Earth Revealing; Earth Healing

Ecology and Christian Theology

The damage human beings are doing to the atmosphere, the seas, the rivers, the land, and the life- forms of the planet is extreme and deadly. It constitutes a crisis that demands all of humanity's wisdom, ingenuity, and commitment. The whole human community needs to be involved in the response to this crisis - young and old, women and men, farmers, politicians, gardeners, teachers, planners, scientists, engineers, artists, builders, cooks, and theologians. In Earth Revealing - Earth Healing, the authors attempt to make clear the way in which Christian theology opens out into a theology of Earth revealing and challenges us towards a practice of Earth healing.

Earth Revealing - Earth Healing offers a rethinking of theology as a significant part of the rethinking that the human community must do in its stance toward creation. Aware that some theological attitudes have contributed to exploitative attitudes and to disregard for the good of the planet, the contributors are also convinced that the biblical and theological tradition has resources that can be retrieved and developed as an ecological theology. Such a theology can contribute to the healing of our planet.

The chapters of Earth Revealing - Earth Healing stretch across a number of theological sub- disciplines and related areas. Among the perspectives from the Christian theological tradition, there are reflections on the theology of the Trinity, Christology, Christian anthropology, the theology of the Holy Spirit, and contemporary feminist theology. There are also more general philosophical and cultural perspectives, including discussions of place and of landscape traditions. Finally there are practical perspectives, including discussions of globalization, the challenge of suffering and bioethics.

Essays and contributors are The Landscape Tradition: A Broader Vision for Ecotheology," by Stephen Downs; *Globalization and Ecology, - by Christine Burke, IBVM; *'For Your Immortal Spirit Is in All Things': The Holy Spirit in Creation, - by Denis Edwards; *Enfleshing the Human: An Earth-Revealing, Earth-Healing Christology, - by Duncan Reid; *God's Shattering Otherness: The Trinity and Earth's Healing, - by Patricia Fox, RSM; *Embracing Unloveliness: Exploring Theology from the Dung heap, - by Lorna Hallahan; *Up Close and Personal: In the End, Matter Matters, - by Anthony Lowes; *The Relationship Quilt: Feminism and the Healing of Nature, - by Lucy Larkin; *A Timely Reminder: Humanity and Ecology in the Light of Christian Hope, - by Gregory Brett, CM; *Ecotheology as a Plea for Place, - by Phillip Tolliday; *Situating Humanity: Theological Anthropology in the Context of the Ecological Crisis, - by James McEvoy; and *Bioethics, Ecology, and Theology, - by Andrew Dutney.

Denis Edwards is a senior lecturer in systematic theology at Catholic Theological College and in the ecumenical consortium at the Adelaide College of Divinity, Flinders University. He has written other books on theology and is a priest of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide.

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