Earthly Things

Globalization and climate weirding are two of the leading phenomena that challenge and change the way we need to think and act within the planetary community. Modern Western understandings of human beings, animals, and the rest of the natural world and the subsequent technologies built on those understandings have thrown us into an array of social and ecological crises with planetary implications. Earthly Things: Immanence, New Materialisms, and Planetary Thinking, argues that more immanent or planetary ways of thinking and acting have great potential for re-thinking human-technology-animal-Earth relationships and for addressing problems of global climate weirding and other forms of ecological degradation. Older and often-marginalized forms of thought from animisms, shamanisms, and other religious traditions are joined by more recent forms of thinking with immanence such as the universe story, process thought, emergence theory, the new materialisms (NM’s), object-oriented ontologies (OOO’s), affect theory, and queer theory. This book maps out some of the connections and differences between immanent frameworks to provide some eco-intellectual commons for thinking within the planetary community, with a particular emphasis on making connections between more recent theories and older ideas of immanence found in many of the world’s religious traditions. The authors in this volume met and worked together over five years, so the resulting volume reveals sustained and multifaceted perspectives on “thinking and acting with the planet.”

“Bassett at last provides a path to understand better the specifically Aztec characteristics of the teteoh and their ritual ‘embodiments.’” —Ethnohistory Following their first contact in 1519, accounts of Aztecs identifying Spaniards as gods proliferated. But what exactly did the Aztecs mean by a “god” (teotl), and how could human beings become gods or take on godlike properties? This sophisticated, interdisciplinary study analyzes three concepts that are foundational to Aztec religion—teotl (god), teixiptla (localized embodiment of a god), and tlaquimilolli (sacred bundles containing precious objects)—to shed new light on the Aztec understanding of how spiritual beings take on form and agency in the material world. In The Fate of Earthly Things, Molly Bassett draws on ethnographic fieldwork, linguistic analyses, visual culture, and ritual studies to explore what ritual practices such as human sacrifice and the manufacture of deity embodiments (including humans who became gods), material effigies, and sacred bundles meant to the Aztecs. She analyzes the Aztec belief that wearing the flayed skin of a sacrificial victim during a sacred rite could transform a priest into an embodiment of a god or goddess, as well as how figurines and sacred bundles could become localized embodiments of gods. Without arguing for unbroken continuity between the Aztecs and modern speakers of Nahuatl, Bassett also describes contemporary rituals in which indigenous Mexicans who preserve costumbres (traditions) incorporate totiotzin (gods) made from paper into their daily lives. This research allows us to understand a religious imagination that found life in death and believed that deity embodiments became animate through the ritual binding of blood, skin, and bone.

This collection of poems is a follow up to Duckhorn's previous book entitled "Say Yes To Time". "Written Rhythms of Space Travel and Earthly Things" joins hands with the times urging us all to appreciate our soul as having a unique life of its own. She encapsulates the idea of space travel, making us light heartedly aware of the dangers in our cosmos. It could become an angry region and not favor us too much in the distant future. "Written Rhythms of Space Travel and Earthly Things" about sums this up and is a pensive read.

God’s world is full of good things. Ice-cold lemonade. The laughter of children. College football. Scrambled eggs and crispy bacon. A late night with old friends around a blazing campfire. God certainly knows how to give good gifts to his children. But where is the line when it comes to enjoying all the pleasurable things our world affords? In The Things of Earth, professor Joe Rigney offers perplexed Christians a breath of fresh air by lifting the burden of false standards and impossible expectations related to the Christian life—freeing readers to gratefully embrace every good thing we receive from the hand of God. Helping us avoid our tendency to forget the Giver on the one hand and neglect his gifts on the other, this much-needed book reminds us that God’s blessings should drive us to worship and that a passion for God’s glory can be as wide as the world itself.

Daniel Call was a man who had it all. Born to newly converted Christians, his father was a full professor in physics and an early creator of software that changed the computer world and made the family billionaires. Daniel himself was a genius that spoke several languages at an early age. But Daniel had a secret. At age four, he was visited by the angel Gabriel who told him he would be a man that would change the world. At age twelve, he was again visited by Gabriel and performed his first miracle, one witnessed by a reporter from a major newspaper, a miracle that for a brief time made headlines. Due to the work of the family lawyer, Daniel was able to settle back into obscurity until the age of eighteen when his parents were tragically killed in a plane crash. Orphaned, he was introduced as the world's most eligible bachelor by People Magazine. Worth nearly two billion dollars, he was tall, handsome, and a noted genius. For several months his face dominated tabloid journalism. He then stunned the world by giving most of his money away to charity and taking vows of abstinence and chastity. Daniel, however, had never forgotten the early visits from Gabriel and was determined to prepare himself for whatever lay ahead. He moved quietly to Boone, North Carolina, where he attended classes at Appalachian State and Wake Forest Universities. Suddenly, three years later, Gabriel reappeared and the miracles began that would shake the world. Many of these miracles were captured on live television and fed the mid 1990's newly founded cable news networks and fueled a fresh avalanche of tabloid and hard printed news. Daniel led a "walking" crusade that covered thousands of miles where he was followed by tens of thousands of people. He had an inner core of followers that began to be called his disciples. Meanwhile the forces of evil conspired with many in the established faiths to discredit and destroy Daniel. As these forces gained strength, Daniel began to change his ministry, spending more time alone as he prepared for the end and sending out disciples to do their own miracles and teaching. God's power was soon revealed in a way that left few doubters, a stunning last miracle that showed the power of God, and His judgment and infinite mercy. Daniel's final legacy would not be in the miracles, but in the changes that a life lived in denial of self would cause.