Description
Book SynopsisOver the last fifty years Western Christianity has been criticized as a cause and enabler of Earth's ecological crisis. It has been said that Christianity promotes a spiritual-material dualism where the material side of life has little sacred value. Also noted in the critique is the hesitancy of many Christians to embrace modern scientific understandings of creation, especially evolution. Some Christian writers have responded by accepting modern cosmology and evolution, and advocating for a sacramental creation spirituality, oftentimes supported by fresh readings of earlier Christian writings. In Whole-Earth Ethics for Holy Ground, Dr. Stephen Hastings begins by offering a genre defining overview of late 20th century and early 21st century writings that he calls sacramental creation spirituality. These writings are characterized by their acceptance of the scientific creation story of cosmogenesis and evolution, and their recovery of authentic Christian nature mysticism. Hastings then l
Trade ReviewThe publication of Christian thinkers’ Earth care and creation care books has been regarded as a welcome, recent addition to efforts to address increasing devastation of our home planet. Whole-Earth Ethics for Holy Ground provides a corrective to that inaccurate historical view: it describes how elements of Christian concern for Earth have developed over millennia; they are evident in the developing sacramental creation thread that integrates the related insights of Maximus the Confessor (7th century), Nicholas of Cusa (15th century), and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (20th century). Whole-Earth Ethics for Holy Ground brings the sacramental Christian ecological tradition from the past into the present, integrating concepts of natural sacrament and ritual sacrament, and carries it toward the future. In doing so, it waters the seeds of the thinking that promotes the interrelated and interdependent well-being of Earth and the community of all living beings. An insightful contribution to creation consciousness. -- John Hart, Boston University, author of "Cosmic Commons and Sacramental Commons: Christian Ecological Ethics"
This is a fine, thoughtful contribution to the growing body of work on ecological theology, and a clear, forceful evocation of sacrament as crucial to the work of rekindling our relationship with the natural world. -- Douglas E. Christie, Loyola Marymount University
Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter One—The Integration of Science in Sacramental Creation Spirituality: Relatedness, Responsibility, Redemption Chapter Two—The Recovery Of Nature Mysticism in Sacramental Creation Spirituality: The Via Positiva, Panentheism, Sacramentalism Chapter Three—Teilhard De Chardin and the Case for New Theology in Light of a New Creation Story Chapter Four—Sacramental Creation Spirituality in Maximus the Confessor and Nicholas of Cusa Chapter Five—The Coincidence and Convergence of Natural and Eucharistic Sacraments Chapter Six—The Coincidence and Convergence of Ecological and Eucharistic Ethics in a Consecrated Universe Conclusion—Whole-Earth Ethics for Holy Ground Postlude—Sacramental Creation Spirituality in On Care for Our Common Home by Pope Francis and the Earth Charter Bibliography
