The Rev. Greg Morgan offers one in a series of articles on contemporary trends in America for people of faith.
Survivalism: The American Passion du Jour
I readily admit to being one of those people who would perish in a world that didn’t contain the New York Times, and I say that because as an inveterate escapist in a world I no longer comprehend, it is the only way I am able to stay half-way informed, which is something I’ve always been urged to do. And I have an obsession with the Sunday edition, which I always read on Monday because church takes up so much of my time on the Sabbath.
In any event, I was keenly interested to learn last week that the latest American fashion is serious survivalism (or “prepping”). Not the hobby variety. I prefer to call it a vocation because of the extent to which it resembles work rather than play or imagination or a simple time-occupying activity. Having now read the piece, I can attest to the fact that “survivalism” represents a natural response to a very current reality; it is derived from utter bewilderment and even panic at the current state of the world. The author refers to her own “mix of despair and determination (because she is so) tired of the alarming news notifications about everything: wildfires, school shootings, disastrous federal decisions, food recalls, extreme weather events. The constant doomerism online and the deteriorating social infrastructure offline” which has put her into “a kind of spiritual ketosis.” OK. So, now at least, I can appreciate the feeling that would lead one to pursue survivalism. The difference for me is that this would not in any case imaginable propel me to sign up for a 10-day survival intensive in Chetumal Bay, Mexico an event consisting of a series of skill-learning workshops for people who just can’t take it anymore. For me, it’s just that not being able to bear something wouldn’t be sufficiently frightening to entice me into the wilderness with a bunch of strangers!
I won’t bore you with the details of the experience, in part because I’m more interested in how the author reacted to it all. Rather than rush out to try to replicate the experience or benefit from it in some kind of deeply psychic way, however, she adopted a philosophical reaction which I found instructive and even reassuring: “so much of what we think of as ‘prepping’ is about readying for the sudden end of the world as we know it — amassing food and gear in bunkers so we can continue to live, unaffected, in a bubble, even if the rest of the world burns around us.” Actually, what she came to know on this trip “was about something completely different. It was, above all, about letting yourself be affected by the changing world around you. Not just riding it out, but adapting, molting. Not succumbing to the luxury of despair but keeping a foothold in possibility. Not blocking the world out, but letting it in.” I find I much prefer “molting” to simple panic. Perhaps you do, as well. If so, I recommend Psalm 27 as a daily discipline:
The Lord is my light and my salvation
Whom then shall I fear?…
Though an army should encamp against me,
Yet my heart shall not be afraid….
For in the day of trouble he shall keep me safe in his shelter;
He shall hide me in the secrecy of his dwelling and set me high upon a rock….
O tarry and await the Lord’s pleasure;
Be strong, and he shall comfort your heart; wait patiently for the Lord. (Book of Common Prayer, p. 617).
Greg+
(Source: Jenna Wortham, “Prep School: A 10-Day Crash Course in Surviving Anything,” New York Times Magazine, March 16, 2025)