Jane Goodall's Faith Was Part of How She Understood the World Around Her

For decades, Jane Goodall was known to be one of the most famous primatologists and conservationists in the world. Her belief that humanity was not separate from the natural world that surrounds us helped make her hugely famous. Now, following the news of her death at the age of 91, many are learning more about her pioneering work and advocacy.

Among the less discussed parts of her legacy, though, is Jane's open discussions about her faith and how religion ultimately shaped her life. Here's what she's said about religion:

In a 2021 interview with Religious News Service, Jane explained that religion had been a part of her life since she was a child.

"My grandfather was a Congregationalist minister. We have the Congregational church in Bournemouth that is very open-minded and very inclusive. We weren’t a particularly religious family. We went to church sometimes," she explained.

"But when I was 16, I fell passionately and platonically in love with the minister of the church, who was Welsh," she explained. "Religion entered into me. It felt like I had a secret understanding of something other people perhaps didn’t share. But I had no compulsion to share it."

She went on to explain that she began to feel a strong "spiritual connection" to the natural world as she began to pursue her work, which appears to have only deepened her understanding of religion.

"What I love today is how science and religion are coming together, and more minds are seeing purpose behind the universe and intelligence. Einstein did. And my good friend Francis Collins," she added.

While some might see a conflict between science and faith, Jane clearly doesn't see it that way, and instead uses science and faith to reinforce one another and embrace the wonder of the natural world.

Although religion was not the only way that she talked about the world, it's fair to say that Jane was, at least in the big picture, a religious person.

"When I was in Gombe, I felt very, very close to a great spiritual power,” she told the Templeton Prize Committee, also in 2021. “I felt this spiritual power in every living thing."

"We call it our soul. Well if we have a soul, then that spark of energy is in chimpanzees, they have souls. And the trees, they have a soul, too. They’ve got a spark of that divine energy," she continued.

Jane spoke about the world largely from her perspective as an appreciator of nature, but it's also clear that her view of everything as interconnected was reinforced by her faith, and vice versa.

It's a reminder both that there are many different ways to be spiritual, and also that your religion doesn't have to get in the way of better understanding the world.

Jane was an incredibly learned person, and a brilliant conservationist, and she let her faith traditions reinforce those aspects of her life.