For God so loved the cosmos: Abstract
In this paper, I shall assess the somatic ecotheology of Sallie McFague. My contention is that McFague‘s hyperincarnational and sacramental doctrine of God is a viable metaphorical matrix for raising environmental awareness, since it combines phenomenological mysticism and a Christocentric praxis with a postmodern worldview. It is perhaps the best way to reconcile the often disparate fields of New Testament studies, Christian mysticism, existentialist theology, phenomenology, and ecology. The world as the body of God is a viable extrapolation of Christian doctrine –though undoubtedly born out of a specific concern– that has the potential to bring Christians into greater : agapic actualization as they engage with other beings and their environment vis-à-vis the evangelian of the Christian vision. Connor Steele
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Professor Salmond Steele 2 ―There is much that is strange (deinos) , but nothing that surpasses man in strangeness….He wearies even the noblest of the gods, the Earth, indestructible and untiring, overturning her from year to year, driving the plows this way and that… Only death is against him" (Soph. Ant. 368-394). 1 The environmental crisis, perhaps more than ever before, places human beings in a position of both radical freedom and radical contingency. In the Anthropocene, human beings are afforded the immense gift of either shaping their future toward a kingdom of heaven on earth, or through their own actions, creating a biosphere of eternal damnation.2 It is because of this position of radical freedom and contingency that an open system and postmodern theology is appropriate for the present age. This paper shall examine the environmental and theological thought of Sallie McFague, who is currently an adjunct professor at the Vancouver School of Theology, and was the chair of Vanderbelt Divinity School. Though refusing to ally with any specific theological stream, her theology can be seen as a mixture of existential, process and contextual elements, which work toward an imminent phenomenological mysticism and a program for realized social justice. I shall argue that Sallie McFague‘s innovative ecomysticism is born both of somatic readings of the New Testament and embodied theology, as well as a postmodern worldview. Though this development seems heterodox, it is an authentic correction and elaboration of both New Testament theology and the Christian mystical tradition. This response obviously stems from specific cultural circumstances; yet one cannot find theology or philosophical thought that does not. People such as Sallie McFague, Mark Wallace, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Heather Eaton, and Matthew Fox, among others, need to be brought from the theological margins to the theological centre in order to create a biocentric Christian theory and practice. This paper shall attempt to show how McFague bridges the false between mysticism and corporeality, and suggests correctly that they are indivisible. McFague‘s Steele 3 approach, therefore, should be pursued by greater numbers of Christians, since it is a viable interpretation of the Gospel for a nuclear age. It reflects both the best of tradition and the best of innovation.
Since Sallie McFague is a theologian affiliated with the Anglican Church, it is important to note that the Anglican Church generally follows the triad of scripture tradition and reason set forth by Richard Hooker.
Though the subject-subject model is not perfect, it has many advantages. Firstly, contends McFague, it is more in keeping with the views of postmodern science and ecology, with one important difference (to be discussed below). Postmodern science and process philosophy sees human beings, and thus, all of nature, as a work of systems and events in which 3 In Anglican thought, all these elements are equal and ought to inform all sound hermeneutical and theological reflection. It seems, therefore, that the question of Sallie McFague‘s authenticity for Anglican theology is as simple as determining where she stands in relation to this triad. Perhaps the best criterion for all three of these categories, when speaking of theology, is love. In her book, Super, natural Christians, McFague argues that the Christian ethic towards nature should be Christian praxis extended to the natural world: that is, the agape that is commanded in the Gospels should be extended to the entire biosphere4. She critiques the Newtonian and patriarchal model of subject-object dualism that she sees as encouraging hierarchical and binary thinking, and places human beings in an ‗I-it‘ relationship with the world around them; instead of this model, she hopes that human beings engage in a subject-subject relationship with their natural environment, whereby they will recognize the agency of other living beings and materials5. This wish may seem preposterous, but, as McFague contends, since human beings are the only creatures capable of self-reflection, all our models of reality are merely models. They should, therefore, be assessed based on utility. Steele 4 all matter and living things serve a function
This wholeness can only be experienced through relationship: consequently, McFague argues that touch should be the primary sense through which we perceive the world, rather than sight, since touch reflects both our incarnate and relational existence. Touch involves all parts of the body and requires another person or object6. Our selves are not radically autonomous beings; rather, they participate in these processes. Thus, in this cosmology, all things are dependent on everything else for survival, and the human-world-God complex, in this cosmology, is radically open. McFague contends that deep ecology tends to argue for the complete annihilation of the Self, which she sees as an unrealistic goal. Rather, she suggests that the Christian vision has something unique to offer to this postmodern model. Christianity exhorts people to enter into what Martin Buber and subsequent theistic theologians would call ‗I-thou‘ relationships, wherein persons encounter God as holy Other, yet intimate with themselves. Subsequently, they ought to extend this relationship both to other persons and to their environment7. While still insisting that Christians should maintain their commitment to the suffering of the world, she also suggests that the environment itself, and the non-human subjects within it, can be seen as the new poor. The agape experienced through Christ, in its ideal form, therefore, should be completely open to all subjects without distinction 8. Instead of viewing the world with the arrogant eye of subject-object dualism, human beings should try to engage with the world by using the loving eye of subject-subject relations, which, for McFague, brings the individual person to greater completion9. 10. McFague finds support for this embodied approach to theology in the life and teachings of Jesus, and notes that all the miracles of Christ and his parables pay special attention to the body, its needs, and terrestrial existence 11. Indeed, in one of her early essays, McFague contends that the function of the parable is to bring the Steele 5 supernatural into natural existence
This belief in super, natural Christianity is predicated on McFague‘s panentheism and her hyper-incarnationalist thought discussed in
McFague‘s approach requires that Christians place an even greater emphasis on the doctrine of the incarnation, which, to use McFague‘s term, will help the Church be not supernatural, but super, natural. If religion, as Karl Barth comments, is the eternal question mark placed against human culture
It should be noted that any fair assessment of McFague‘s theology must take a constructivist approach. This paper is less interested in what Christian tradition and scripture has 12. Thus, for McFague, the goal of Christian teaching is not to divorce human beings from their natural environment, but to resacralize it, and, subsequently, reposition human beings within it through the evangelian of Christ. Christians, for McFague, then, should not be supernatural, but, super, natural13. Models of God. Yet, before one can appreciate the model of the world as God‘s incarnate body, it is necessary to trace some major trends that led to the ongoing dialectical conflict between spirit and matter within the Indo-European imagination, and a discussion of why such a turn to a embodied and phenomenological theology is both required in the present age and consonant with tradition. 14 then the incarnation – to borrow a phrase from Tillich – provides one with the courage to be an embodied Christian amidst what Eric Voeglin has dubbed the Gnostic fantasy of Western Culture.15 For Christians, ―the in-fleshing‖ of the divine, makes the body numinous and the numinous bodily. In opposition to Jeremiah, in order to save the planet, human beings should find God ―on every high hill and under every green tree‖ (Jer. 2:20)16, since the discovery of God in , under , through – and yes – also beyond nature, which is made possible by a doctrine of incarnation, will help bring persons into a subject-subject relationship, communion with the natural world, rather than a subject-object relation to it Steele 6 said about the environment than what those same two things could – and should – say about the present ecological crisis. This approach seems consonant with current trends and liberal Protestant theology. For instance, Dale Martin, chair of New Testament studies at Yale, has recently moved in the direction of reader response criticism when analysing New Testament literature. For Martin, texts do not ―say‖ anything but are simply read by interpreters. Any hermeneutical act—even if it uses the most rigorous historical methods—is still a creative act. Thus, a definitive distinction between eisegesis and exegesis seems rather untenable.17 Furthermore, in Pedagogy and the Bible, Dale Martin suggests that the ascendency of the historical critical method in modern seminary education (particularly in Protestant denominations) has resulted in a decline of theological education. Additionally, Martin notes that the preoccupation with the historical veracity of theological propositions is a relatively recent phenomenon, born of Christianity‘s uneasy and ambiguous encounter with postmodernity. Martin subsequently concludes that seminary education should place renewed emphasis on contextual theology, in order to create a new theology descended from tradition, which remains fecund with meaning for the present age.18 In addition to this approach, I am sympathetic to John Cobb‘s notion of process theology, which sees God as an evolving occurrence throughout history. Or perhaps more accurately, God remains an eternal being, but zis manifestation and the human understanding of it changes over time.19 Thus, any sensible theologian should engage in a dialogical relationship with the past, looking at Scripture and tradition in their historical context, while always keeping in mind that human understanding grows as time passes, and that the purpose of theology is to convey the message of God in the particular media and metaphors that resonate in the consciousness of the present age.. A panentheistic embodied Christology is a viable solution that may effect this relationship because it allows human beings to experience Steele 7 God in a way that is more consonant with our current postmodern self-understanding. It draws on elements of tradition that are viable, while redressing issues in the Christian mythic framework, which have contributed to environmental degradation. Seeing the world as the body of God reconciles the conflict between reason and nature inherited from the Greco-Roman tradition, while still providing for a Christocentric spirituality of
Martin Heidegger‗s analysis of Antigone provides tremendous insight into the human predicament. Heidegger placed great emphasis on the Chorus‘ description of human beings as
Canadian literary critic and philosophical and religious thinker, Northrop Frye, states that myth is neither historical, nor anti-historical, but it is counter-historical: that is, it runs outside of our traditional notions of time and space and offers an alternative vision. A distinction must be made, therefore, between sacred and secular history. The New Testament is less a historical narrative than a series of mythological answers to the question of what would happen if the agape. deinos, which is a multi-veilent adjective in Greek: it can mean strange, clever, terrible, new or monstrous20 and it is somewhere in this matrix of meaning that Heidegger locates humankind and its ongoing uneasy relationship with the radical freedom afforded by its own consciousness. Heidegger further elucidates the tension between phyin and logos in both Antigone and Athenian consciousness and the concomitant tension between human beings, the polis and its nomoi .21 Living in a society that had still not reconciled these tensions, the author of the Gospel of John attempted to synthesise a new doctrine; this doctrine was intended to redress the dialectical conflict between logos, physon, the laws, and human beings in Greek thought. Thus, Sophocles depicts a paradigmatic flaw in the Greek imaginary that Christianity inherits but also seeks to transcend, through its somatic metaphors. The course of the West has been largely dictated by which of these tendencies dominate in a particular era Steele 8 transforming power of the Messiah came to earth and how would human beings respond to that transformative power.
Thus, a developed society is one that guarantees primary concerns (for example food, water, shelter and so forth): such that the person can both become an autonomous individual and aesthetically inclined being.22 metaphors like those contained in the New Testament are at once born of humankind is self-reflexive relationships with Being, as it is mediated through its environs and also a process, whereby it transcends this self-reflexive encounter Frye takes the view that individuals have primary and secondary concerns. 23 He says that more developed societies are inclined to pursue secondary needs, which lead them to a more aesthetic and philosophical approach to life. He points out himself that this supposition is a Hegelian, as well as positivist, view, but freedom properly understood is an appropriate and powerful metaphor .24 Frye sees freedom of the individual person as a realistic goal to which human beings should aspire. Frye is, of course, writing in the tradition of John Stewart Mill, who thought the only proper realm of politics was to guarantee the liberty of the individual.25 This is in contrast to classical forms of community, which thought that the individual person had no meaning outside of the city, as, for example, Aristotle stated in Politics.26 Christianity began to develop the notion of personhood and individualism by giving new significance to words such as ‗persona‘ in its creedal statements. Balancing this radical independence The Christian movement has strong collectivist tendencies because of its somatic imagery. Yet, as has been said, having a Christian environmental ethic vis-à-vis individualism is challenging, since most deep ecology requires a holistic ethic, while Christianity prizes the dignity of the individual human. Every human being is made within the image of God, and is therefore endowed with freedom. Steele 9 Another philosophical trend which has arguably contributed to the current environmental crisis is what Seyyed Hossein Nasr has called the desacrilization of knowledge, which he sees as a direct consequence of modernization and its concomitant secularization. Without sacrilized knowledge, humans see themselves as above and removed from their environment; for knowledge is pursued as an end in itself and not for a greater good. This position, says Nasr, has been the situation and human beings, since Calvin developed his concept of inner worldly asceticism. One way to help resacralized knowledge is to have an embodied encounter with it, which makes knowledge not an object of study but an act of creation itself. 27
Heidegger is in agreement with this assertion; his concepts of technology as art and the openness of Being provide further nuance to this discussion. Because we are radically free beings, we must reaestheticize both our natural environment and technology and through this process, reshape our world.
Along a similar trajectory, Charles Taylor, responding to the thought of Karl Polyani, thinks that much of Western development in both the arts and sciences was caused by what they dub the ―great disembedding‖ of human beings from their natural environment.28 Yet this reshaping requires that we look beyond the technology that has imprisoned us and has altered our relationship with the environment. For Heidegger, this means that humans must experience an assent into Being which places great emphasis on the phenomenology of existence. For Christians this phenomenology of Being should be primarily made intelligible through the Christ metaphor and the lived experience of agape; but such things are often clouded by ever-increasing industrial development and the modern scientific teleology. 29 This line of thinking, of course, owes a great deal to Max Weber and his concept of disenchantment of the world.30 Such disenchantment arguably would not have been made possible without the advent of Cartesian dualism.31 This dualism, in turn, was born of both Platonism32 and arguably Steele 10 Christian apocalypticism. Yet, Taylor also points out that individual persons inhabit what he calls ‗social imaginaries‘: these ‗social imaginaries‘ inform our practices, which, in turn, recreate the social imaginary. If such things are created, it is possible to transcend them, or, at least, to focus on the more positive aspects of the current imaginary
I have already intimated that I am in agreement with Eric Voegelin‘s critique of the subversive Gnostic fantasy. That is, Christianity has always been in a dialectic between world-negating and world-affirming elements.
The victory of Christianity over paganism was the greatest psychic revolution in the history of our culture. It has become fashionable today to say that, for better or worse, we live in "the post-Christian age." Certainly the forms of our thinking and language have largely ceased to be Christian, but to my eye the substance often remains amazingly akin to that of the past. Our daily habits of action, for example, are dominated by an implicit faith in perpetual progress which was unknown either to Greco-Roman antiquity or to the Orient. It is rooted in, and is indefensible apart from, Judeo-Christian teleology. 36 33. The concept of membership in the body of Christ may have the ability to reconcile the tension between individualism and communitarianism in the postmodern consciousness because it satisfies the human desire to be both part of a collective and an autonomous being. 34 It is on account of these Gnostic, or more accurately, apocalyptic tendencies that one finds attempts in modern discourse to immanentize the eschaton. One ought to raise two caveats here: firstly a distinction must be made between apocalypticism because of a global crisis and that born of regionally specific political oppression (that is, first century Jewish); secondly, one must distinguish between the images of the apocalyptic vision and the apocalyptic mind. The former was a literary device intended to direct the human consciousness toward a new world that could be realized both now and in the future while the latter is an ever persistent misanthropic neurosis born of social maladjustment and injustice.35 The former images, despite their problematic characters, can be preserved while the latter aspects should be analysed with great care. Thus, Lynn White is partially correct when he states: Steele 11 Likewise, Micheal Crichton is astute when he points out the religious and specifically soteriological character of much environmentalist discourse.
Thus, Paul expresses a nuanced eschatological vision, which describes redemption experienced by humans through Jesus‘ historical intervention, some primitive notion of Jesus‘ cosmic significance for redemption of the world and redemption at the end of time. These three things are held in tension. Liberal theologians, if they do not dispense with eschatological strains 37 Yet, both these authors miss the tension between a realized eschatology and the hope for redemption to come at some future time in Christian thinking. Paul, for instance, speaks of Jesus as ―the first fruits (aparche) of the resurrection‖ (1 Cor 15:20). Several things about this phrase should be noted, which could lend support to an eco-Christology. Firstly, aparche is a mass noun referring to fruits of the harvest and thus, has a specifically agricultural connotation.38 It could be said that for Paul, Christ‘s redemption does not occur outside of the natural world but has given it partial restoration. Indeed, he also says in Romans the following: ―We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.‖ (Rom 8:20-23). Here again, redemption takes place within a biological context. Even for Paul, who has to say the least, an ambiguous relationship with the flesh, those who have the spirit of God are partially redeemed and on the path toward perfecting their bodily existence. Even though, in Paul‘s view, the resurrection is immanent, he does develop tension between personal redemption experienced through Christ and the greater redemption experienced for Paul at the end of history. In Corinthians, he says: ―For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then we will see face to face: now I know only in part; but then shall I know fully, even as I have been fully known.‖ (1 Cor.:13:12-3) Steele 12 altogether, may point to the author of Matthew who states that no one will be aware of the time when the messiah comes, so disciples ought to live and love with faithful expectation. (24:36) For example, a more conservative Anglican bishop, NT Wright, in his book Surprised by hope: rethinking Heaven, the resurrection and the mission of the church suggests that despite the resurrection‘s crucial role in Christian theology and the Christian cosmology, Christians still have a responsibility to make an image of that reality manifest in contemporary life through social action. 39 Since it poses such a quandary in relation to environmental thinking, it is necessary to have a brief excurses on Revelation. All texts are contextual, yet, the Apocalypse of John is perhaps the most difficult text in New Testament literature because of its very specific milieu and tradition.
Yet, what is a responsible interpretation of Pauline somatics? It should be noted that Paul‘s supposed rejection of the flesh almost always occurs in a context where the body appears as the medium upon which Christian virtue was inscribed. Jennifer Glancy in her work 40 Important to this discussion is its often ignored ecological character. In her essay, ―River of Life in God's New Jerusalem: An Eschatological Vision for Earth's Future,‖ Barbara Rossing pays particular attention to the importance of water imagery in the apocalypse of John. She also notes that the author is as equally concerned with restoration as he is with destruction. She further elucidates that attacks against city life should be viewed only as attacks against Roman power, and though it may be anachronistic, also as attacks against rampant consumption.41 The point here is not whether the apocalypse of John can be used to support a world negating and millenarian ethos, since obviously if one has this inclination, there is plenty of evidence; but when a more rational approach exists, it should be explored and inform practice. Corporal Knowledge notes Paul‘s preoccupation with his own body as a visible manifestation of his Steele 13 faith—both as a sign to other Christians and to his Greco-Roman environs.42 Margaret Mcdonald has also observed a similar strategy along with Jennifer Knust when discussing discursive apparatuses, which seek to control the flesh of believers (particularly women) as means of advertising the church‘s virtue. The Christian body was juxtaposed against the Roman body and in effect served as a billboard for the proto-Christian community‘s chastity and propriety.43 Furthermore, in the Corinthian Body, Dale Martin gives a highly nuanced discussion of Christian corporeality as the primary social metaphor and chief concern of Paul‘s theology. 44 Thus, Paul speaks of those who live according to ―the flesh‖ (sarkos) and those who live according to the Spirit (pneumatos). Strictly speaking, sarkos refers merely to all of fleshly existence; but more specifically, those baser aspects, which can be stripped with ease. Paul intentionally uses this word to draw an analogy between men of sin and beasts. This was not because Paul devalued animals intrinsically: this was simply a rhetorical trope.45 Luther defined pneumatos as follows: it ―is the highest and most noblest part of man, which qualifies him to lay hold of incomprehensible, invisible, eternal things; in short it is the house where Faith and God‘s word are at home‖.46 While that is one possible interpretation, I think pneumatos is more appropriately discussed as the vital wind or life force of God, which animates and invigorates the body with Zis power. This seems to be in keeping with the Ruach Elohim (breath of God) found in Genesis (1:2) and the way the Spirit descends in Acts upon the disciples at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-13). Furthermore, in the Gospel of John, Jesus speaks to Nicodemis, saying that a person must be born of pneuma and water, in order to see the kingdom of Heaven (2:1-13). The pneuma even assumes a theriomorphic manifestation when it descends upon Jesus as a dove (Lk. 21-23). Steele 14 In his paper, ―The Earth as Sacrament‖, Mark Wallace notes that these and similar ecological metaphors appear throughout the New Testament. What is more, he contends that the
Most early Christian literature has an ambiguous relationship to nature. Yet it would seem that a large portion of early Christian literature is not per se world-negating but rather world-reshaping. The proto-orthodox, therefore, came to reject the highly metaphysical and soterilogical cosmology of the Gnostics.pneuma, because of its biological associations and vivifying power, should be thought of as analogous to a living being, which in concert with divine Logos, moves throughout creation.47 When commenting on the Savoe Regina that describes the earth as a veil of tears, from which humans must escape, Hanna Arendt, notes that human beings have always longed to free themselves from their material conditions, but the blame for this rests equally with both philosophy and religion.48 In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche develops this argument even further by suggesting that the spirit-matter dichotomy is predicated on a much deeper binary: that is, the subject-object dualism prevalent in Indo-European language.49 As has been said, the Christian ideal of agape strives to mend this dualism. 50 Their conception of God summarily rejected the Aristotelian metaphor of the Prime Mover, who initiates all things yet is not immediately connected with the affairs of humankind.51 Nor did it necessarily affirm the Neoplatonic model, with its One and gradations of mind and matter:52 even though Paul Santmire rightly observes that such beliefs led to Origin‘s chain of being and elements of medieval scholasticism‘s cosmology.53 Rather, the early Christian God was one who intimately involved himself in human history.54 Furthermore, Santmire notes that Irenaeus produced a theology of creation specifically in response to the Gnostics.55 Steele 15 The question is not whether McFague‘s theology is perfectly in accordance with all scripture - since perfect agreement in a vast collection of texts is impossible - but whether selected New Testament writings can inform a somatic theology. The analysis thus far has shown that they can. In sum, three things are clear: several New Testament authors took the body very seriously, they also took the notion of breath seriously as a concrete sign of divine power in the world; and however problematic their eschatology may be, the New Testament does not hold to a Plotinian split between body and soul but instead the proto-Orthodox viewed salvation as occurring on this earth.
Frye‘s solution for this 56 If they did not, one fails to see why the proto-Orthodox would have spent so much energy refuting Gnostic Christianities, which eventually arose in their midst.57 Indeed, Elizabeth Castelli suggests that physical martyrdom formed the core of the Christian mythos for the early followers of Jesus, which is why they reacted so strongly against Docetism.58 Yet, it is still clear that there was tension between physon and logos within early Christian history and that this tension persists to the present. aporia is for human beings to have a ―double vision.‖ This bifurcated gaze requires a person to inhabit two realms simultaneously and with equal joy; the one sphere being natural and the other sphere aesthetic or mythical.59 While one may be sympathetic to this schema, it is unable to break down the Cartesian dualism previously discussed, on account of which Lynne White and others justly implicate Christianity for some of the environmental problems today. What may be required is not a double-vision, but a more holistic vision, wherein the divine and material inter-penetrate. Such a shift would at least answer part of Marxist criticism - outlined in Theses on Feuerbach - of religion as human being‘s self-alienation from their environment.60 Steele 16 Perhaps the debates over Christ‘s nature at the Council of Chalcedon may provide a possible answer to this problem. It was decided that Jesus of Nazareth, as the Christ, has two equal natures and is in substance and essence both fully human and fully divine.
The Gospel of John begins:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. (
In his essay, ―The earth as a sacrament‖ John Chryssavagias notes that the doctrine of the 61 Granted, traditional Christianity would suggest that there is a necessary ontological distinction between Christ and the rest of creation, but those in line with McFague‘s thinking contend that distinction is not always so clear. egeneto) What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. (Jn. 1:1-6) logos can be extended beyond the historical event of Jesus‘ entering of time to a perpetual act of creation on the part of Divinity: for God spoke the world into existence (Gen:1-1), and through Zis manifest acts of creation, he is constantly speaking.62 For Chryssavagis, the sacrament of the Eucharist in Orthodox Catholic and Anglican churches brook think seems to down the distinction between creator and created: in the sacraments, Christ again comes into the world and exists in a particular location.63 In line with Luther, ―the finite is capable of carrying the infinite.‖ 64 Calvin‘s doctrine that ―the finite is incapable of carrying the infinite‖65 contradicts a traditional understanding of the incarnation. For how could God inhabit a historical person if Ze were not able to undergo some form of self-restriction? Furthermore, God is omnipresent and Ze must undergo some form of self-constriction in order for there to be space for differentiated matter to exist. Since, for the author of the Gospel of John, all things come into and receive their being through God, Spirit and matter must be able to exist simultaneously as inner-penetrating realities, Steele 17 for if God cannot inhabit matter in this sacramental model, it would not have being. 66 The Logos then is not just the particular person of Jesus, but the divine reason, which sustains all creation. In fact, for Paul Tillich, the death of Jesus is a negation of any historical particularity in the divine since through that sacrifice, the man Jesus of Nazareth, becomes the cosmic Christ.67 Hence, John famously writes: ―and God so loved the world
In this context, McFague‘s embodied and phenomenological eco-Christology becomes far more intelligible. She states that all theology is essentially a heuristic and a metaphorical enterprise since our language about God is necessarily limited.kosmon that he gave his only son. That anyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life‖ (3:16). In Koine Greek, Kosmos means the whole earth with all living beings and inanimate substance. As well, it has another meaning found mostly in Attic Greek, which implies a rationally ordered system. In effect, Jesus came to redeem the community of believers and this redemption is concomitant with partial redemption of the entire universe.68 Full redemption will, of course, for John be experienced at the end of history. 69 This leads her to suggest that the monarchical model of God is no longer a functional metaphor in the minds of most persons, such that it cannot elevate them towards the divine; even if this were a functional metaphor, it fosters child-like dependence, hetero-patriarchy, militarism, and violence. These things for McFague obviously contradict the peace commanded by Jesus. She suggests instead that we should derive new metaphors close to our experience. These metaphors, for McFague, are models for understanding God as mother, lover and friend.70 She proposes that we use new natural metaphors that resonate with our experience, such as air and water. For breath is the thing that begins and ends humans existence, thus it is the life force, which connects us to the divine. Likewise, water sustains us and purifies us of sin when we go through baptism. For Steele 18 McFague, the passage through water at baptism is analogous to our passage through water to experience new life at birth.71
McFague argues since the sacraments contain the essence of Christ in a particular location, this principle may be generalized, so it is possible to view the cosmos as the body of God72. Though this may seem like pantheism, McFague actually proposes panentheism73. There is a subtle yet crucial distinction between the two models: the former posits everything as divine, while the latter maintains that everything is contained within a divine reality. McFague makes the prima facie flummoxing claim that Christianity is essentially monistic.74 This claim seems less problematic when one considers the crucial role Christology plays in genuine theological reflection. For Karl Barth, without Christology, the New Testament would become a rather uplifting story, replete with banal moral aphorisms, instead of the eternal Word of God.75 God/Christ can be viewed as an ultimate reality that subsumes all others. Despite vehemently maintaining an ontological distinction between God and nature,76 Thomas Aquinas‘s concept of the beatific vision of God, which the soul experiences upon death, can be viewed as a precursor to monism. The individual soul becomes overwhelmed by the sight of God, for God, in this sense, is the supreme reality behind all things. Human beings are perfectly content, says Aquinas, only insofar as they apprehend the supreme reality that is God and their wills come to rest.77 Moreover, as previously discussed, the concept of agape borders on monistic thinking, since agape implies that one ought to be open to all things. Yet for Christians, the mystery of agape, expressed perfectly through the Trinity, is its ability to let entities remain at once unified and distinct. This paradox of unity and separation is the ground out of which McFague‘s ecotheology is born. Through this paradox, she is able to expand Aquinas‘ doctrine that Grace is mediated through nature78. That is, the power of God is infinite, but human beings receive such power Steele 19 through interaction with material substance via the sacraments. If the whole world is a sacrament, then it is impossible, as McFague and Wallace suggest, to receive Grace without an authentic encounter with the world and all the substance contained within God. In traditional Christian doctrine, God is unknowable except through the incarnation of Christ, who is the
Granted, McFague‘s claim is somewhat unconventional, but one can see the trajectory of her thinking. She is further supported by statements that lean in the same direction as her work, such as Augustine‘s statement that ‗God is closer to me than I am to myself‘.
Such a shift in thinking may be coherent if two things occur: firstly, if one considers McFague‘s theology as an extension of the sacrament, and secondly if one exchanges ideas of divine light, prevalent in medieval and Neoplatonic thinking, for the aforementioned concept of via Dei that points to the divine nature. In this schema, nature is not the divine, but it does point to the spiritual reality that moves through, in, and under nature. 79 McFague also has support in Meister Eckhart‘s notion of panentheism, in which all matter has sparks of the divine essence, which reflect direct back to God. As well, she can draw support from St. Athanasius‘ claim that God became man so man could become God.80 Admittedly, such an embodied Christian nature spirituality, as it were, naturalize is these ideas by divorcing them from their Neoplatonic context and using them in an environmental ethic. Yet in mysticism it is often not about escape from the world, in order to have a spiritual experience; rather mysticism properly understood preoccupies itself with making the whole world a spiritual experience. pnumatoos. In this way, the incarnation becomes not manifest one time yet rather manifest everywhere and for all time. Because the world is the body of God, it deserves great care. What is more, the world as the body of God re-enacts the crucifixion, since God is not merely suffering Steele 20 one time, but Ze suffers perpetually
This is consistent with the doctrine of God‘s self-emptying (
This perspective causes one to look at the Eucharist anew and re-evaluate liturgical statements, such as, "this is my body which is broken for you: do this in remembrance of me. This is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins"
At this point, one may ask if God can ever be placed at genuine risk and still be God? Again Martin Buber's concept of an I-Thou relationship, as opposed to an I-it relationship, may elucidate why this is an erroneous and morally deleterious assumption. It is only through a genuine encounter with an Other that we come to know ourselves. This relationship must be completely open, and it must also reflect the inherent freedom of both parties81 . Through such suffering, God reveals Zis transcendent love. kenosis), in which the divine essence restricts itself such that it can assume human form82. The only difference in this model is that God experiences perpetual self-emptying as Ze continually restricts Zimself in order to be involved with the world. Such kenosis on the part of God, both in the form of Christ and as Ze is incarnate in the world – thinks McFague –exhorts Christians to engage in an ‗I-thou‘ relationship with the world and each other. Moreover, rather than being outside of this process and removed from the natural world, God is engaged in this system. This system‘s thinking provides a model for the divine that is less jarring to modern science. 83. In addition to more traditional ways of viewing Jesus' sacrifice, God's broken body in this metaphorical matrix can also be seen as the constantly pillaged Earth, subject to human greed. The blood shed by Jesus can be seen as the oceans polluted by toxic waste. The suffering Pnumatos that departed from Jesus upon death (Lk.: 23:46), can be viewed as the atmosphere punctured by chemicals. 84. In this sense, Steele 21 God is the ultimate Thou: for Ze is completely other but also totally relational. Indeed, Ivone Gebara suggests that the Trinity should be viewed as the ultimate relation which reconciles multiplicity into unity. Christians use this metaphor to describe God because its mythic truth resonates at the deepest levels of their psyches in both the ancient and modern meanings
I think it is rather myopic to claim that the triune God is entirely self-sufficient: that is,
Ze does not depend on other beings for the completion of his love but engages in relationships entirely out of grace. If Christians take the statement - "God is love" (1 Jn 8:4) - seriously, then God can do nothing but love, in the same way that all beings which have being as their most essential quality can do not but be. The paradox of grace – which in this model would be extended to all beings – is that God has no qualities except being the ground out of which being occurs. The outpouring of being is an act of love on the part of God. This act is perpetual and 85. She emphasizes the Trinity as a symbol for understanding interdependence. For the triune God cannot exist without any part of Zimself. Likewise, human beings cannot exist without the other beings and environmental factors which create the matrix from which their identity is born86. This is further substantiated by the Christian concept of Agape, which has an etymology related to the word open. It is by being open and dependent on all things that Christians manifest the love of Christ. Indeed, Anglican monk and theologian Gregory Dix points out that agape was the primary word ante-Nicean Christians used to describe the Eucharist. This commonly-shared meal of love ideally reflected the absolute openness of the community to all things.87 McFague merely expands this openness to include all of creation. Jesus gives his disciples the injunction in the paracipe of the sheep and the goats, "whatever you do to the least of these you also do to me" (Matt. 25:40) . It is not difficult to extend this injunction to all life and even to the biosphere and beyond. Steele 22 simultaneously actuated with the existence of God and thus, the existence of being
Yet this concept does not have to lead to pantheism. McFague says the universe being contained within God does not mean that God is necessarily limited to the universe, or that there is not an ontological distinction between creator and created.88. It is, therefore, far more nuanced to say that in theological thinking God is a paradox of freedom and subjection, except that Ze is subject to Zis one freely chosen characteristic that both brings Zim and other beings into existence and draws them and Zimself into communion with one another. On a slightly less abstract level it seems illogical that self-love is generative of much fruit, even for God, since God needs relational love in order to complete Zimself. For denominations subscribing to the Nicene Creed, God is one in substance. It is, therefore, illogical to suppose that God is capable – under these assumptions – of having an authentic I-thou relationship with Zimself. This would be a severe problem for Trinitarian theology, if it were not for the aforementioned dual nature of Jesus; this double nature allows for an authentic Other. Thus, it is possible to suggest that since the universe is the body of Christ, God comes to know and love Zimself through Zis relation to the universe. 89 She uses the analogy of mother and child. In this dyad, two separate beings are contained within one entity, but they are ontologically distinct. Additionally, the placenta in this analogy is equivalent to the developing concept of pnumatos because it mediates between the two beings.90 Thus, she suggests, it is possible to think of the universe and God as our mother, which constantly creates and sustains us. McFague can point to female mystics such as Julian of Norwich, who imagined Christ as a maternal figure91 This notion simply seems to be a dramatic extrapolation of the sustaining power of God developed in the theology of Augustine, Luther, and Calvin.92 Steele 23 I have major reservations about McFague‘s rejection of the monarchical model of God and replacing it with a maternal model. Katherine Young and Paul Nathanson in their book
This model does possess certain advantages. Firstly, McFague points out that a God who is intimately invested with the harmony and order of the universe because Ze is creation has a much better reason to care for it than what McFague labels as the ‗aesthetic‘ or ‗judge‘ model of God. McFague, in this model, likens God‘s anger at sin to a painter who is upset at the ugliness of his creation, rather than a mother who is concerned for the wellbeing of her community.Sanctifying Misandry: Goddess Ideology and the Fall of Man point out that such models deprive men of a valid and healthy model of phallic power.93 Though the monarchical model undoubtedly fosters dependence, nationalism, and militaristic tendencies, is there no place for a strong and just masculine persona of God? Furthermore, even though we understand God through metaphor, should we not attempt to eventually look beyond such metaphor toward Being itself? If this proposition is correct, then as ultimate reality, it is unnecessary for God to be gendered. Admittedly, while McFague‘s heuristic theology is intriguing and admirable in its scope and intent, it often reifies the things to which it points, rather than recognizing its limitations. 94 Sin, in this model then, is a refusal to be part of that community, rather than mere disobedience of abstract ordinances. God, in this model, also seems more invested in human behaviour, and thus, better reflects some of the passages which reveal God‘s love in the New Testament. Such an ethic, as Paul Tilluch would suggest, provide one with the courage to be. That being allows one to lovingly and freely participate in God‘s community.95 Such a model also encourages one to a radically pacifist ethic and respect for all life, which finds support in Jesus‘ warning ―those who live by the sword also perish by it‖ (Matt. 26:52). Because destruction of the Earth is Steele 24 wrought with human hands, it can also embrace Edmund Burke‘s notion of the aesthetic sublime as that which is tremendous and terrifying
God can be both loving and just, when Ze punishes sinners, in keeping with Jesus‘ statement ―I came not to bring peace, but a sword.‖ (Matt. 10:34) Thus, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer might put it, the cost of discipleship is steep; there is no, as it were, ‗cheap grace‘.96 as opposed to a romantic and prelapsarian view of nature. Thus, this model will help human beings deal with the metaphor of The Fall – which describes humankind's perpetual existential estrangement from its authentic being – in a more nuanced and psychologically healthy manner; for this model requires human beings to actualize themselves, in greater equality with God, each other and other terrestrial subjects.. 97 Such a model also preserves what is truly poetic about the Dantean cosmology and theodicy; in Inferno, the will of the individual is fixed upon death and every person also gets what she desires, but in Inferno the true nature of their sin is revealed and the fulfilment of their false desire is their eternal punishment.98 Yet, God has a genuine stake in this grace and by granting humans freedom in this model, respects them as an authentic other. Thus, humans and God are fully actualized. Because of McFague‘s living pneumatology, concepts like the resurrection and heaven can achieve new meaning. Individuals do not have to wait until after death to be with God, they are in Zis presence now. Yet, this does not mean that the world is not fallen and that it is not in need of some final restoration. Merely, it means that human beings can wait in faith, hope, and love, (Cor. 1:13) and do not have to long to escape to some either ethereal or post-resurrection reality. The resurrection is ongoing.99 In his seminal work The Great Code: The Bible and Literature, Northrop Frye points out the Bible‘s essentially parabolic structure. In traditional Christian cosmology, scripture presents a comic vision – in the technical sense of the word – from fall to restoration100. It is clear that the Steele 25 Bible and Christian history can support a more somatic paradigm which lends itself to the sanctification of nature. McFague immanentizes God and brings the comic vision to the present. She offers a somatic mysticism that, despite its faults, does the incredibly daunting and admirable task of interpreting New Testament literature and Christian tradition in the light of a postmodern, embodied, worldview. McFague‘s model conveys the Gospel with new meaning for a different time with radically different cosmologies and social problems. If Christianity is to remain relevant, it must, like all religions, and all species, adapt to its environment. Though there is always a divide between theory and practice within religions, McFague‘s theory, if accepted, should naturally engender greater environmental sensibility stemming from both a heightened ethical and mystical awareness.
McFague provides fascinating insights that can be used both within Christian communities and within the world. Her seemingly avant-garde theology should continue to enter into both mainstream Christian discourse and its interactions with global culture generally, for if Christians are to contribute something unique to this vast debate, it must be through their unique vision of incarnational spirituality. The myth of Jesus‘ crucifixion and resurrection is meant to be a consciousness-raising story. McFague‘s model of God raises Christian theology to new environmental sensitivity. The Christian myth does need a paradigmatic shift, and it is doubtful whether concepts such as stewardship can effect this aim. It remains to be seen whether this development of Christian doctrine will be accepted, and what changes it will undergo. Human beings, as Sophocles points out, are indeed strange creatures, and it is impossible to ascertain how we will handle the crisis of the anthropiscine. Sallie McFague, however, does present a model of God which generates faith, hope, love, and a vision for a better future through a green looking glass. Steele 26 1 Heidegger Martin . "The Ode on Man in Sophocles' Antigone" An Introduction to Metaphysics. (Copyright © 1959 by Yale University Press. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. Translated by Ralph Manheim.) I use Heidegger's translation or its rather cynical rendering of the Greek. 2 Thomas Berry. ``The universe story and its religious significance. Liberating faith : religious voices for justice, peace, and ecological wisdom. (Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003. 568-572) 3 http://www.anglican.ca/about/beliefs/ accessed on 14 November 2011 2115 hrs "Our Beliefs" and Richard Hooker. Of the laws of ecclesiastical polity : preface, book I, book VIII. Cambridge England New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. 4 Sallie McFague, Super, Natural Christians: How we should love Nature. (Minneapolis: Forest Press, 1997), 11. 5 Ibid, 12.
6 Ibid, 20.
7 Ibid, 98-99.
8 Ibid, 21.
9 Ibid, 13.
10 Ibid, 91-93.
11 Ibid, 14.
12 Sallie McFague, Speaking in Parables: A Study in Metaphor and Theology. (Philadelphia: Forest Press, 1975), 17-20. 13 McFague (1997), 1.
14 Connolly Julian W. Dostoevskij's Guide to Spiritual Epiphany in "The Brothers Karamazov" Studies in East European Thought, Vol. 59, No. 1/2, Dostoevskij's Significance for Philosophy and Theology (Jun., 2007), pp. 39-54Published 15 Eric Voegelin. The New Science of Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. 165 16 The New Oxford Annotated Bible. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. (All other scriptural sources, unless otherwise noted, are from this edition) 17 Dale Martin . Sex and the single Savior : gender and sexuality in biblical interpretation. Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006. P 4 18 Dale Martin. Pedagogy of the Bible : an analysis and proposal. Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008. Cesp P 1-21, 71-111
19 John B. Cobb, Jr., David J. Lull, Barry A. Woodbridge. "Interpretation from a Process Perspective" Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 47, No. 1, (Mar., 1979), pp. 21-30. Oxford University Press 20 The pocket Oxford classical Greek dictionary. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. P 421 21 Ibid 91
22 Frye, Northrop. The double vision : language and meaning in religion. Toronto Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1991. P4-6 23 Ibid P. 6-9
24 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Reason In History, a general introduction to the Philosophy of History, A Liberal Arts Press Book, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc. 1953. See also Auguste Comte. The Positive Philosophy, Vol. 2 (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1854), 68-74 and 95-1 10 trans Harriet Martineau 25 John Stuart Mill, On Liberty. (New York: Pearson Longman, 2007), 16-26. 26 Aristotle, Politics, 1, 1253a in Richard McKeon, ed, The Basic Works of Aristotle (New York: Modern Library, 2001), 390-394. 27 Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Knowledge and the Sacred. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), pp 6-62 28 Martin Heidegger. "The Question Concerning Technology". The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays. New York: Harper & Row, 1977. pp 4-35 Notes Steele 27 29 Charles Taylor. Modern Social Imaginaries. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005, 15-20. For Karl Polyani’s concept see his book: Karl Polanyi. The Great Transformation. Boston: Beacon Press, 2001 see esp. P 146-148 30 Max Weber. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York: Scribner's Press, 1958, pp. 47 - 78. 31 Justin Skirry. René Descartes-A brief overview. http://www.iep.utm.edu/descarte/ accessed on 15 November 2011 32G.M.A Grube. Plato’s Republic. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co, 1992. 514a 33 Taylor, 26.
34 Voegelin. Page 165
35 William Paden. Interpreting the sacred : ways of viewing religion. Boston: Beacon Press, 2003. For Paden’s discussion of social maladjustment and religion see pages 32-45. 36 Lynn White, Jr. Science, New Series, Vol. 155, No. 3767 (Mar. 10, 1967), pp. 1203-1207 American Association for the Advancement of Science http://www.jstororg/stable/1720120 Accessed: 15/11/2011 11:53 P. 1205 37Micheal Crichton. "Environmentalism as Religion" in Three Speeches by Micheal Crichton. Accessed 15 November 2011 38 Joseph Thayer. Thayer's Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament : coded with the numbering system from Strong's exhaustive concordance of the Bible. Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson, 1996. P. 54 39 N Wright. Surprised by hope : rethinking heaven, the resurrection, and the mission of the church. New York: HarperOne, 2008. P,160-170 40 For want of space, I cannot delve into Jewish apocalyptic or Revelations status as anti-nomemian and anti-political discourse. For more information see: Collins, Adela. The Combat Myth in the Book of Revelation. Boston: Harvard UP, 1975. Collins, Joseph. The Apocalyptic Imagination. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP., 1984. Van Kooten, George H. "The Year of the Four Emperors and the Revelation of John: The ‘pro-Neronian’ Emperors Otho and Vitellius, and the Imagesand Colossus of Nero in Rome" JSNT 30.2 (2007). 41 Barbara Rossing. "River of Life in God's New Jerusalem: An Eschatological Vision for Earth's Future", Christianity and Ecology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000 42 Jennifer Glancy. Corporal knowledge : early Christian bodies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. P 53 43
1996. P126-146 Jennifer Knust. Abandoned to Lust: Sex Slander an Ancient Christianity. New York: Columbia UP , 2006 P 40-60. And McDonald, Margaret. Early Christian Women and Pagan Opinion. New York: Cambridge UP , 44 Dale Martin. The Corinthian body. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. P25-54 45 Thayer. P 520, 570
46 ibid
47Mark Wallace "The Earth As a Sacrament"P 123-125 Editor: Darby, Kathleen RayTheology that matters : ecology, economy, and God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006. 48 Hannah Arendt. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. P 1 49 Friedrich Nietzsche. Beyond good and evil : prelude to a philosophy of the future Friedrich Nietzsche. London: Penguin, 2003. P 55 50 Bart Ehrmann. Lost Christianities. (Oxford Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2003), 114-115. 51 ibid., 116 and Cf. Aristole, Physics, VIII, 266a 10- 267b 25 in Richard McKeon, ed, The Basic Works of Aristotle (New York: Modern Library, 2001), 390-394. 52 Plotinus, Ennead II, ix, trans Paul Henry (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), 102-116. 53 Paul, Santmire, H. The travail of nature : the ambiguous ecological promise of Christian theology. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 45. Cf. CS, Lewis, . The discarded image : an introduction to medieval and Renaissance literature. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 1-20.. 54 Paden, 3.
55 Santmire, 35.
56 Wright 161
57 Elaine Pagels. The gnostic gospels. New York: Vintage Books, 1989. P 38-64. This does not mean however, that Gnostics did not have differing exegetical interpretations of Paul from the ones discussed see-idem. Pagels, Elaine. The gnostic Paul : gnostic exegesis of the Pauline letters. Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1992. Steele 28 58 Elizabeth Castelli. Martyrdom and memory : early Christian culture making. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004 P1-30 33-69 59 Frye P. 78-90
60 Marx, Karl. "Theses on Feuerbach" in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels; Selected Works. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1968. IV 61 Francis Schaefer. "Council of Chalcedon." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 3. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 15 Nov. 2011 http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03555a.htm accessed 15 November 2011 62 John Chryssavgis. "The earth as sacrament. Insights from Orthodox Christian Theology and Spirituality." The Oxford handbook of religion and ecology. New York Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011 P106 63 Ibid P101
64 Santmire H.Paul. Cobb. John B. "The world of Nature According to the Protestant Tradition. The Oxford handbook of religion and ecology. New York Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011", 122. 65 Ibid 122
66 See Chryssavgis discussion of the Sabbath, though in truth, I am more indebted to the Kabbalahistic concept of Tsim Zum or divine self restriction developed by Issac Luria. Cf Gershom Scholem. Kabbalah. (New York: Meridian, 1978), 5; Gershom Scholem. Major trends in Jewish mysticism. (New York: Schocken Books, 1995), 70-120; 67 Paul Tillich. Dynamics of faith. New York: Perennial, 2001. P 60 68Thayer P 356
69
P 66 McFague,. Models of God : theology for an ecological, nuclear age. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987. 70 Ibid 68
71 Ibid67
72 ibid., 70
73 ibid., 75.
74 ibid., 73
75 Connolly, 49
76 Hart, John. "Catholicism" in The Oxford handbook of religion and ecology. New York Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011", 68-69. 77 Thomas Aquinas, Selected Writings, I-II, q. 2, A. 8, Ralph McInnery trans. (London: Penguin Books, 1998) 78 Ibid, II, q.2 A.1.
79 Augustine, Confessions, X, v., R.S. Pinecoffer, trans. (Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1961), 210-211. 80 Meister Eckhart, Sermon II, in The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism, ed. Bernard McGinn. (New York: Modern Library, 2006), 35. 81 McFague, 75 82 Anthony Maas, "Kenosis." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910). 7 Dec. 2011 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08617a.htm>, accessed December 7th, 2011. 83 Eucharistic Prayer No. 2 . The book of alternative services of the Anglican Church of Canada. (Toronto, Canada: Anglican Book Centre, 1985.), 197 84 Martin, Buber. I and Thou. (New York: Scribner, 1970), 20. 85 Ivone, Gebara. "The Trinity in Human Experience: an ecofeminist approach" in Liberating faith : religious voices for justice, peace, and ecological wisdom, 575 86 Taylor, 26
87 Dix, Gregory. The Shape of the Liturgy. London New York: Continuum, 2005. 88 Tillich, 41.
89 McFague, 77
90 Ibid. 78
91 Patricia Donohue-White, "Reading Divine Maternity in Julian of Norwich", Spiritus: a Journal of Christian Spirituality, 5,1 (Spring 2005), 21. 92 Santmire H.Paul. Cobb. John B. p 123 Steele 29 93 Katherine Young. Sanctifying Misandry : Goddess Ideology and the Fall of Man. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2010. 94 McFague, 79
95 Tillich, Paul. The Courage to Be. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000. 96 Burke, Edmund. A philosophical enquiry into the sublime and beautiful. London New York: Routledge Classics, 2008. p 39 97 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The cost of discipleship. Escondido, Calif: Hovel Audio, 2008. pp 41-3 98 Alighieri, Dante. Inferno. New York, N.Y., U.S.A: Penguin Books, 1985. Canto 42 99 McFague, 80
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An assessment of Sallie McFague‘s somatic ecological theology
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