When God Was a Bird (eBook)

Christianity, Animism, and the Re-Enchantment of the World

Mark I. Wallace (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2018
Fordham University Press (Verlag)
9780823281336 (ISBN)

Infos

2019 NAUTILUS GOLD WINNERIn a time of rapid climate change and species extinction, what role have the world s religions played in ameliorating or causing the crisis we now face? Religion in general, and Christianity in particular, appears to bear a disproportionate burden for creating humankind s exploitative attitudes toward nature through unearthly theologies that divorce human beings and their spiritual yearnings from their natural origins. In this regard, Christianity has become an otherworldly religion that views the natural world as fallen, as empty of signs of God s presence.And yet, buried deep within the Christian tradition are startling portrayals of God as the beaked and feathered Holy Spirit the animal God, as it were, of historic Christian witness. Through biblical readings, historical theology, continental philosophy, and personal stories of sacred nature, this book recovers the model of God in Christianity as a creaturely, avian being who signals the presence of spirit in everything, human and more-than-human alike. Mark Wallace s recovery of the bird-God of the Bible signals a deep grounding of faith in the natural world. The moral implications of nature-based Christianity are profound. All life is deserving of humans care and protection insofar as the world is envisioned as alive with sacred animals, plants, and landscapes. From the perspective of Christian animism, the Earth is the holy place that God made and that humankind is enjoined to watch over and cherish in like manner. Saving the environment, then, is not a political issue on the left or the right of the ideological spectrum, but, rather, an innermost passion shared by all people of faith and good will in a world damaged by anthropogenic warming, massive species extinction, and the loss of arable land, potable water, and breathable air. To Wallace, this passion is inviolable and flows directly from the heart of Christian teaching that God is a carnal, fleshy reality who is promiscuously incarnated within all things, making the whole world a sacred embodiment of God s presence, and worthy of our affectionate concern. This beautifully and accessibly written book shows that Christian animism is not a strange oxymoron, but Christianity s natural habitat. Challenging traditional Christianity s self-definition as an other-worldly religion, Wallace paves the way for a new Earth-loving spirituality grounded in the ancient image of an animal God.

Autor

lt;b>Mark I. Wallace is Professor of Religion and Environmental Studies at Swarthmore College and core faculty for the U.S. State Department’s Institutes on Religious Pluralism at Temple University. His books include Green Christianity: Five Ways to a Sustainable Future and Finding God in the Singing River: Christianity, Spirit, Nature.

Inhalt

Preface ix

Introduction: Crossing the Species Divide 1
The Animal God • Animism • Feral Religion • God of Beak and Feathers

1. Song of the Wood Thrush 20
The Singing Monk of the Crum Woods • Nature Religion •
The Pigeon God • Sacred Animals • Christian Animism •
Divine Subscendence • Avian Spirit Possession •
Return to the Crum Woods

2. The Delaware River Basin 50
Toxic Tour • Heidegger’s Root Metaphors •
Calling Spirit from the Deep • Sacrament of Dirt and Spit •
Girard’s Fear of Monstrous Couplings • Green Mimesis •
The Pileated Woodpecker

3. Worshipping the Green God 81
Crum Creek Visitation • Christian History • Jesus and Sacred Land •
Augustine and Natalist Wonder • Hildegard’s Viriditas Pneumatology •
Rewilding Christian Worship

4. “Come Suck Sequoia and Be Saved” 113
John Muir’s Christianimism • Indian Removal in Yosemite •
The Great Code • The Water Ouzel • The Two Books •
Sequoia Religion • “Christianity and Mountainanity Are
Streams from the Same Fountain”

5. On the Wings of a Dove 141
Sagebrush Requiem • Is Earth a Living Being? • Suffering Earth •
Refreshment and Fragrance in the Hills • A Tramp for God •
The Death of God • God on the Wing

Acknowledgments 173

Notes 177

Index 205

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 20.11.2018
• Reihe/Serie: Groundworks: Ecological Issues in Philosophy and Theology
• Zusatzinfo: 6
• Verlagsort: New York
• Sprache: englisch
• Maße: 150 x 150 mm
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Allgemeines / Lexika
• Themenwelt: Religion / Theologie ► Christentum ► Kirchengeschichte
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften
• Schlagworte: Animism • Augustine • Bible • bird-God • Christianity • Environment • Girard • Heidegger • Hildegard • Holy Spirit • Indigenous • Muir
• ISBN-13: 9780823281336 / 9780823281336