The Unseen and Unheard: Thoreau’s Religious Vision

In an era of religious tumult, Thoreau was an original voice in American religion. He sought to divorce the religious sentiment from its institutional context and helped pioneer an eclectic, experiential and non-institutional spirituality that has taken on new popularity. His religiosity and iconoclastic theological vision have been obscured, however, by his harsh attacks on churches as well as his pluralism, nature mysticism and refusal to systemize his religious beliefs. Nevertheless, Thoreau was religious to the bone and had a profound sense of the holy. While not a confirmed theist, he was open to and sought union with a divine mystery that was at once immanent in nature and not contained by it. Thoreau called this illimitable presence many names, but he often called it God. His religious sensibility was a central thread in his work as a naturalist, his philosophical thought and his ethical commitments.