Theology in the Wild: Finding God in Nature with Wild Churches

Megan Ulishney headshot

Megan Loumagne Ulishney
Boston College

Date:Tuesday, April 7, 2026
Time:12 - 1pm
Location:Boisi Center, 24 Quincy Road, Conference Room

Experiences in nature provide emotional, affective, and spiritual resources for many that aresometimes described as religious, or sacred. For some who express disillusionment withinstitutional forms of religion, mystical or spiritual encounters in nature can provideexperiences of the transcendent, the sublime, connectedness, and even of spiritual healing.Some contemporaryexpressions of nature spirituality provide sources of community, core texts, and suggest spiritual practices that mimictraditional religious practices, even as they seek to transform them. For example, the WildChurch Network is a support system for new and growing wild churches which organizes gatherings for spiritual seekers who desire to reconnect on a spiritual level with theirecosystems. In this talk, Dr. Megan Loumagne Ulishney will reflect on her field work visits to six Wild Churches in the summer of 2025 in order to explore the complex ways in which theology is both denied but also utilized by the Wild Churches to facilitate a feeling of spiritual connection with nature. As the Wild Churches are predominantly led by women, Dr. Ulishney will also discuss the formation of Wild Churches as an instance of strategic and creative negotiation of an alternative authority structure fashioned from the tools of more traditional and patriarchal Christianity.

Megan Ulishney headshot

Dr. Megan Loumagne Ulishney is an assistant professor of systematic theology in the theology department at Boston College. Her work engages questions atthe intersection of Catholic theology, the sciences, and feminist philosophy and theology.She is currently working on a grant project that is funded by the John Templeton Foundation entitledSpiritual Naturalisms: Nature Spirituality and Ecological Activity Among the Spiritual but not Religious.'This project examines the rise of nature spirituality among the spiritual but not religious, the ways in which theology may play implicit roles in nature spirituality, and the relevance of nature spirituality for creation care.

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