God in the Landscape

This book shows how creative writing gives voice to the drama and nuance of religious experience in a way that is rarely captured by sermons, reports and the minutes of church meetings. The author explores the history of religious dissent and Evangelicalism in Australia through a variety of literary responses to landscape, from both men and women, lay and ordained.

The book unravels trans-national themes, along with themes of migration and travel across the Australian continent. The author gives an insight into the colonial literature of Dissent, concerned as it is with travel, belonging, and the intersection of national and religious identity. Much of the writing is situated on the road: a soldier returning from the Great War, a child on a lone adventure, a night-time journey through urban slums, and all of these are in some way dependent on the theme of "walking with Jesus" as the Holy Land travelogues make explicit.

God in the Landscape draws the links between landscape, literature and spirituality with imagination and insight and is an important contribution to the historical study of religion and the environment.