times for good reason: it’s clear, persuasive, and inspiring. She brings the evidence to show that more people are worried about climate change than you might think, and yet we’re not talking about it. Here’s how to start talking well. (Everything she says is even more true today.)

Climate Facts and News

IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report (2023)

The motherlode of facts, the summary of the global scientific consensus. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released this summary in March 2023. Read the Executive Summary for a helpful and readable introduction. This report summarizes the more extensive reports released earlier by the IPCC on the physical science of climate change, on impacts and the need for adaptation, and on mitigation strategies. The website also explains how these reports were created and by whom.

Volts Podcast with David Roberts

Longtime climate journalist David Roberts interviews people deep in the weeds figuring out the details for making the clean energy transition happen. This is a very wonky podcast, but it’s so good I listen to it regularly. Fascinating interviews with people working on grid transformation, battery tech, and all kinds of related challenges.

Inside Climate News

Excellent, reliable, non-profit news source. “Inside Climate News is a Pulitzer Prize-winning, nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that provides essential reporting and analysis on climate change, energy and the environment, for the public and for decision makers.” ICN has several newsletters you can subscribe to, depending on how much news you can handle in a week.

The Crucial Years Newsletter by Bill McKibben

No one can match Bill McKibben for churning through all the climate news, summarizing it, This Substack newsletter provides in-depth weekly commentary about climate and climate action.

Climate Forward: The New York Times

An excellent weekly roundup of top climate stories reported in the New York Times. The NYT is still doing excellent climate reporting.

Refugia Newsletter

This is my newsletter on Substack (free!). I describe it as “A fortnightly newsletter for people of faith who care about the climate crisis and want to go deeper.” Climate news can be hard for people to follow, so I choose a couple top stories to summarize for you, providing links to go deeper. As I do this, I look for the ways that people of faith, especially Christians, are working in the climate movement. I also keep you updated on refugia news and offer links to good reading, listening, and watching.

The Weekly Anthropocene by Sam Matey-Coste

Matey-Coste is indefatigable as a climate writer. He covers global climate news, interviews change-makers, produces a LOT of content. Good place to go especially for encouraging conservation news.

Not the End of the World by Hannah Ritchie: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet (2024)

Data scientist Hannah Ritchie makes the case–using loads of data on what is already happening–that we can create a livable, thriving future if we address the climate crisis head-on, strategically. This book is a good antidote to the doom spiral that can result from only reading climate headlines in the news.

IPCC Special Report: Global Warming of 1.5 ºC

This is the report that most famously sounded an urgent alarm call. The full report is formidable in length, but the executive summary is sufficient for a general reader.

Yale Program on Climate Change Communication

The YPCC’s mission is to increase public understanding of climate science. They research public opinion and knowledge about climate and provide educational materials. The Six Americas Survey has been an especially useful tool in understanding Americans’ views on climate change.

Project Drawdown (book and website)

“Project Drawdown is an independent, internationally trusted organization driving meaningful climate action by connecting people like you to science-based climate solutions and strategies.” A great site to explore when you wonder how the transition can possibly happen. Among other things, the group researches what each solution will cost and what it will save.

Global Weirding with Katharine Hayhoe (YouTube Channel)

The place to go for answers to commonly asked questions about climate. Dozens of short, pithy videos explain complex matters in simple terms. Excellent place to get your own questions answered and to prepare for talking to people who are misinformed or unsure.

Philosophy, Long-Form Journalism, Science Writing

Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake (2021)

After reading this fascinating book, you too will understand that fungi 1) are really cool and 2) rule the world.

An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong (2023)

Page after page of awe-inspiring descriptions of animals’ astonishing abilities to experience the world differently than humans, based on the latest research. I recommend the audio book, which Yong himself reads masterfully.

Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert Macfarlane (2020)

Splendid, fascinating explorations of the earth’s under-the-surface mysteries. Macfarlane recounts adventures in caves, glacial crevices, underground rivers, underground labs, and more. Poetic and philosophical—could easily go in the literature section.

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert (2014)

A readable and compelling account of what we know about species extinction and how we know it. Kolbert is a congenial master of the science writing genre.

Great Tide Rising: Towards Clarity and Moral Courage in a Time of Planetary Change (2016)

Moore, an academic philosopher, makes a persuasive case for the moral imperative to act in response to the climate crisis. Her beautiful nature writing is a bonus. This is the book where I first learned about the concept of refugia!

Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology by David Abram (2011)

A poetic and philosophical exploration of the “elemental kinship between the human body and the breathing Earth.” I especially love the chapters on bird flight, with its rhapsodic account of a bird’s whole-body intelligence.

Kiss the Ground (film and website)

The original documentary (2020) on regenerative agriculture sparked a movement. The website now features all kinds of resources to learn more about rengerative agriculture and help persuade others, especially farmers and ranchers.

My Octopus Teacher (2020)

This lovely documentary (on Netflix) recounts the remarkable friendship between filmmaker Craig Forster and a little octopus he met off the coast of South Africa. (Dir. by Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed.)

The Story of Plastic (2019)

Produced by The Story of Stuff, this documentary makes for grim viewing. It describes the global plastic pollution crisis and exposes how the fossil fuel industry has manipulated public understanding in order to relieve the industry of responsibility and keep the profits churning. Crucial viewing for anyone who thinks the way to address the climate crisis is by recycling plastic. Alas, no.

Recent Fiction, Poetry, Creative Nonfiction

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer (2013)

Gorgeous literary essays on the themes of reciprocity and gratitude, blending indigenous and scientific wisdom. An absolute must-read. A bestseller for good reason.

The Overstory by Richard Powers (2019)

This unforgettable novel interweaves the stories of nine characters who get tangled up in eco-activism. But trees and forests are the real protagonists, irradiating the novel with their being-ness. Every sentence in this absorbing novel is a work of art.

Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane (2025)

Somehow Macfarlane combines philosophical reflection with breathtaking adventure and splendid prose as he explores the being-ness of rivers as living ecosystems in Ecuador, India, and Canada.

Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson (2020)

A “through-topia” imagining how we can get through the next few decades more or less intact. Robinson is known as a “non-fiction” novelist because he researches so thoroughly for his novels. You can’t be in climate spaces for long without talking about this novel.

The Lost Words: A Spell Book by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris (2017)

A coffee table book pairing Macfarlane’s whimsical and muscular poems with ravishing art by Jackie Morris. Each “spell” celebrates the distinct delights of a particular creature or plant. Ideal gift for all ages, including young children.

The Lost Spells by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris (2020)

A smaller cut-size book with yet more irresistibly beautiful poems and art.

The Lost Words: Spell Songs by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris (2019)

UK folk musicians who loved Lost Words created this collection of songs based on the poems. The book includes interviews, more “spells,” and other supplementary delights. There’s a second album, too!

All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings by Gayle Boss (2016, gift edition 2022)

Ideal for reading with children (ages 6+) during Advent. Beautiful little essays about how different creatures spend the winter, with wise spiritual resonance for humans.

Wild Hope: Stories for Lent from the Vanishing by Gayle Boss (2020)

More gorgeous little essays, this time intended for reading during Lent. Also appropriate for children, but this book features animals at risk of extinction, so parental discretion advised.

Organizations and Advocacy

Coming soon!

Ecotheology

Coming soon!

Resources for Churches

Coming soon!