[1] \u201cHow, then, do we hymn the Earth differently?\u201d Larry Rasmussen asks, in a time when much of humankind has long grown deaf to the \u201chymn of all creation\u201d (5). The motif of song, and a Song of Songs, flows lyrically throughout this work (81), as well as in the urgent call for us to now \u201csing a new song\u201d (4) and to find \u201ccourage to enter the song\u201d (a phrase used in several places, and drawn from the quite fitting Marty Haugen hymn, \u201cGather Us In\u201d).<\/p>\n
[2] I likely first heard some of the early \u201cnotes\u201d of Rasmussen\u2019s \u201csong\u201d at a conference in Michigan in 1999, which focused on the role of the religious community in environmental issues (\u201cFinding our Way, Finding our Voice\u201d). I was discerning my call to ministry at that time, and I distinctly recall Larry saying \u2013 in words that resonated to my core \u2013 \u201cFidelity to God now means fidelity to Earth \u2026 such that the<\/em> religious vocation, for the foreseeable future, is earthkeeping.\u201d He then also shared that insightful quote from Bonhoeffer (used also in this book), \u201cEarth and its distress \u2013 that is the Christian\u2019s Song of Songs\u201d (82).<\/p>\n [3] What Rasmussen unfolds in this book is a wider, deeper, and rich maturation, if you will, of those late 1990s themes, questions, and yearnings that have obviously been with him for many years. As helpful as his seminal book Earth Community, Earth Ethics<\/em> (1996) was, Earth-honoring Faith<\/em> is even more so; and my hope is that it will be \u201caccessible\u201d for even more readers. It will be \u2013 should be \u2013 quoted by many, and it could supply many a sermon with pithy passages for stirring hearts and minds.<\/p>\n [4] After a wonderfully evocative \u201cPrelude\u201d (the book\u2019s Introduction), the first three chapters offer: 1) a deep and thoughtful examination of who we are and whence we came (\u201cThe Creature We Are); 2) searing and hard scientific truths of a bottom line: \u201cThe planet has changed and now we must change with it\u201d (70, \u201cThe World We Have\u201d); and 3) the beginning inviting outlines of what is meant by \u201cEarth-honoring faith\u201d (\u201cThe Faith We Seek\u201d). The whole book, as per its title, comes back often to the latter as the main melody of this work.<\/p>\n [5] There are delightful and nourishing words in passages from \u201cThe Creature We Are\u201d and in Rasmussen\u2019s invitation to new ways of thinking about \u201courselves, how we live, and our place in the world\u201d (24), as he describes our truest human selves as \u201cborn to belonging\u201d (11), \u201cborn to meaning\u201d (24), and \u201cborn to morality.\u201d (35)<\/p>\n [6] Passages in the \u201cBorn to Belonging\u201d section may quite capture readers with their beauty, if not leave many of us also with a vague sense of longing for (a deeper) home. \u201cApart from human community implanted in an Earth community embedded in a cosmic community, we cannot, and do not, exist\u201d (12). Our \u201cborn to belonging\u201d reaches back across eons; the cosmically-generated elements in our bodies testify to that. \u201cBorn to Meaning\u201d explores our inherent nature to find and make meaning of life, and to use \u201csymbolic consciousness\u201d in both good and bad ways. (24-27ff)<\/p>\n [7] The \u201cBorn to Morality\u201d pages may come as a surprise to those of us who have not given this much day-to-day thought, but Rasmussen illuminates this aspect quite helpfully, laying an important foundation for the whole theme of this book. He makes the case that, indeed, \u201cOur whole life is startlingly moral\u201d (357).<\/p>\n [8] The rest of Part One continues with a valuable and veritable \u201cEthics 101\u201d that explores \u201cThe Ethic We Need\u201d via four chapters: \u201cChange and Imagination\u201d; \u201cGood Theory\u201d; \u201cCommunity Matrix\u201d; and \u201cTilling and Keeping\u201d. These chapters perhaps deserve a separate review of their own. Suffice it for me to say, here, that I believe they would well serve both those in graduate religious ethics courses and more casual readers. All are written with Rasmussen\u2019s expertise as an ethicist and his ever-present attention to the theme at hand, \u201cEarth-honoring faith and religious ethics in a new key.\u201d In a few places, the casual reader may get slightly bogged down in the mire of many words, but I hasten to add that even these sections are well worth the effort for the real-life stories and shining examples they hold within.<\/p>\n [9] In the full scope of this book, Rasmussen draws from an impressively wide and deep body of sources and voices, from 4th century bishops to modern scientists and hard data, especially in the striking, Earth-harming trends in all categories from 1950 to now (56-57). He finds wisdom and examples of Earth-honoring faith in all of the world\u2019s religions; he mines literature and poetry for inspiring gems (from Denise Levertov, Annie Dillard, and others) and for pertinent epigraphs beginning each chapter.<\/p>\n [10] He does not shy away from the new understandings born of cosmology, or from Thomas Berry\u2019s call to the \u201cGreat Work\u201d of our time. Rasmussen more than once lauds the \u201cwisdom-in-the-making\u201d of the Earth Charter (344, www.earthcharter.org). Yet he masterfully anchors all in long-held ethical theory (albeit in the desperately needed \u201cnew key\u201d for our time) and the sacred language of \u201cdeep traditions\u201d (Part Two).<\/p>\n [11] Throughout the book, Rasmussen also boldly critiques where our industrial, unrestrained economic growth, capitalist, consumer-oriented society has taken us; and he both calls out, and invites, faith traditions to discern the signs of our times, and to shift \u201cthe center of ethics \u2026 from the self to the ecosphere as the relational matrix of our lives and responsibility\u201d<\/em> (78, italics mine). We must negotiate this transitional time, filled with \u201cadaptive challenges\u201d and \u201cwicked problems\u201d (5, 78) because we are at a crucial \u201chinge point\u201d in human history (80), and sorely \u201ca species out of context\u201d (205) with the rest of the life of Earth.<\/p>\n [12] Humans have piled up a huge \u201cecological debt\u201d and have surpassed the carrying and regenerative capacities of the Earth (325) [and] \u201cunfortunately, Mother Nature doesn\u2019t do bailouts\u201d (77). I gladly note the attention given to climate change, and all of its impacts to both planet and people, as perhaps the ultimate wake-up call now for humankind, woven subtly (and often not so-subtly) throughout the book. Rasmussen goes so far as to suggest that historians will one day describe our time as the \u201cfossil-fuel interlude.\u201d (80)<\/p>\n [13] Rasmussen successfully, I feel, makes the claim that there is a key role for the world\u2019s religions to play, in talking more deeply about these topics, in moral formation, and in supplying a sustaining energy (and vision) in times of great challenge. But here\u2019s the rub: \u201cThat said, the powers of the world\u2019s faiths are not up to the present task in most of their present forms\u201d (6). This is the impetus for the book, and it is a valuable, scholarly, and faith-filled attempt to help show us the way.<\/p>\n [14] Rasmussen also brings an important religious perspective to the \u201cGreat Work\u201d (a reference to Berry\u2019s concept), in writing that it \u201c\u2026 asks [us] for an Earth-honoring faith and a moral universe of more generous proportions than those we presently live.\u201d In other words:<\/p>\n [W]e see ourselves as a segregated species, distinctive, set apart and over. We thus end up in a very odd place, from a moral and theological point of view: a contracting Earth is jeopardized by its acclaimed stewards who don\u2019t even wince at the reality that they have become de-creators. The traditional theological analysis of sin as pan-human waywardness simply falls silent about our species-being and cumulative Homo sapiens threats to life. Some theo-ethical black hole evidently swallowed this sensibility (93).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n [15] And so he asks, \u201cWhat kind of faith is truly Earth-honoring? What kind of ethic its partner? What kind of faith and ethic yields zest for life through hard transitions? What kind creates renewable moral-spiritual energy to take on tasks that require generations of good work?\u201d (79)<\/p>\n [16] I deeply appreciated Rasmussen\u2019s reference to the venerable Joseph Sittler, who in his 1954 ahead-of-its-time address \u201cA Theology of Earth\u201d vowed as a son of earth [to] know no rest \u201cuntil Earth\u2019s voices are gathered up\u201d into a deeper and fuller understanding of faith.<\/em> \u201cEarth\u2019s voices have about them\u201d the shine of the holy. A certain \u2018theological guilt\u2019 pursues the mind that impatiently rejects them<\/em> (Sittler\u2019s words here in italics; 103, n. 63).<\/p>\n [17] Rasmussen continues in a pointedly prophetic way that ought to catch the attention of all \u201creligious\u201d folk: \u201cThe theological guilt rests with God-talk that fails to gather in all of Earth\u2019s voices to sing the hymn of creation or to reflect creation\u2019s \u2018shine of the holy\u2019\u2026Shorn of the universe, the worship of God is worship of a human species idol\u201d<\/em> (103, italics mine.)<\/p>\n [18] Wow. And, yes, I say. Earth-honoring faith is about a \u201creenchantment\u201d of the world that \u201crestores nature to human consciousness and feeling, nature as a community of subjects, the bearer of mystery and spirit, the ethos of the cosmos, and the womb of all the life we will ever know (77).<\/p>\n [19] Rasmussen also writes helpfully of the need for \u2013 and offers current examples\u2013 of \u201canticipatory communities\u201d (121), those oft small in number collections or enterprises of like-minded folk who are already practicing Earth-honoring ways of living. He suggests that faith communities need to help birth, find, and encourage such \u201canticipatory communities,\u201d ones that live into, already now, the world as it should be \u2013 as it must be \u2013 for all of planetary life to thrive and flourish in and through these hard times of \u201cwicked problems,\u201d adaptive challenges, and transition. \u201cWicked problems,\u201d as Rasmussen terms them include such things as climate change and climagration [migration due to climate change], soil erosion, death of coral reefs, diminishment of freshwater supplies, acidification of oceans, rainforests, melting of permafrost, poverty, and economic issues (5,78).<\/p>\n [20] There is no one simple road to an Earth-honoring faith but the five chapters of Part Two (239-256), provide many possible and inviting pathways. These chapters alone are worth the cost of the book and time to read it. Here, Rasmussen delves into the ancient and \u201cdeep traditions\u201d common to many world religions: Asceticism, Sacramentalism, Mysticism, the Prophetic-Liberative, and the priceless gift of Wisdom. He unfolds each of these, in counter-point to a less life-giving \u201cpartner\u201d in Consumerism, the Commodified, Alienation (from nature), Oppression, and, of course, Folly. He draws out chords from all of the \u201cdeep traditions\u201d to bring Earth-honoring faith to full-bodied life in our ways of relating to one another, to the Earth, and to God.<\/p>\n [21] These deep traditions have much to offer us, to counter the crassness and disharmonies of consumerism; our alienation from the natural world that birthed us; oppression of those without voice or whose voice is not heard (including other-than-human); the folly of how we recklessly regard our primal, sacred life-giving womb of soil, air, water, fire, and light; and the ways the modern technological and industrial era has made the stuff of life into commodities to be bought and sold, leaching the sacred from life.<\/p>\n [22] In conclusion, this book is important, timely, sorely needed and deeply prophetic \u2013 delivering a hard, truthful indictment of the world as it is, but also suggesting visionary, hopeful Earth-honoring ways forward. Rasmussen invites us, at the book\u2019s close, to \u201cstudy together\u201d (368) and, in echoing those words of Elie Wiesel, lets us know that this is work for all of us, no matter our faith tradition and communities. We all have gifts to bring to this table; and the table for our time is one that includes all members of creation, human and other-than-human, along with our generative, primal \u201cparental elements\u201d of earth (soil), air, fire, water, and light. (59; 224)<\/p>\n [23] Finally, I would venture to suggest that any thoughtful person, concerned for the life of the Earth, would find this book engaging, challenging, stimulating. For people of faith \u2013 especially pastors, seminarians, spiritual directors, and any others in leadership positions in the church \u2013 yes, you should, you need, to read this. More committed adult Sunday School\/adult forum study groups may be able to fruitfully tackle it, as well.<\/p>\n Earth-honoring Faith \u2026 Amen and amen. Let us begin, now, together. [1] \u201cHow, then, do we hymn the Earth differently?\u201d Larry Rasmussen asks, in a time when much of humankind has long grown deaf to the \u201chymn of all creation\u201d (5). The motif of song, and a Song of Songs, flows lyrically throughout this work (81), as well as in the urgent call for us to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","category-climate-change"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nThe Earth and God \u2026 both wait for us with eager longing (Romans 8).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"