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A compelling vision-before it's too late In this splendidly crafted work, McFague argues for theology as an ethical imperative for all thinking Christians: Responsible discipleship today entails disciplined religious reflection. Moreover, theology matters: Without serious reflection on their worldview, ultimate commitments, and lifestyle, North American Christians cannot hope to contribute to ensuring the "good life" for people or the planet. To live differently we must think differently. McFague's has therefore written primer in theology. It helps Christians assess their own religious story in light of the larger Christian tradition and the felt needs of the planet. At once an apology for an ecologically driven theology and a model for how theology itself might be expressed, her work is expressly crafted to bring people into the practice of religious reflection as a form of responsible Christian practice in the world. McFague shows the reader how articulating one's personal religious story and credo can lead directly into contextual analysis, unfolding of theological concepts, and forms of Christian practice. In lucid prose she offers creative discussions of revelation, the reigning economic worldview (and its ecological alternative), and how a planetary theology might approach classical areas of God and the world, Christ and salvation, and life in the Spirit. Enticing readers into serious self-assessment and creative commitment, McFague's new work encourages and models a theological practice that "gives glory to God by loving the world."
- Sales Rank: #164750 in Books
- Brand: McFague, Sallie
- Published on: 2000-11-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.50" h x .61" w x 5.50" l, .69 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 268 pages
From the Publisher
From the Introduction (pre-publication version):
I have written each of my books in an effort to make up for deficiencies in the last one. Life Abundant is no exception. After completing Super, Natural Christians, subtitled “How We Should Love Nature,” I realized love was not enough. I realized that we middle-class North American Christians are destroying nature, not because we do not love it, but because of the way we live: our ordinary, taken-for-granted high-consumer lifestyle. I realized that the matter of loving nature was a deep, complex, tricky question involving greed, indifference, and denial.
So I have set about trying to rectify the inadequacies of my last book with yet another (inadequate) book. The thesis of this one is that we North American middle-class Christians need to live differently in order to love nature and to live differently, we need to think differently—especially about ourselves and who we are in the scheme of things. And by “think differently” I do not mean our conscious, “for publication” thoughts about ourselves, but the largely unconscious picture of who we are that is the silent partner in all our behavior and decisions. These world-pictures or worldviews are formed by many factors, one of which is the religious assumptions about human beings that operate implicitly in a culture. The current dominant American worldview, a legacy from the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, and eighteenth-century economic theory, is that we are individuals with the right to happiness, especially the happiness of the consumer-style “abundant life.” The m! arket ideology has become our way of life, almost our religion, telling us who we are (consumers) and what the goal of life is (making money). In report after report from the United Nations Development Programme and similar organizations, the grim results of this lifestyle are becoming apparent: a widening gap between the rich and the poor as well as the unraveling of the irreplaceable life systems of the planet. Is this loving nature—or our neighbor?
I don’t think so. I realized that a basic deficiency in my last book was the neglect of economics (partly because I thought it was too difficult to understand). There is, however, no avoiding it—and what ordinary people need to know is not its technical side, but the assumptions and results of consumer-oriented economic theory. We do not love nature or care for two-thirds of the world’s people if we who are 20% of the population use more than 80% of the world’s energy. There is not enough energy on the planet for all people to live as we do (and increasingly, most want to) or for the planet to remain in working order if all try to live this way. We are on a path that is unjust to others and unsustainable to the planet. But most of us do not know (or acknowledge) this; we keep ourselves in denial because we like this way of life, and our economic system and government collude with us. We middle-class North Americans are addicted to the consumer lifestyle, even if it means depri! ving others and putting the planet in jeopardy.
Life Abundant is not a feel-good read, at least not initially. Reading it will probably be like writing it was. Eventually, I could imagine another abundant life, one that I found deeply satisfying. However, the route to it for folks like me and you (the presumed middle-class North American reader) involves limitation and sacrifice, a radically different view of abundance. It involves re-imagining the good life in just and sustainable ways. Why is this satisfying? I invite you to read on and discover, but most simply, for me, because I sleep better at night, thinking of another possible way to live, one in which most of the world’s people would have the necessary basics and the planet could remain more or less intact.
So, this book is about imagining another way to live “abundantly” on planet Earth. The route to this other way, to what I call the ecological economic model, is a bit circuitous because I want to show how I got there. I believe that all Christians must have a working theology, one that can actually function in their personal, professional, and public lives. Gradually, over many years I have developed one and it is a theology for just and sustainable planetary living. I will share my theological journey as a possible case study for readers who might want to undertake a similar one. I decided to write the book this way in part to de-mystify theology: there is nothing special about theology—every Christian has one. The question is how good, appropriate, and functional is it?
One way to test your theology—those deeply-held, perhaps subconscious beliefs about God and the world that profoundly influence your actions—is to examine it. This is an old Christian practice, epitomized in Augustine’s plea, “For Thy mercies’ sake, O Lord my God, tell me what Thou art to me.” One undertakes a contemplative exercise for the purpose of living with God and for neighbor more appropriately and fully. It is a way of doing theology that begins in experience and ends in a conversion to a new way of being in the world. Developing a working theology is not “doing one’s thing” or finding a comfortable view of God; on the contrary, it is undergoing the discipline of the examination of conscience for the purpose of living the Christian life more deeply and fittingly in one’s own time. Needless to say, if this exercise does result in a view of abundant living, it will not be the popular contemporary one. Perhaps Dorothy Day sums it up best when she wrote: “I wanted life an! d I wanted the abundant life. I wanted it for others too” (italics added).
This book, then, has a dual aim: to describe a Christian theology of the good life and to show how I have come to this theology. Needless to say, this is only one such theology. Whether it is helpful toward attaining a just, sustainable planet and whether it is Christian is for readers to judge. At the very least, I hope it helps you work out your own theology.
About the Author
Sallie McFague is Carpenter Professor of Theology and former Dean of Vanderbilt Divinity School, Nashville, Tennessee. Among her many influential works, all of which are from Fortress Press, include Metaphorical Theology (1982), Models of God (1987), The Body of God (1993), and Super, Natural Christians (1997).
Most helpful customer reviews
29 of 32 people found the following review helpful.
Embrace and love the world you live in... thus, embrace God.
By fdoamerica
Avant-garde theologian, reformative and unorthodox Christian, Sallie McFague, in 'Life Abundant', sets forth a radical, earthbound, theology that is as provocative as it is over sanguine.
Her 'hope against hope' prophetic cry to all North Americans is to 'love and protect the world' and thus love God. Forsake your 'hell bent' consuming way and share the world's resources equally. Be liberated from your role as oppressors. While this message is needed and laudable, it will, sadly, go unheard and thus unheeded. For, as Seneca, the Roman philosopher said at the time of Christ, "It is the superfluous things for which men concern themselves".
Dr. McFague is an accomplished professor of Theology (Vanderbilt Divinity School) and, as such, she challenges you to reconsider your life philosophy, your spiritual theology and your consumer mentality. Dr. McFague wants you not to read her book as much as to engage, challenge and argue with her via the book. In the end, she hopes you will rethink and develop a 'working theology' that embraces and loves the world we live in.
While the title of the book is affable, and even quaint, this book is not. This is a dense and demanding read; however, a postulation worthy of every thinking person's effort. I am going to attempt the absurd. I am going to attempt to distill the erudite writings of Dr. McFague in three phrases. In "Life Abundant" Sallie McFague has an admonitory outcry for "middle class North American Christians". She calls them to 1) Change their manic consumer lives, and choose to live in harmony with, and care for, all creation. 2) Realize that Christians (as all people) live to give God glory by loving the world and everything in it. 3) Deconstruct their traditional theologies and then reconstruct them in concert with her "Panentheistic" theology.
Be forewarned, any attempt to fully grasp Sally McFague's in a coherent way will be akin to attempting to wrap your arms around a full grown Redwood tree. Her theology is "relatively absolute". She believes that all theologians speak of God metaphorically, and there is no such thing as a complete theology, rather there are only piecemeal theologies, and no creditable theologian makes empirical statements about who God is. Thus, the reading of her explanation of her belief system is akin to listening to Dennis Hopper disjointedly saying in 'Apocalypse Now' that he found "the one" (referring to Marlin Brando). Heavy man, heavy.
Her theology is Christian Panentheism - Pan'en'theism. God is immanent, incarnated in the world through nature. Thus she sees the world as 'in' ('en') God and that God is 'with' the world. God is with us here and now in all living beings. "The world", for Sallie "is where God dwells, it is God's 'house'". And, for her, the "divine incarnation" is not limited to Jesus, but God is incarnate in the world and each creature is "a microcosm of divine incarnation".
For McFague God is Reality. She states; "when we say that God is reality we mean that reality is both with us and beyond us, both eminent and transcendent, both physical and spiritual". God is "the source, the sustainer, and the goal of everything that is."
Her theology is a 'working theology' and she believe that we must act - now and decisively. She condemns the consumptive, consumer life style of North Americans. Her evolved theology is no longer the self-centered tribal, traditional anthropocentric Christian theology of the masses (salvation for the individual), but is a cosmological theology that affirms that being with nature is being with God and salvation is when you are in God's presence (God is found in relationship with others and nature). For Sallie the deterioration of nature and the injustice to the poor people is caused by the religion of our time - consumerism.
I found that some of her provocative statements raise significant questions. For example, if God so loves the world and is continually engaged, or "radical present", with the world, then where is the evidence of His/Her/Its involvement? Nowhere does Dr. McFague explain where or how God is "radically present". Please, give me examples, Dr. McFague, of where and how God is involved with this world He/She/It loves.
She does not embrace the Christian belief in the popular image of God as a supernatural being and redeemer of human individuals. But rather for Dr. McFague God is - radically transcendent and radically immanent. Her Christology is unconventional and unorthodox. She discards the personally redemptive, sacrificial death of Christ - "Personally, I have never been able to believe it", and replaces it with an 'ecological economic Christology.'
Her chapters on economic models are great reads, but her statement that we, in North America, have "allowed our economic theories (i.e. market capitalism) to tell us who we are"- is disputable. Market capitalism did not make us consuming, self-gratifying individuals, but rather we adopted market capitalism because it is what best benefits who we are.
Also, she beats the drum of 'frugality', asking her readers to restrict significantly their materialistic intake (she admittedly acknowledges that this is not a beat that North Americans are likely to dance to). Thus, her Jeremiah prophetic call to a radical life change, thought desperately needed, will accomplish what it did with Israel - Nada.
Her end notes (30 pages) are a gold mine for all those interested in cross-references, excellent bibliographies, insights and side-bar comments.
In short, though complex, this is a stimulating and thought provoking read. Anyone who believes, as McFague does, that God loves and wants to save the earth, should read this book, agree with her theology, "we are to give God glory by loving the earth" and chorus "Amen, and Amen". Recommended
28 of 31 people found the following review helpful.
Another mindblower
By Naas Ferreira
Just when I thought Christian theology has nothing more to say, Sallie McFague comes along and not only says something new but encourages her readers to participate in creating and living theology. Her theological credo is to give glory to God by loving the world and all in it. She acknowledges that this is a relative absolute for her as a North American feminist living in the 21st century, something all theologies should be. The book is divided into three parts: I The Practice of Planetary Theology, II The Context of Planetary Theology and III The Content of Planetary Theology. Her ecological liberation theology is opposed to the materialistic consumerism of the North American middle class. If these priviledged few (20% of the world's population) do not lower their impact on the environment and the poorer nations (80%)they won't have a future either. The way to change people's behavior is to alter the mindset (theology and economy). "Life Abundant" even makes sense to me as a white Afrikaans male living in South Africa. We have the unique combination of a First and Third World, rich and poor, in one country. We can see and feel the devastation the rich have on the environment and the poor. This latest work by Sallie McFague helped me make sense of my world and enticed me to develop my own religious autobiography. If you care for theology, God, nature, human beings or Christ, get this book ASAP. It will change your life and hopefully save the world.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
I am still disgesting this good book.
By Paul E. Kondy
Most helpful. I am still disgesting this good book.
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