Nova Religio of religion. It might be argued that in fact has an established religion in that its state Land as Lover government is dominated by LDS, and it is clear that LDS religious beliefs are reflected in state laws. It is arguable that, with the elimination of polygamy as a tenet of mainstream Mormonism, the church brought itself within the boundaries of mainstream Protes- Mormon Eco-Eroticism and Planetary tantism, which forms the hegemonic religious discourse in the United States. Thus "estab- lishment" became acceptable as long as the established church fell within the parameters Plural Marriage in the Work of mainstream Protestantism. of Terry Tempest Williams Honsard, 3175.

Sarah McFarland Taylor

ABSTRACT: Steven T. Katz and James Spickard have argued that even though mystical and ecstatic experiences are often self-defined as unmediated experiences of the divine, fundamentally these experi- ences are always mediated to some degree through the mystic's own cultural milieu and religious language. The filtration of Mormon naturalist Terry Tempest Williams' mystical encounters with through a Mormon cultural lens, which is tied to a historic and mythic topophilia, lends Williams' writing a creative organicism that deftly combines diverse and contradictory elements. On one hand, Williams points to the irony of her chosen subject in light of the problematic relation Mormon culture has had with environmentalism and eroti- cism. On the other hand, a distinctly Mormon sensibility shapes Williams' love for the sacred geography of Utah and her attunement to the spiritual dimensions of the American landscape. In Williams' "greening" of Mormonism, we see the work of religio-cultural pro- duction in action, as she creates a unique fusion of nature mysticism and Latter-day sensibilities.

It's time for us to take off our masks, to step out from behind our personas-whatever they might be: educators, activists, biologists, geol- ogists, writers, farmers, ranchers, and bureaucrats-and admit that we are lovers, engaged in an erotics of place. Loving the land. Honoring its mysteries.. . . There is nothing intellectual about it. We love the land. It is a primal atfair. -Tq Tmpest Williams, "The Erotics ofPlace7"

Nma Religzo: TheJournal ofAltaative and Emergent Religions, Volume 8, Issue 1, pages 39-56, ISSN 10926690 (print), 1541-8480 (electronic). O 2004 by The Regents of the University of ~alifornia.Al1rights reserved. Send requests for permission to reprint to: Rights and Permissions, University of California Press, Journals Division, 2000 Center Street, Suite 303, Berkeley, CA 947041223. erry Tempest Williarns is the PvIornlon Anai's Nin of the American her unique opportunities to shape the complex overlapping West. T4Thile French-born novelist and eroticist Nin's steamy love of religion, sexuality, and culture. Taffairs lvere with both men and wornen (most notably Henry and June Miller), Williams' steamy love affairs are with canyons, mesas, rocks, EROS IN ACTION: A TWO-WAY LOVE arroyos and other sensual features of her native landscape. Her eartb encounters are hot, intensely erotic, and pulse rvith pleasure: "Steam U71en composing Desert Quor.tel: A77 Erotic Landscnpr (1995), CZ'iliiams rising. Water boiling. Geysers surging. Mud pots gurgliiig. Herds breath- says that the questioil b~u-ninginside her was a J.ery private one: "Ho~v ing. Woo\-es stampeding. Wings flocking. Sky darkening. Clouds gath- might we make lo~~eto the land?"" She also explains that her reasons for ering. Rain falling. Rivers raging. Lakes rising. 1,ightning striking. Trees choosing the topic \\.ere complex: burning. Tl~~~nderclapping. Smoke clearing. Eyes staring. . . ."' WTilliams erlgages the Earth's "bod!;" hrirlging loven~akingand landscape into a I am intrrested irr the notion of love and why we are so fearful of intirnac); nlystical "supreme union." She writes: "In the severity of the salt desert, with each other and with the laud. I wanted to explore thr idea of the erotic, not as defined by my as pornographic and exploitatire but I am brought to 1n7 knees by its beauty. My imagination is fired. heart ~~~~~~~e rather what it might meall to engage in a relationship of recip~.ocit)-." opens and my skin burns in the passion of these momelits. I will have no other gods before me. courts our so~ls."~In forging this Williams' culture is Mormon, a culture the fifth-generation hlormon sacred union of Earth and ms,M'illiams conjures the spirit of another both honors and critiques. "If I am honest, one reason the erotic is so erotic ~vriterseduced by the arid beauty of the American West.%iting intriguing to me is because in the culture I was raised ir~eroticism is the D. H. Lawrence's clairn, that "[tlliere exist two great modes of life-the ultimate taboo."13 Then is Williams' innovation of a t'Mormou eco- religious and the sexual," M'illiams adds, "[elroticism is the bridge."" erotica" simply a case of her playing the Mormon "bad girln?]"o; as her And it is chat bridge, that conl7rction, that is key for Williams. She makes exploration of the erotic landscape unfolds, a serious and uniquely tex- 1ol:e to the land, and the land makes lore back in a giving and receiving tured religio-cultural critique emerges. Williarns wants to know why exchange that obliterates illusory boundaries between body and land- Mormon culture in particular (and American culture generally) finds the scape."~illiams speaks about the primal human ache for this kind of body, intimacy, and sensuality so very frightening. She suspects that the communion rvith the land as "an unspoken hunger," observing that we answer has something to do with our alienation from the very Iand that fear that which we desire most-and what we desire most is intimacy.' supporls us. The word "erotic," for Williams, means being "in relation." Through her erotic experiences with nature, Williams' connection to She finds erotic connectioll to be "life-engaged, making love to the land as mystical lover contrasts sharply with the sexual taboos of her world," something that comes very naturally.'" Mormon upbringing. But, like Nin, who \

fol- ir~stanceillto the arms of a,juniper tree, where she spends much of Safely ensconced behind the windows of our automobiles or behind our ~l~eday st!-addling the branches and nestling her body deep into the camera lenses. we consume the landscape from a safe distai~ce.'~Here, bod>-of the tree.'" ''I had forgotten what it felt like to really be held.""' M'illiains' perspectke is evocative of Evelyn Underhill's classical treatise I-Iours pass before St7illiams finally unfolds herself from this embrace on ~rlysticalesperience, that one only truly kno\rs something (God, the and climbs do~vn.1j\;hen she does, she stops for a moment and gives back beloved, one's own country, etc.) through "an interpenetration of it to the body that has held her so intimately: "Feet on Earth. I took out and ourselves. It gi1-es itself to us, .just in so far as we give ourselves to my rt.ater bottle and saturated the roots. Piilk sand t~~rnedred. 1 left the it. . . .""I desert in a state of ~velness.""Once again, roi-M7illialns,the erotic is all Cultural llistorians such as Roderick Nash and Catherine Albanese abo~~treciprocal relalionship-passionate, ecstatic, mutual connection. have written in detail about the phenomenon of Anlericans "loving our 1,Villiainscontrasts the kind of balanced and intimate reciprocity she National Parks to death," but in a twist, Williams' lament over \vilder~less models in her own terrestrial/human relations to a very different sce- spectators brings to mind seediel- images-the voyeur in the Natioi~al nario. She M-arns:"12'hen lore is only one-way, eventually it becomes Park peepshow who "gets off' on the pay-per-\ie\\-sfrom the ~cindo~vsof pornographic. a bod!- that is used, rather than a body that is shared."'" his air-conditioned recreational vehicle but never dares, as she says, to Unlike the erotic I-elationship.the pol-nographic encounter, as M'illiams "touch flesh, rock, body, Earth."?' Environ~nentalhistorian Jennifer defines it, is soulless, exploitative. and extractive. And fhis, she argues, Price explores further the kind of wilderness voyeurism and virtual is what oul- dominant relationship as humans to the land has become. intercourse Williams describes, as she looks at the packaging and mar- As we mine, as we clefol-est,as we dam rivers, as we pump gallon after gal- keting of flattened "nature" images and sanitized "nature entertaiu- lon of water out of the aquifers beneath the desert, draining its very life ment" for mall consulners at such chain stores as the Nature Company force, \Villiams finds we cultivate a po,.nogr@lzic relationship in which and Natural S+~nders.~'Coinpai.ed to the alienated experiences of humans take from the land but do not give back." The land itself nature consumption described by Price, the automobile-ensconced becomes an object exploited. rather than a body shared. Similar argu- voyeur's brand of disengagement from the landscape actually begins to ments, of course, rvere made in the movement in the 1970s and 1980s look somewhat sensual. toward a feminist "herotica." in which women wi.iters made a conscious SVilliams provides her own very specific illustration of the distinction effort to generate erotic narratives that shifted Tvomen froin the role of between the "erotic" and the "pornographic" in Lmp (2000),her book exploited "object" to engaged s~~bject."Williams' own approach is dedicated to her obsession with painter Hieronymus Bosch's medie\-al somewhat different in that her ecstatic narratives of sacred lovemaking triptych, "The Garden of Delights," described by Williams as "a h)-mn to exude an intense mystical union that seeks to erase subject-object the sensual pleasures of the earth."3"n her discussions of' art, censor- distinctions altogether. ship, and the erotic, Williams recounts a 1990s contra\-ersy involving For Williams, it is the illusion of separation of the human body froin Brigham Young University's Museum of kt.The controversy was 01-er the larger Earth body that leads to the sins of exploitation.'"he finds whether to display four of sculptor Francois Auguste Rodin's well-known that pornography, like our abuse of the land, is PI-edicated on numb- works, including one of his most sensual and famous pieces, "The KISS." ing the senses, a hardening and disengaging fro111emotion that enables Ultimately, the rrluseum decided not to display Rodin's nude statues us to "annihilate what is beautiful and tender."'Vn the pornographic because the works of art might preoccupy students \+id1the wrong kinds context, she argues, "[tlhe erotic ulorld is silenced, reduced to a col- of thoughts."~orM7illiams. embodied in the museum's decision to cen- lection of objects we can curate and control, be it a vase, a woman, or sor the nudes was a fundamental confusion, mistaking the erotic for the wilderness. Our lives become a piece in the puzzle of' pornography as pornographic. The curators misrecognized the "blessedness of soulful we 'go through the motions' of daily interco~~rse~tithout any engage- connection," and the kind of sensual communion that Williarns sees as ment of the ~oul.''?~ so integral to the sacred, as something antithetical to or undern~ining Popular Amel-ican ecospiritual icon Father Thomas Berry (who of religious val~es.~"t is this same inisrecognition of the sacramental calls himself a "geologian") has identified this inability to engage the landscape as dead. empty, and profane matter that Williams challenges soul as a kind of "Earth autism," arguing that in modernity we have lost with graphic accounts of her earthy sensual unions. Comparative reli- the ability to comn~unicatewith and truly relate to the more than gionist Ninian Smart points out that for a number of religious traditions human I+-orld-crippled bv our alienation, ernotional unavailabilih, sexual union is the "best earthly analogue" for the union of individual and distant vacant gaze.2"6\'illiarns is similarly deeply disturbed that we and "God," and Williams' sacralization of her planetary unions is no have become a nation of detached voyeurs who look but do not "see." exception.36 M'illiams further dram parallels betwee11 fear of eros and intimacy she could have handed To Williams, raised in a community that within Nlormon cult~u-eand the narro~v,\:unimaginative valuing of nature instilled and valued conformit?- and obedience, the slreer variety of solely for its practical llunlan utilit): "I see my co~nmunity'sfear of l~omo- birds seemed radical, defiant, and suggestive. "Ultimatel~;"slle explains, sexuality, even wilder~~ess,as a failure of love and imagii~atiol~.Sex is like ''LII~culture values control, a control which suppresses creati~.~expres- land. It must be ztsvtl for s~mething."~'Her 1.er). personal and intimate sion. This is iiecessary because creative expressiorl threatens to under- experiences with the land and her rn!~stical desert visions tell her oth- mine the status quo."4" er~iise." '4s IVilliams slo~vlysqtleezes her body through the narrow pas- Nevertheless, Utah is where M'illiams chooses to make her home and sagelcay betneen Utah's sheer sandstone ~valls,she say: where she has made a conscious cominitnient to stay engaged in the con- m1111ityof her religious and cultural ancestry; vowing to "stand her gi-ound" The palms of n~!-hands search for a pulse in tlre ~rocks.I continue walk- in the place that she loves."M'illiams defines her tradition as both a "bless- ing. In some places ~nyhips can bai-el:, fit through. I turn sideways. m!- ing and a burden," noting that these are the tensions and coilflicts she chest and back in a ~iseof geologic time. I stop. The silence that li~esin coinmits to carry." She \ielus her marriage of Mormonism and, as she calls these sacrrd hallrvays presses agaiust me. I relax. I surrerider. I close my it, "Earthism" as a teaching for her about the creatixe strengths of paradox. e:-es. The aroi~salof illy bl-eath rises in me like rnlrsic, like lo\-e,as the pos- In approaching this lesson, she takes her cue frotn the - sessive muscles behveen in! legs tighten and release. I come to the 1-ock an enormous body ofw-ater, in the middle of a desert, from which you can- in a moment of stillness, gil-ing and receiving, where there is no partition not drink." She reflects, "I live now in a landscape called Paradox Basin behveerl my body and the bod!. of the ~arth." where salt domes have collapsed under the weight of time."4"

In many ways, Terry Tempest Williams does find he]-self in a "vise," TOPOPHILLA AND THE SACRAMENTAL LANDSCAPE and not just one of geological ancestry and heritage. It is a vise of religious tradition and cultut-a1heritage on one side, and on the other .Journeying through this landscape of paradox, Williams struggles to the truth of personal and t~.ailsformativeexperiences with nat~re.~" reclaim embedded aspects of blormon culture that have traditionally Paradoxically, it is a \-ise tl~atbrings pleasure and pain, bondage and stressed things such as the values of "sustainable living," small commu- sweet release. In a scene from Laal~,she stands in Brigham Young nal village life, community self-s~~fficiency,re~~elation received in the Cougar Stadium wit11 sixty thousand other Mormo~usto celebrate the wilderness, and a prophetic connection to a sacred land. That is, her 150th anniversary of the pioneers' pilgrimage to the Great Basin. As she mystical love affair with and ecstatic wonderment at the Utah landscape ~vatcllesthe reenactment of her people's sacred heritage, she observes: stems not simply from her background as a naturalist and environnlen- talist but is also f~~ndamentallyconnected to a polvel-fill cult~u-alrnythos Inside m!. ~.rins.I feel the pulse of my people, those dead are those stancl- of Utah as "Zion."50Historically, a classic illustration of this rnj-thos can ing beside Ine, a pulse I \

policies of ina~tioi~.~~eligioushistorian Richard Foltz points to further evidence of poor hlorrnoi~/environme~~talrelations and enumerates organizations such as l_Ttahlsow11 Anti-It'ilderness Society Citizens Against Light Rail. Foltz documents the clear anti-eii~~iro~lmentalist voting records of Utah's hlormon United States legislators and dra~r~s his readers' attention to a 1998 pamphlet co-authored by hIormon Republican Senator Orin Hatch that ~varnsCtali parents that "preoc- cupation uith en~.irontiientalissues'' may be a sign that their- children are abusing drugs5' Nonetheless, it is the legacy of "h/Iormon topophilia" and connection to "sacred geography" that IVilliams chooses to carr)-forth through her writing and acti~ism.Steven T. Iiatz and James Spickard have argued that even though mystical ar~decstatic experiences are often self-defined as unrnediated experiences of the divine, fulldalneritally these experiences are always mediated to some degree through the mystic's o~incultural milieu and religious language.5RThe filtration of Williams' own rilysti- cally unifying ericowlters with the land throtrgli a hlornlo~~cultural lens, \\-hich is tied to a historic and mythic topophilia, lends her writing a kind of creative organicisni which gracefully unites di1-erse and con- tradictory elements. She points to the ironies of her chosen subject, in light of the fact that within Morrnori culture eroticism is the "ultimate taboo."5g Still, a distinctly hlormon sensibility shapes both her love for the sacred geography of Utah and her passionate appreciation of the legacy of her biotic ancestors, the generations of Earth's cycles, and the miracle and fecundity of lice. Williams deftly strategizes lo marry ele- ?I.iI' SIIOXT-IS(; T11E FTI:II

and change, provides a rare and intimate view into the organic and Williams, L)esert Quartet, 11. intertwined processes of religion and culture as they shape and reshape IY This collection also includes a reprint of Desert Quartet. first published ill 1995 the American landscape. 20 Williams, Red, 107 2' UTilliams,Rrd, 108 22 Jensen, "Intervie~v,"312 ENDNOTES 23 Williams. Cinspoken Ifunger, 70-72. 24 See Kathy Myers, "Towards a Feminist Erotica" in Visibly Fernale: F~rnii~isnland Art: An Ant/iolog?., ed. Hilary Robinson (New York: Universe Books, 1988); and Susie Bright's Terry Tempest Williams, "The Erotics of Place," Whok Earth (M'inter 1997): 53. introduction to Herotira: A Collartion of M70iserr's Erotic Firtion (Burlinganle, Cal.: Down M'illiatns, 'The Erotics of Place," 53. For more biograpl~icaldetails of Nin's life, see Noel There Press, 1988). Riley Fitch, Anais: The Emtic I.' ofAnais Nin (New York: Littlr Brown Publishers, 2001); 25 This is an interesting twist on the Christian definition of "sin" as separation from God. and Deirdre Blair, Anai's Nirr: A Biography (New hrk: Putnaln, 1995). 2"ensen, "Interview," 312. ' Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge: An C'nnattrral Hisfory ofFomily and Place (New York: Vin- ?' [ensen, "Inter~iew,"312.Here, Willian~sechoes the work of ecofen~ir~istSusan Griffin, tage Books, 1991), 148. who has argued that pornography is not an expression of erotic feeling and desire but a Lois Rudnick. Utopian Vistas: T~PMabk Dodge Luhan House and the Anlelican Countm1l6 fear of bodily knowledge and a desire to silence Eros. See Susan Griffin, Pornogmplzy and ture (Alblrquerque: University of New Mexico, 1996); and Eliot Fay, Lor~nzoin Smrrll of the Sflence: Cult~rre% Reuenge Agnz~stNature (New York: Harper and Row. 1981). Sun: D. H. Lnzvrenrr in Italy, Mexico, and th~Amm'can .Touthruert (New York: Bookman Asso- Thomas Berry, The Dream of theEarth (San Fra~~cisco:Sierra Cll~bBooks, 1988). viewed ciates, 1953). through this autistically impaired lens, says Berry, the Earth and cosnlos appear as a "col- "erry Ternpest Willianls, RPd: Pas.rion and Patienc~in the Despt-t (New York: Pantheon lection of objects," rather than a "community of subjects." Books, 2001), 109. 29 Williams, Rrd, 106. On voyeurism and the "look" and the "gaze," see also Mary Ann This dynamic is most clearly demollstrated in Williams' Desert Quartet: An Emtic Land~rcrpe Doane. Femmes Fatnles: , Film Theory, Psyrhoano$sis (New York: Routledge Press, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1995). See her comments in Derrick Jensen, "Interview 1991); and Laura Mulvey, Visual ond Other Pleasures (Bloomington: Indiana University With Terry Tempest M'illiams," in Listening to the Lnnd: Conurnsations a/?o~rtNature, Culture, Press, 1989). andEros (San Francisco: Books, 1995), 313; also, her interview with Benja~ni~l Evelyn Underhill, Prartiral Mysticism (New York: E. P. Hutton and Company, 1915), 4. Webb in F~tgitiu~Faith: Conopt-sations on Spiritual, Enuironmenfnl, and Community Ren~ruol " (New York: Orbis Books, 1998), 160. In the Webb text, Williams speaks of how "our body 3' Williams, Red, 111. For a discussion of "loving national parks to death," see Roderick is the earth and the earth is our body." Comparisons can also be drawn behveen Williams' Nash, WiMernes.r and the Ametican Mind (New Haven: Yale, 1967), 263-73; Catherine mystical union of Earth, body, and the divine and ecotheologian Sallie McFague's irnage Alhanese, Nature Religion in Ammira: Fmm theA1gonkinn.r to theNeru Age (Chicago: University of the Earth itself as "the body of God." See Sally McFague, The Body of God: An Ecological of Chicago Press, 1990), 105-10; and , Lksm! Solitaire: A sea so,^ in the Wildn- TheoloLg (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993). ness (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968). Terry Tempest Williams, An Unspokeil Hunger: Storiec Aonr theFieM (New York: Vintage 32 SeeJennifer Price, "1,ooking for Nature at the Mall: A Field Guide to the Nature Com- Books, 1994), 79; and Jellsen, "Interview," 31 7. pany," in Unrommoir G,ound: Rethinking the Efuman Place in Nature, ed. William Cronon (New krk: W. W. Norton and Company, 1996), 186203; and Price's Flightmaps: Aduerrtures Webb, filgitioe Faith, 163. with Nature in Modern. Ampn'rn (New York: Basic Books, 1999). "elden Lane, TIIPSolace of Fzerce Landsrapes (New York: Oxford University Press, Terry Tempest Williams, Leap (New York: Pantheon Books, 2000), 195. 1998), 37. " 5' 5' Williams, Leap, 185. '' Victor Turner. TheForest of Symbolr (lthaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1967), espe- cially Turner's chapter on the "liminal" period. " Williams, Leap, 185-87 " Scott London, 'The Politics of Place: An Interview with Terry Ternpest Willia~ns,"[radio " See Ninian Smart, Dincensions of the Sacred (Berkeley: University of California Press, broadcast transcript], Insight @ Or~tlooh,Santa Bal-bara, California, 22 May 1995. 1996), 103; the chapter on "Eroticism" in Dorothee Soelle's The Silmt Cly: Mystirism and Resistance (Minneapolis: Fortress Press), 113-32; and Stephen T.-Katz, ed.. iMy.rtirism and l2 Tom Lyr~ch,"Talking to Terry Tempest Williams About Writing, the Environment, and Language (Nnv York: Oxford University Press, 1993). Being a Mormon," Southiil~steinLiteratnw Uanuary 2000), . " Williams, Leap, 184 (italics mine). I3 lensen, "Interview," 312. 3R For a discussion of the mystic in the desert and the potency 01 desert mysticism, see especially Lane, Solace of Fierce Landsrapes; and Phillip Sheldrake, Spaces of the Sacred l4 1 first preserlted this notion of fusion "Mormon eco-erotica" in the "Landscape, Liter- (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 91. ature and 1,ust" session of the American Academy of Religion, De~lver,November 2001, and 1 am grateful to the session participants who offered comments and reflections. 5"illiams. Desert Quartet, 9-10. l5 Jensen. "Interview," 310. 40 Literature on mysticism and nature experience makes frequent reference to the con- nection between ecstatic faith states or blissful states of supreme union and experiences '"ensen, "Interview," 312. with the natural world. In The Vanetirs of Religiozts Experi~nre,for instance, WilIiam James l7 M'illiams, Desert Quartet, 23. identifies the trar~sformativereligious experience as being the "sa~r~eorganic thrill which we feel in tlre fores~at n\-iliglrt, or ill a n~ou~~~aingorge; on]!- this time it comes over us at " Jensen, "Inter\-ielv." 312. the thought ofoc~rsupernatr~ral relations." See I\-illiamJames, 7%~I'o~icties ojRcligioii~Expr-~ "I IVebb, l7u,~>/ir~~Fcrith.161. I-ience (New York: hlacn~illanPublishing Co~npanv,1961 ). 40. '" Lynch, "Talking to Terry Tempest Ifilliams." 2. " See, for exan~ple.LOT\-r)- Nelson's Tliu ,\lorr~in~i T'illnge: .l Pnlter~iaiid T,.rh~liqrirofLond '' London. "The Politics of Place," 4 .%tt/ciri,-lit (Salt Lake Cih~:Cniversity of Vtah Press, 195'2) '"n adopting this stanre, Milliau~smight Ile said to he embracing \\'hat ethicist Linda ":\\5lliams. Lenp. 145. Holler has termed "erotic ~norality."Holler- ar-gurs that "[.j]us~.as dualistic. disembodied "' I\.illia~ns,Rrjugr. 148. pi~ilosophyi~~evitably gave rise to an ethic based on logos-on rules, authorities. and ";For theorization of 'li~.edreligion" as a concepr. see Da~idHall, ed., Lir~r(1Iirli&+o~: d~~ties-soembodied XI\-a]-ellessis giving ]rise to an ethic hased on ero.r. a somatic, intr~iti~e (Princeton, NJ.: Pri~~ceto~lVnivel~sin Press, 1999),especiall\-the intl-oductor! cl~aptersb! form of agent!. in ~vhichempathy. compassion, and care are the centl-al 111ol-alqualities." Robert Orsi (3-21) and Daniele Hel-rieu-l.tp,el- (2'1-40). Fol- ,t discussion of \vhat does o~~ See Linda Holln-,Emtic ,\lo!-nli!,: 7%eHolr of7ourh i~ii\lo,r;l iZgc~rq(New Bru~lsnick:Rutgers does r~otconstitute "living rrligiorl," see Mary Pat Fisher. Lii,!irp H,.lj@o~ir(Upper Saddle Uni~ersitvPress, 2002). 1 Rixr. NJ.: Prrntice-Hall, 1999). 1-6. " Mtbb. Fr~gitii~eFn~ll~.162. " Jensen, "Inter\-ietv."318. " L.ondon. "The politic^ of Place," 3. He]-e.Ffilliams eclloes bioregiorralisnl's pl~ilosoph- '"filliams, CStxJ~nkoiHlrlifi?.r; 140. Elsewhere, I ha\e argued that this conscious decisiol~ ical enlphasis on "sta!~ing at home" or "standing ill place." See, for example, Gal-? Snyder, to "stay at home" n-ithin one's religio~~stradition. while creating innoxatire ways lo live "Re-inhabitatiou." in Tlze OM Ilfln (Sau Francisco: Cih Light Rooks, 1977): Debol-ah Tall. "more snstainably" witl~iilthat tradition, ran be charactei-ized in terms of "religious reirl- From Tl,+cre TI? Stonrl: Rcroi'oiiign Svnsr ~jPlnce(Baltirnol-e: Jol~ns Hopkirls L'nilersity Press. habitation." See Sarah McFarland Tailor, "Reinhabiting Religion: Green Sisters, Ecologi- 1993).\hn Andruss, Chrisropher Plant, Judith Plant, and Eleanor I\tigh~,eds., Horrie!.4 ral Renewal, and the Biogeography of Religioirs Landscape," l\'o~-ld~'i<-;l'i6, no. 3 (December Bio~~~io~inlRmdr~r-!Philadelphia: New Socieh Pr~hlishel-s,1990): and Peter Be]-g, ed.. Rr11r- 2002) : 227-52. hnhiti~lga S(f?nr.nlrCouilti;~ (San Fmr~cisco:Plauet Dru~nFoundatiou, 19%). '' FVebb: Fugitive Foith, 163. 'VMhh, Fi~~gifii~rl;nith.164.

'~Villia~ns.Lent, 266. 'O \Villiams. Red, 61-68 '' Zion is [he hill in Jerusalem upon which the sacred Temple was twice huilt and " Keith Basso, IFtrtloi~r Sits i~iPlaces: I.n!ldsmj,c n~rdLn~ig~inqr A~~roitg the 11Frtr1-IL,.Lpnche destroyed. Even after the Tenlple's destruction; Zion continued to be the symbolic center (;Uhuqi~erqne:Unirel-sit!. of Kew Mexico, 1996), 41-43. of Je\\.isl~national life. j2 Keith Basso. I.li'sdo~liS11r 211 Plnre.7, 39. ." "' See \\'illiarn S~nythe,Co1171ir~t c~f.-Irid;I~iteiico (New York: Harper and ~ros.,1900); and " London. "The Politics of Place." 2-3. Catherine Alhar~ese,Ai~;ri~rn.ReIigi~~!r t17idRrligio1r (Belmont, Cal.: 11Bdncorth Publishing, " I\'ebb, Ft~gitir~cFni111,165. 19Y2), 227. -. " Elizaheth Joseph, "Polygamy No?\.!"Harpers (February 1993). 27. '' Jan Shipps, I\lon;in~~irr~~:The Sto~?ofn A'pnr Rr1igio11.rT,ndi/~n~i (Chicago: University of Illinois Press. 1985), 122-29. 76 L~nch,"Talking to Terryl'empest Williams," 4. For further historical ~~l~derstandingof the dimensions of plural marriage and h101-monsin America. see Sarah Rarrillger Gordon, " X-FIITuan, Tnl~oJ~hil~n:.4 Stnn') o/El~i~i~n~,r~~ortnlP~)~-rp/io~!. ilttittld~i, mid VOIUYT(Englewood Tlzu A\fo~.~~~o~7Q~(ettio~r: Poljgn~iij and C(~?~.ctitntin~inlCi11zJ~2rr.t 111 Si~ietv~iith-crntrr?il~nnicn Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice-Hall, 1974). (Chapel Hill: Urlivel-si? of North C:arolina, 2002). "'See Christopher McLeud, director. In the Light of Rn~plel~cp:Pmtrrti11gAnzericn5 Snned -- " Jensen, "l~lteniew."313 Lands (Olev. Penn: Bullfi-og Films, 2001), video casette; and Vine Deloria. Jr., God Is Red: .-I Sative lincl ofRcligion (New York: Grossett and Dunlap, 1973). '' Jensen, "Intel-view," 313 " For a docrrmentation of hlor~nonhostilih toward ernironmental concerns, see Richard Folt~,"hlormon Values and the Utah Envil-onment." Il'orldr'inoi4 (Spring 2000): 1-19. For " Julie Wortman. "Erosional Spirituality: An Tn~e~viewwith Tel-r~Tempest M'illialns?" Tlie an interesting counterpoint. see Glen I\Brchol, "LDS Church Is Already Green, Says IVitness (April 2001), l~pnkei~Hii~igo; 140. .lnnlj.ii.~.ed. Stever1 T. Katz (New York: Oxford University, 1978); 22-74: and Peter Moore's '"Villia~ns, An L'i~~pol:r~iHir~ige,; 140. chapter in the same T-olume,''Mystical Experience, Mystical Doctrine, and hiystical Tech- Rt' Willianls, Leap, 147. nique," 101-31. See also James Spirkard, "For a Sociolop-of Experience," in A FUli11~fw 13' Religion: .\$(I! Pnratligriisfor Sorinl Aiinljsir, ed. Ffilliam Sv.aLos (Ne~vburyPark, Cal.: Sage See, [or instance, Jim hfotavalli, "Ste~vardsof the Earth: The Cro-.\.ing Religious Missio~~ Publications, 1993). I I. 7. to Protect the Envir-onment," E/Tltet11r~i1n1i1~iortnl.1l~i,no~i~1~(Novemher/December 2002): 2-11; TI-ehbeJohnson. "Religion a~idthe Environment: The Second Creation Story," Soka Gakkai in Australia Sic?-rn (NOT-emher./Decemher1'398): 50-65; and 'Earth in Crisis: Religion's Ne~vTect of Faith," Il71olr Eoith (N'intei- 1997): 4-31. LVillett Kemptoii, Ja~nesS. Bostri. and Jennifer A. tlartle!, En;,i,nili~ioitnlI21iusr in :L17ienmiz Clrltlrm (Cambridge, Alas<: hI1T Press, 1093), 216. $9 See, foi- instalice, Toll\; (;ampolo's IJo7t1 to Rcqcite /lie En!-th Il'itho7ll ITi~i:ihil,l,il:~.\-orfin (Nash~ille:Thonias Nelsc?n. 1992). in which Campolo addresses anxieties about anti- Christian "pa~an"nature I\-orshipnithin the environmelltal movrn~ent,hlichael Coffnlan'c Daniel A. hletraux Sni'inrv gf Ihr EntfhP TIIPI'oiitics and Rr/i;in;m,~ 13f t/w El1i~11~1iiliriit/1/.I 1oio11~11f (Chicago: North- field Publishi~ig.1904) n1r11-eexplicitl!- seeks to expose what ile seer as the conspil-atorial "pagan agenda" of the en~.iroi~mrntalmovenirnt and the threat that "eco-caviol-s"pose to Christianih. Man\- of the most hostile ci-itiques directed tomar-d environinentalism come from Chi-istian fundarnentalist soul-ces, altho~lgh,Jeffrr\;ICaplan has also ~~SCIISSP~sen~i- ABSTRACT: Japan's Soka Gakkai Internatioi~alI SGI) has establislled ti! ities ~vithinsorne Je~cishcircle$ of tlirlse \tho feu the specter of li~~ksI~envern erir iron- a small but gi-owing chapter in Australia that in 'LO02 had about 2,500 mentalism and pagan Nazism. See Jeffrev Laplan. "'The 1hi-kSidr of Iiature Religion," members nation~\.ide.Since its foundi~igin the n1id-I960s, SC;I papel- pi-esented to the American Academ!- ol Religion. O~lalldo,Floiida, 23 November- Australia (SGLA) has evolved into a highly heterogeneous movernent 1998. Persons ~vorking~\rithin conservative C~I-istiana~id,le~\-isli religious institutions to dominated by etllnic Asians, of which a large number are Chinese "green" sensibilities and to make en\-ironmentally conscio~lsrefol-ms fi-orn within face a from Southeast Asia. SC;W's appeal is both social and religious. X key particularl) delicate and challenging job of boun~lai-\;negotiation. factor for SGIA's growth is its emphasis on the concept of connnlrl~ity. The fast pace of life, constant movenlent of people. and a sizeable growth of immigrants have created a sense of rootless~~essamong many Australians. SGW's tradition of fornlirlg small chapters whose members often meet in each other's homes or conim~unitycenters creates a tightly bonded group. SGIA members find their n~o~.ement'sfor111 of Buddhism appealing because it is said to give them a gl-eater sense of confide~~ceand self-empowermerlt, permitting them to manage their own lives in a more creative manner.

oday Australia is experiencing a significant Buddhist boom with nearly two percent of the population declaring some adherence Tto this very traditional Asian religion. A vast majority of the adherents are ethnic Asians who have been immigrating to Australia since the early 1970s, but there is a growing interest amollg some Caucasian Australians as well. One of the more successful Buddhist organizations is the Australian chapter of Soka Gakkai, an orga~lization that originated in Japan. Soka Gakkai is one of the strongest ofJapan's new religious move- ments' with eight to ten million members. Soka Gakkai has also nur- tured a highly successful international movement (Soka Gakkai International or SGI) that, according to Soka Gakkai estimates, has some two million followers in 187 foreign countries and territories. M'hile Soka Gakkai and SGI chapters abroad share the same religious

h'oua Religio: Thr,Jou~nal ojAlternntiwe and E177ngt111Rrli@o?~.c, Ihlun~e 8, Issue 1, pages 57-72, ISSN 1092-6690 (print). 1541-8480 (electronic). O 2004 by The Regents of the Utliversity of California. All rights reserved. Send requests for perniission to reprint to: Rights and Permissions, University of California Prass, Journals Di~ision,2000 Center Street. Suite 303, Berkeley, CA 947041223.