Post by keita on Aug 6, 2005 13:31:24 GMT -5
Grace and Peace, KB and Saints!
I came across this book review today:
Making God Laugh:
Human Arrogance and Ecological Humility
by Anne Primavesi
A Book Review By: The Very Rev. Leland R. Somers
“If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.” is a Yiddish proverb that opens the first chapter of this wonderful and sometimes humorous look at Christian theologies which pretend to know exactly what God is in and of God's self and exactly what it is that God wants us to do. I knew immediately that this was a book that was going to appeal to me since I've often said that if God were to walk into the G T U book store at the Graduate Theological Union of the University of California at Berkeley, She would believe that She had come into a multi-media comedy emporium, and would laugh Herself silly.
The author takes on the fundamental notion that the Bible and theologies since Augustine have foisted on us. “...the assumption that death was introduced into the world because of the action of a human individual who...changed the structure of the universe itself”. In fact it claims that the disobedience of human beings was equal in power to the divine creation of a universe which was “very good.” Life then becomes a battle between the forces of evil and the forces of good. These forces are so balanced that this battle rates in heaven and on the Earth as well. This certainly puts into question anything like a doctrine of Omnipotence of God. If a Being were in fact omnipotent, the cessation of this battle could be instantaneous. Unfortunately for Christians this theological perspective reduces the life of Jesus, “...like everything else on earth solely [to] terms of our gaining victory over sin and death”.
The fundamental notion that the author puts forth concerning our ability to know what God wants is this: “I propose, therefore, a vigilant attentiveness to the asymmetry between divine and human knowledge and an acceptance of the disparity between them as the basic theological constant in our hypotheses about those plans.” This caution is one that has been tossed to the winds by American Christian fundamentalists and American politicians who claim that they talk to God (anyone can do this) and that in return God not only talks to them but tells them what countries to attack and implies that the death of hundreds of thousands of people is little more than collateral damage to doing God's will.
In Chapter 4, a meditation on Eucharist and inclusiveness, there is a challenge to Christians and their churches to follow the Jesus they want to call Lord. She points out that in Africa the Christian churches demanded that the tradition of polygamy had to be abandoned in order to be Christian. What this entailed was the virtual abandonment and destruction of traditional family values. This act of abandonment exposes the divorced wives and their children to hardships that we cannot even imagine. Yet “...the church considers this of little consequence, since in its view divorcing all one's wives and imposting untold hardship on many women and children is what Christ demands of those who love him.” That is to say that Christ demands that to love him and be loved by him these men must destroy their families, make their children orphans and cause emotional, physical, social and economic pain. This is a Christianity that does not deserve the name.
(This reviewer offers a challenge to the readers to find in the Bible where polygamy is specifically forbidden.)
Ecological Humility, Chapter 10, brings us to the core of the reflections that preceded it in this wonderful book. The contention is that “...our enjoyment of the earth is not the primary aim of its creation, because he [Thomas Hardy] calls 'the all-creating Might that fashioned forth its loveliness' had, and presumably still has, other aims than human delight.” The human arrogance that is destroying our Earth and us, all of us including human beings but by no means only human beings, can no longer be justified, but is in fact a remnant of the mythology of 'special creationism'. The author states, “We think and act as if all the other members of that household [Earth] have no other aim than to serve our aims – as if,..., we are its masters and its very existence is ordained by God to serve our pleasure.”
Part of the problem of arrogance is that its possessor and practitioner cannot accept the fact that he is not the center of the Universe and the apple of God's eye and God cares for none of the rest of God's world as God cares for him. Dr. Primavesi states, “Both questions [asked in a preceding paragraph] force us to face the self-centeredness of our assumptions about who and what matters to God. Above all, it forces us to look at how traditional theologies of salvation presume and at the same time reinforce the presumption that ultimately we alone matter to God.”
Ecological humility forces us to understand that before human beings came on the scene, very, very, very late in the history of the Earth, much less the Universe, it all went along very well, in some instances clearly better, before human beings came on the scene. What we have not yet come to understand is that we, human beings, cannot live and thrive without the other species on the planet. They constitute an integral part of the biosphere upon which we depend for our existence. The air we breathe cannot be reduced to Ruah – a spiritualized breath of God, when in fact it is the Ruah of the planet itself – and it is this breath that we are destroying. It is the Ruah of Gaia, the living Earth which we are destroying and once destroyed so shall we be destroyed.
For Christians who like to put so much emphasis on the Word of God as the creative power of God, the author cites a Jewish mystic and scholar, Franz Rozenzweig, who puts the Word in its proper perspective in this poem:
God spoke. That came third.
It was not the first thing.
The first thing was: God created.
God created the earth and the skies.
That was the first thing.
The breath of God moved over the face of the waters:
over the darkness covering the face of the deep.
That was the second thing.
Then came the third thing.
God spoke.
“From 'the beginning' God was and is revealed through the processes of creating through the evolution of the planet; its atmosphere, its life, its species....God's self is expressed, revealed through the process we call evolution.” writes Dr. Primavesi. "This then clearly states that God's self is revealed to all creation, not just human beings, not just in words and concepts but by the very continuing process of creation. At the far reaches of the Universe new star systems are continually being born, creation continues – perhaps forever, we who live today will never know nor understand but we can only speculate.
Dr. Primavesi continues: “The ultimate theological arrogance is that we also deny or at best ignore God's capacity to reveal the mystery of God's self to the whole earth, to all its inhabitants and ultimately to the universe.”... We forget that God's thoughts are not our thoughts, nor God's ways our ways, nor our speech the sole measure or medium of God's voice. As if, indeed, it could be!”
Yet today we have a whole theological thrust that in fact teach that “ ...our speech is the sole measure or medium of God's voice.” and more – the source of creation itself. In Job we find the adumbrations that the 'more-than-human members within the earth household know as much or more than we though they speak not our language.
But ask the beasts, and they will teach you;
the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
or the plants of the earth, and they will teach you;
and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord
has done this?
In God's hand is the life of every living thing,
and the breath of all humankind. (Job 12:7)
About the Author:
Anne Primavesi is a systematic theologian focusing on ecological issues, and a Fellow of the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Religion, Birkbeck College, University of London. She is the author of several books including Sacred Gaia (2000), Gaia's Gift (2003), and Making God Laugh (forthcoming Spring 2004), as well as dozens of articles in books and scholarly journals. Dr. Primavesi has lectured widely in the British Isles, Europe, Scandinavia, North America and South America.
The language and contents are indeed controversial, yet as you know and so often happens, that does not automatically or necessarily negate any truth it may present. The portion in blue reminded me of you and some "meaty" discussions we've had in the past, ie., believers learning to live in (what I call) the "juxtaposition" and absolutism. It is also the statement which had the greatest impact in my reading of the review. Some of the evolution vs creation perspective and aspects of the article have been posted here to the thread discussing that subject.
Look forward to hearing your thoughts!
I came across this book review today:
Making God Laugh:
Human Arrogance and Ecological Humility
by Anne Primavesi
A Book Review By: The Very Rev. Leland R. Somers
“If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.” is a Yiddish proverb that opens the first chapter of this wonderful and sometimes humorous look at Christian theologies which pretend to know exactly what God is in and of God's self and exactly what it is that God wants us to do. I knew immediately that this was a book that was going to appeal to me since I've often said that if God were to walk into the G T U book store at the Graduate Theological Union of the University of California at Berkeley, She would believe that She had come into a multi-media comedy emporium, and would laugh Herself silly.
The author takes on the fundamental notion that the Bible and theologies since Augustine have foisted on us. “...the assumption that death was introduced into the world because of the action of a human individual who...changed the structure of the universe itself”. In fact it claims that the disobedience of human beings was equal in power to the divine creation of a universe which was “very good.” Life then becomes a battle between the forces of evil and the forces of good. These forces are so balanced that this battle rates in heaven and on the Earth as well. This certainly puts into question anything like a doctrine of Omnipotence of God. If a Being were in fact omnipotent, the cessation of this battle could be instantaneous. Unfortunately for Christians this theological perspective reduces the life of Jesus, “...like everything else on earth solely [to] terms of our gaining victory over sin and death”.
The fundamental notion that the author puts forth concerning our ability to know what God wants is this: “I propose, therefore, a vigilant attentiveness to the asymmetry between divine and human knowledge and an acceptance of the disparity between them as the basic theological constant in our hypotheses about those plans.” This caution is one that has been tossed to the winds by American Christian fundamentalists and American politicians who claim that they talk to God (anyone can do this) and that in return God not only talks to them but tells them what countries to attack and implies that the death of hundreds of thousands of people is little more than collateral damage to doing God's will.
In Chapter 4, a meditation on Eucharist and inclusiveness, there is a challenge to Christians and their churches to follow the Jesus they want to call Lord. She points out that in Africa the Christian churches demanded that the tradition of polygamy had to be abandoned in order to be Christian. What this entailed was the virtual abandonment and destruction of traditional family values. This act of abandonment exposes the divorced wives and their children to hardships that we cannot even imagine. Yet “...the church considers this of little consequence, since in its view divorcing all one's wives and imposting untold hardship on many women and children is what Christ demands of those who love him.” That is to say that Christ demands that to love him and be loved by him these men must destroy their families, make their children orphans and cause emotional, physical, social and economic pain. This is a Christianity that does not deserve the name.
(This reviewer offers a challenge to the readers to find in the Bible where polygamy is specifically forbidden.)
Ecological Humility, Chapter 10, brings us to the core of the reflections that preceded it in this wonderful book. The contention is that “...our enjoyment of the earth is not the primary aim of its creation, because he [Thomas Hardy] calls 'the all-creating Might that fashioned forth its loveliness' had, and presumably still has, other aims than human delight.” The human arrogance that is destroying our Earth and us, all of us including human beings but by no means only human beings, can no longer be justified, but is in fact a remnant of the mythology of 'special creationism'. The author states, “We think and act as if all the other members of that household [Earth] have no other aim than to serve our aims – as if,..., we are its masters and its very existence is ordained by God to serve our pleasure.”
Part of the problem of arrogance is that its possessor and practitioner cannot accept the fact that he is not the center of the Universe and the apple of God's eye and God cares for none of the rest of God's world as God cares for him. Dr. Primavesi states, “Both questions [asked in a preceding paragraph] force us to face the self-centeredness of our assumptions about who and what matters to God. Above all, it forces us to look at how traditional theologies of salvation presume and at the same time reinforce the presumption that ultimately we alone matter to God.”
Ecological humility forces us to understand that before human beings came on the scene, very, very, very late in the history of the Earth, much less the Universe, it all went along very well, in some instances clearly better, before human beings came on the scene. What we have not yet come to understand is that we, human beings, cannot live and thrive without the other species on the planet. They constitute an integral part of the biosphere upon which we depend for our existence. The air we breathe cannot be reduced to Ruah – a spiritualized breath of God, when in fact it is the Ruah of the planet itself – and it is this breath that we are destroying. It is the Ruah of Gaia, the living Earth which we are destroying and once destroyed so shall we be destroyed.
For Christians who like to put so much emphasis on the Word of God as the creative power of God, the author cites a Jewish mystic and scholar, Franz Rozenzweig, who puts the Word in its proper perspective in this poem:
God spoke. That came third.
It was not the first thing.
The first thing was: God created.
God created the earth and the skies.
That was the first thing.
The breath of God moved over the face of the waters:
over the darkness covering the face of the deep.
That was the second thing.
Then came the third thing.
God spoke.
“From 'the beginning' God was and is revealed through the processes of creating through the evolution of the planet; its atmosphere, its life, its species....God's self is expressed, revealed through the process we call evolution.” writes Dr. Primavesi. "This then clearly states that God's self is revealed to all creation, not just human beings, not just in words and concepts but by the very continuing process of creation. At the far reaches of the Universe new star systems are continually being born, creation continues – perhaps forever, we who live today will never know nor understand but we can only speculate.
Dr. Primavesi continues: “The ultimate theological arrogance is that we also deny or at best ignore God's capacity to reveal the mystery of God's self to the whole earth, to all its inhabitants and ultimately to the universe.”... We forget that God's thoughts are not our thoughts, nor God's ways our ways, nor our speech the sole measure or medium of God's voice. As if, indeed, it could be!”
Yet today we have a whole theological thrust that in fact teach that “ ...our speech is the sole measure or medium of God's voice.” and more – the source of creation itself. In Job we find the adumbrations that the 'more-than-human members within the earth household know as much or more than we though they speak not our language.
But ask the beasts, and they will teach you;
the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
or the plants of the earth, and they will teach you;
and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord
has done this?
In God's hand is the life of every living thing,
and the breath of all humankind. (Job 12:7)
About the Author:
Anne Primavesi is a systematic theologian focusing on ecological issues, and a Fellow of the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Religion, Birkbeck College, University of London. She is the author of several books including Sacred Gaia (2000), Gaia's Gift (2003), and Making God Laugh (forthcoming Spring 2004), as well as dozens of articles in books and scholarly journals. Dr. Primavesi has lectured widely in the British Isles, Europe, Scandinavia, North America and South America.
The language and contents are indeed controversial, yet as you know and so often happens, that does not automatically or necessarily negate any truth it may present. The portion in blue reminded me of you and some "meaty" discussions we've had in the past, ie., believers learning to live in (what I call) the "juxtaposition" and absolutism. It is also the statement which had the greatest impact in my reading of the review. Some of the evolution vs creation perspective and aspects of the article have been posted here to the thread discussing that subject.
Look forward to hearing your thoughts!
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