Tikkun magazine – Feminism and Religion

To See Ourselves In Others: Part One by Beth Bartlett

I have felt both a responsibility and a reluctance to write about the escalating conflict in the Middle East. The situation is so complex and such an unspeakable tragedy – acts of such terror and violence on the part of Hamas toward civilian populations met with even greater violence and repressive measures on the part of Israel toward the people of Gaza. It is a perplexity of the human condition that a people with such a deep history of being displaced and oppressed rather than refusing to oppress in turn, instead engage in the displacement and oppression of others that then erupts into more violence. Both are traumatized peoples acting out of deep pain and woundedness. Thousands have died, more are wounded and displaced, all will carry more trauma into generations to come. The very earth bears the scars of war. In the face of such unspeakable suffering, any kind of analysis feels distancing at a time when what we most need is to let the suffering move us to our depths.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Transcendence, Immanence, and the Sixth Great Extinction

This was originally posted August 4, 2014

In my recent blog “The Flourishing of Life and Feminist Theology” I discussed Grace Jantzen’s view that theology should focus on “natality” or birth and life, rather than life after death or life apart from this world. This week Tikkun magazine published its summer issue with a feature called “Thinking Anew about God.” In it two male thinkers, one Buddhist and one Christian, argue for a similar turn toward the world in their traditions. Their calls for religions to focus on this world were published the same week scientists warned that the world stands on the brink of the sixth great extinction.

I have come to believe that any religion espousing cosmological dualism (devaluing this world in favor of a superior reality such as heaven) and individual salvation (the idea that what ultimately happens to me is disconnected from what ultimately happens to you) is contributing to our world’s problems rather than offering a solution. … [Religions should] stop emphasizing the hereafter and focus instead on how to overcome the illusion that we are separate from this precious, endangered earth. –David Loy, Buddhist, writing in Tikkun Summer 2014

Transcendence, Immanence, and the Sixth Great Extinction by Carol P. Christ

My aim in this regard is to reawaken in each of us an emotionally felt and primordial sense of spiritual belonging within the wider natural world. In turn, my hope is that this deep sense of belonging to the earth — to God’s body, as it were — will en-flame our hearts and empower our wills to commit us to healing and saving the earth.—Mark I. Wallace, Christian, writing in Tikkun Summer 2014 Continue reading “Transcendence, Immanence, and the Sixth Great Extinction by Carol P. Christ”