RT Article
T1 Re-thinking God for the Sake of a Planet in Peril: Reflections on the Socially Transformative Potential of Sallie McFague’s Progressive Theology
JF Feminist theology
VO 19
IS 1
SP 86
OP 106
A1 Waschenfelder, Jacob
LA English
PB Sage
YR 2010
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1776895045
AB This paper examines the influences which shape the tone and character of Sallie McFague’s ecotheology, while also suggesting that her theology holds immense socially transformative potential even while departing from many of the basic assumptions of traditional Christian theism. Contrary to the beliefs of majority Christianity, which most often assume the adequacy of supernatural and interventionist images of God, McFague contends that these outdated images seriously debilitate Christian agency and place our planet in peril. Changing Christian habits of thought about God, therefore, may yet prove to be a necessary, though not sufficient, prerequisite to resolve our environmental plight. Ultimately, I suggest that McFague’s reconstructive theology is a significant part of a larger blossoming of immanentalist sensibilities within North American religious culture at large, and in relation to which Christian churches will have to adjust in order to survive. This theological sea change may yet have the effect of moving McFague’s reconstructive proposals from the margins into the mainstream of Christian discourse and practice.
K1 Post-modern
K1 McFague
K1 God
K1 Environment
K1 Eco-theology
K1 Christian
DO 10.1177/0966735010372170