Dr. Debra Rienstra

WDB Lecture Series

Dr. Debra Rienstra

Refugia: Communal Vocation in a Climate-Changed World
Wednesday, March 12, 2025
Elkins Auditorium | 5 PM

Debra Rienstra is professor of English at Calvin University, where she has taught since 1996, specializing in creative nonfiction, early British literature, and environmental literature. Her most recent book is Refugia Faith: Seeking Hidden Shelters, Ordinary Wonders, and the Healing of the Earth (Fortress 2022), a book that combines theology, nature writing, and biological principles to consider how Christians must adapt our faith and practice for a climate-altered planet. In connection with her work on faith and climate change, Dr. Rienstra speaks frequently to church and faith groups, hosts the Refugia Podcast, and writes the Refugia Newsletter on Substack. Her essays also appear fortnightly at The Reformed Journal where she writes about spirituality, pop culture, the church, the arts, higher ed, and more. Dr. Rienstra is the author of three previous books—on motherhood, Christian spirituality, and worship—as well as numerous academic essays, literary essays, and poems.