Women Earth And Creator Spirit Revised Edition

While this derives from a Madeleva lecture of the same title that was delivered in 1993, the points made and updated by Elizabeth Johnson in this revised edition of Women, Earth, and Creator Spirit are even more pressing today. Since the 1990s, the environment has only been degraded more, and one could argue that the status of women has been eroded by the rise of religious fundamentalism in almost every culture. Johnson draws out the links between attitudes toward women and the way we treat the natural world around us. If nature is somehow perceived as “feminine,” then it is no surprise that it is heedlessly abused and used, especially when both women and the earth exist under the sovereignty of a patriarchal God.

There has been a proliferation of publications in the field of Christian ecological theology over the last three decades or so. These include a number of recent edited volumes, each covering a range of topics and consolidating many of the emerging insights in ecological theology. The call for Christian churches to respond to the environmental crisis has been reiterated numerous times in this vast corpus of literature, also in South Africa.

The Earth needs our attention--the best of our intellectual, ethical, and spiritual wisdom and action. In this collection, written in honor of Elizabeth A. Johnson, scholars from the United States and around the world contribute their insights on how theology today can and must turn to the world in new ways in light of contemporary science and our ecological crisis. The essays in this collection advance theological visions for the human task of healing our destructive relationship with the earth and envision hope for our planet's future. Contributors: Kevin Glauber Ahern, Erin Lothes Biviano, Lisa Sowle Cahill, Colleen Mary Carpenter, David Cloutier, Kathy Coffey, Carol J. Dempsey, OP, Denis Edwards, William French, Ivone Gebara, John F. Haught, Mary Catherine Hilkert, OP, Sallie McFague, Eric Daryl Meyer, Richard W. Miller, Jürgen Moltmann, Jeannette Rodriguez, Michele Saracino

The hope of this book is that it awakens desire to know more intimately the God who breaks through our compartmentalization and naming. While most in the West have heard God’s name as almost exclusively masculine, a child growing up in Israel would have experienced the Spirit of God, and Lady Wisdom, as female. This ruach, the breath of God, brooded over the face of the deep in the creation story like a hovering mother bird. The God of the Bible and the early church has been described with both masculine and feminine imagery, referred to by the church fathers and mystics as both Mother and Father. In our time we have lost much of this rich feminine imagery. This book explores not only this historical knowing of God but also more contemporary writers, such as Carl Jung, Paul Young (The Shack), George MacDonald, and Thomas Merton. Each of these men engaged with the Divine Feminine, giving us examples of how we too may find God more deeply and more intimately.

How can we proclaim justice for God's Creation in the face of global warming? How does fracking fit with "the earth and its fullness are the Lord's?" Creation-Crisis Preaching works with the premise that all of Creation, including humankind, needs to hear the Good News of Jesus' resurrection in this age in which humanity is "crucifying" Creation. Informed by years of experience as an environmental activist and minister, Leah Schade equips preachers to interpret the Bible through a "green" lens, become rooted in environmental theology, and learn how to understand their preaching context in terms of the particular political, cultural, and biotic setting of their congregation. Creation-Crisis Preaching provides both theoretical grounding and practical tips for preachers to create environmental sermons that are relevant, courageous, creative, pastoral, and inspiring.

A Communion of Subjects is the first comparative and interdisciplinary study of the conceptualization of animals in world religions. Scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including Thomas Berry (cultural history), Wendy Doniger (study of myth), Elizabeth Lawrence (veterinary medicine, ritual studies), Marc Bekoff (cognitive ethology), Marc Hauser (behavioral science), Steven Wise (animals and law), Peter Singer (animals and ethics), and Jane Goodall (primatology) consider how major religious traditions have incorporated animals into their belief systems, myths, rituals, and art. Their findings offer profound insights into the relationship between human beings and animals, and a deeper understanding of the social and ecological web in which we all live.

This book charts a course through the equally inadequate options of despair and optimism to a responsible understanding and practice of Christian hope.

Taking a critical look at feminism and exploring its explicit and implicit spiritual dimensions, this revised and updated new edition of Women and Spirituality engages in a reflective dialogue with contemporary women's voices. It asks to what extent patriarchal oppression and androcentric thinking are inherent not only in Christianity but in all religious beliefs, practices and institutions. This is the only book which provides a comprehensive survey of current discussions in feminist theology and spirituality and offers a wide-ranging account of women and world religions and raising thought-provoking questions about the spiritual dimensions of human life.