#ecotheology

[fierysword]

Trinity UMC's Creation Spirituality statement — AllCreation.org

What is Creation Spirituality ? A “green” theology, emphasizing a holy relationship between humanity and nature. 

I love the principles of creation spirituality (sourced from above). I just hope that people don't confuse it for creationism!

Twelve Principles of Creation Spirituality

The universe is fundamentally a blessing.  Our relationship with the Universe fills us with awe.  

In Creation, God is both immanent and transcendent. This is panentheism which is not theism (God out there) and not atheism (no God anywhere).  We experience that the Divine is in all things and all things are in the Divine.  

God is as much Mother as Father, as much Child as Parent, as much God in mystery as the God in history, as much beyond all words and images as in all forms and beings.  We are liberated from the need to cling to God in one form or one literal name.  

In our lives, it is through the work of spiritual practice that we find our deep and true selves.  Through the arts of meditation and silence we cultivate a clarity of mind and move beyond fear into compassion and community.  

Our inner work can be understood as a four-fold journey involving:- awe, delight, amazement (known as the Via Positiva) – uncertainty, darkness, suffering, letting go (Via Negativa) – birthing, creativity, passion (Via Creativa) – justice, healing, celebration (Via Transformativa) We weave through these paths like a spiral danced, not a ladder climbed.  

Every one of us is a mystic.  We can enter the mystical as much through beauty (Via Positiva) as through contemplation and suffering (Via Negativa). We are born full of wonder and can recover it at any age.  

Every one of us is an artist.  Whatever the expression of our creativity, it is our prayer and praise (Via Creativa).  

Every one of us is a prophet.  Our prophetic work is to interfere with all forms of injustice and that which interrupts authentic life (Via Transformativa).  

Diversity is the nature of the Universe. We rejoice in and courageously honor the rich diversity within the Cosmos and expressed among individuals and across multiple cultures, religions and ancestral traditions.  

The basic work of God is compassion and we, who are all original blessings and sons and daughters of the Divine, are called to compassion.  We acknowledge our shared interdependence; we rejoice at one another’s joys and grieve at one another’s sorrows and labor to heal the causes of those sorrows.  

There are many wells of faith and knowledge drawing from one underground river of Divine wisdom. The practice of honoring, learning and celebrating the wisdom collected from these wells is Deep Ecumenism.  We respect and embrace the wisdom and oneness that arises from the diverse wells of all the sacred traditions of the world.  

Ecological justice is essential for the sustainability of life on Earth.  Ecology is the local expression of cosmology and so we commit to live in light of this value: to pass on the beauty and health of Creation to future generations.

[givemearmstopraywith]

I have to accept this. I am now committed to the struggle for the cause of poor and defenseless farmers, an oppressed people caught in the clutches of the large estates. If I am silent, who will defend them? Who will struggle on their behalf? At least I have nothing to lose. I have no wife, children, not even wealth; no one will grieve for me. Other than one person: my mother, who other than me has no one else. Poor. Widow. But you are there to care for her. Not even fear will stop me. It is time to accept this. I die for a just cause. Now I want you to understand this: everything that is happening is a logical consequence that results from my work in the struggle and the defense of the poor, for the sake of the Gospel that has led me to accept even the ultimate consequences. My life is worth nothing in light of the deaths of so many farmers who are parents—assassinated, violated, and forced off of their lands. Leaving women and children abandoned, without care, without food and without a home. It is time to stand up and make a difference! I die for a just cause.

Father Josimo Morais Tavares, ecomartyr (1953-1986), quoted by Elizabeth Gandolfo in Ecomartyrdom in the Americas: Living and Dying for Our Common Home

[divinebeloved]

the Ecological Lord's Prayer

Cláudio Carvalhaes, Ritual at World's End

Our God, who art in pluriverses, the skies and the earth,

Blessed be Your name: Life. May Your pulsing life come to be seen, heard, touched, and felt through the oceans, the forest, in the rocks, in the life of plants, and in the sounds of animals and singing birds.

Give us this day our daily bread, through a variety of seeds and grains and leaves, without pesticides, without monocultures, from local farms, and from agro-biodiverse-cultures.

Forgive us our plundering of the earth, our total lack of relation and reciprocity with the earth and more than human beings; as cells, mycelium, fungi, and infinite processes of symbiosis, forgive us daily by giving back life when we destroy it.

Lead us not into consumerism and the devouring of the earth, but deliver us from the apathy that says nothing can be changed.

For Life is kinship, relationality, and reciprocity.

Now and forever.

Amen.

[beguines]

Could it be that Christian faith, at its core, centers on belief in God as a fully incarnated reality not only in the humanity of Jesus Christ but also in the animality of the Holy Spirit, even though this core insight has rarely been recognized as central to Christian identity? Could it be that the basic system of Christian belief is founded on a permeable and viscous God becoming not only human flesh in the person of Jesus but also animal flesh in the person of the Spirit and that, if this is the case, is not the wide-ranging world of nonhuman nature—the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, the beasts of the field, the trees of the forest—the focus of God's interest, not just human well-being? And if this is the case, should we not, as human beings, comport ourselves toward the natural world in a loving and protective manner because this world is the fullness of God within the life of every creature?

Mark I. Wallace, When God Was a Bird: Christianity, Animism, and the Re-Enchantment of the World

[entanglingbriars]

How much do religious Americans care about the planet?

Religious Americans say they care about the environment, but it's less clear that this feel-good claim translates into action.

[probablyasocialecologist]

For some evangelical Christians, climate action is a God-given mandate

Theology and the Bible are starting to shape evangelical environmentalism.

In the Book of Kings, a man named Naboth was pressured by a wealthy king, Ahab, to sell his land. Naboth refused because the soil provided food for his family, and the land was an inheritance from his ancestors. Ahab’s wife, Jezebel, then set up an elaborate ruse which wound up with Naboth being executed and King Ahab getting the vineyard.

Humphrey described this story as a struggle between a defiant farmer and a military ruler, and he believed this theme of resistance echoed through other biblical stories in which agrarian people, in tune with the land and the seasons, often had to fight powerful Ahabs to protect what they had. He then drew a parallel to modern times, describing how, around the world, land and natural resources are often degraded and commodified by powerful people who put profit before the needs of local communities. “We therefore need, now more than ever, to recover the deep sense of our membership within, and dependence upon, creation,” Humphrey said. “And we need to put this into practice with concrete social and ecological action.”

[tinyshe]

Book Review: Wendell Berry and the Given Life by Ragan Sutterfield

copyright 2017, published by Franciscan Media, Cincinnati OH, USA 

I will say that I have read much of Wendell Berry’s work. With that said, I was hoping for more than a multitude, wave after wave, of Berry quotes strung together with so much regurgitation it became annoying. I found myself straining to hurry to get to the end of the book, instead of savoring the words and ideas.

Is this a bad book? No.

Why? Because I realize that there is a whole generation or two that maybe have never even heard of Wendell Berry.  With this book, perhaps it would spark an interest, wet their appetite or prod them into active thinking and seek out more of Berry’s original works (with all the quotes, there is many pages of footnote references that it should not be hard to access various essays). I did enjoy the ‘afterword’, a conversation with Wendell Berry and the author. I would recommend this book to anyone that has never read or heard of Berry as it would be a good primer in which to put their toes in to test the waters.

[a-queer-seminarian]

Liberation theology and ecological discourse have something in common: they start from two bleeding wounds. The wound of poverty breaks the social fabric of millions and millions of poor people around the world. The other wound, systematic assault on the Earth, breaks down the balance of the planet, which is under threat from the plundering of development as practice by contemporary global societies. Both lines of reflection and practice have as their starting point a cry: the cry of the poor for life, freedom, and beauty (cf. Ex 3:7), and the cry of the Earth groaning under oppression (cf. Rom 8:22-23). Both seek liberation, a liberation of the poor by themselves as active subjects who are organized, conscious, and networked to other allies who take on their cause and their struggle; and a liberation of the earth through a new covenant between it and human beings, in a brotherly and sisterly relationship and with a different kind of sustainable development that respects the different ecosystems and assures a good quality of life for future generations.

Leonardo Boff in Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor