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Broken Bodies of God: The Christian Eucharist as a Locus for Ecological Reflection
Abstract
The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report attests to the reality of a warming global climate and describes potential ecosystem changes that may be devastating to communities—both human and non-human—across the globe. I contend that the Christian practice of sharing the Eucharist meal provides an opportune moment for Christians to engage in ecological reflection. To defend this claim I draw upon Christian theologian Sallie McFague's metaphorical understanding of the world as God's body in order to connect environmental plight to the Eucharist meal and to show why that plight should be a concern for Christian communities. Next, I turn to the work of anthropologist Claude Fischler in order to make a connection between sharing the Eucharist and communal and individual identity formation. Finally, I draw upon the Slow Food movement in order to provide specific suggestions for adapting the Eucharist to make it more conducive to ecological reflection. I also briefly discuss the growing green sisters movement and suggest that this movement provides a model of ecological-awareness and practice for other religious communities, and for North American Christian churches in particular.
... Migliore et al. (2015) demonstrate genetic biodiversity might be a great resource for the selection of illness resistance in goats, which is necessary for the conservation of endangered breeds and their typical food productions. A study of the Christian practice of the Eucharist meal is connected to allowing Christians to engage in ecological reflections, where the slow food movement can be a conducive environment for these practices (Galbraith, 2009). Neves and Pires (2018) argue that growing the slow food sector of olive oil production in the Iberian Peninsula through shifts in production modes and general modernisation have negative environmental effects on the ecosystem. ...
Slow food and the consequent slow movements are becoming more evident in research and media with the recognition of its implications for sustainability in many spheres of society. This study—the first systematic literature review of this topic—offers a comprehensive interdisciplinary investigation into slow movements which allows us to gain a systems view of the scholarship; stakeholder-oriented insights; and a holistic understanding of slowness while recognizing the various movements within and providing future research directions for tourism and hospitality researchers. This study identifies that slowness has extended to most aspects of our everyday life, such as the slow city, slow management, slow fashion, slow philosophy in general, and slow tourism; the latter offering COVID-19 post-pandemic recovery opportunities through sustainable tourism and hospitality. This study acts as a springboard for a better understanding of the slow(ness) movements to encourage more proactive interactions with key stakeholders and to develop the field further.
... Another theological approach involves transcending scale through the sacrament of the Eucharist, described in some Christian circles as Communion. Galbraith ( 2009 ) asserts that this Christian sacrament provides opportune time to refl ect materially upon the environment. He draws upon Sallie McFague's ( 1993 ) metaphorical understanding of the universe as God's body, making the notion of body fundamental to every aspect of our existence. ...
This chapter discusses how religious responses to global climate change vary with regard to global, regional and local scales. Reactions are shown to be paradoxical and span from no action and disbelief to interfaith efforts geared to combat climate change. Moving from the macro to the micro the essay describes how the national scale is helpful for gauging broad policy initiatives among denominations, while congregations and individual adherents provide a more fluid medium for investigating the growing religious conflicts surrounding climate change. Drawing on scalar challenges such as ecological fallacy and emergence, we argues that there are potential solutions to bridging the massive jump in scale between an individual religious adherent and the planet, enabling the religious to jump scale, if only theologically, from individual lifestyle choices to collective global impact.
Water often moves us to wonder, joy, terror or peace, and many times, water moves us to prayer. On the other hand, it is projected that, because of water shortages, by 2020, several African countries will experience a 50% reduction in crop yields. Between 75 and 250 million Africans will confront freshwater shortages. Water plays an important role in baptism: the requirements of Christian baptism are the use of water and calling upon the name of the Triune God. Baptism as a water bath is the fulfilment of the Old Testament washings. Nobody could and still can appear before God as an unclean person; baptism stresses the importance of cleansing. The research question that is discussed in this article is the following: in what way may baptism, as holy sign and seal of the washing away of sins by the blood and Spirit of Jesus Christ, contribute to sensitise believers to combat waste in our rivers and dams and the pollution of our waters? Two aspects of baptism are discussed, namely cleansing and going under and coming up from the water as sign and seal of partaking in Christ’s death and resurrection.
The last few decades have been a time of growing interest and concern about our environment. The extinction of plant and animal species, the pollution of our water supply and the depletion of critical resources have generated a new consciousness about our biosphere. The liturgy of the church must seriously engage with the ecological perspective, and the entire life, worship and praxis of the church should include an ecological dimension and vision. Two very powerful elements in enhancing worshippers' ecological consciousness are praise or doxology and the important counterpart of doxology, namely song and prayer of lament as well as confession of guilt. This means that believers celebrate the inalienable beauty and dignity of all living kind and bear witness to God's manifold creation. Believers are also to bear witness to creation's groaning as the ground suffers from deforestation, mountain-top removal, toxic dumping and rising temperatures. Comfort and new possibilities for rectifying the ecological crisis may develop from grief and lament. The liturgical witness will be that God's newness will break the cycles of self-destruction and make new life possible.
Today's scholarship on Christianity's relationships with, to, and through foods, performatively, theologically, and ethically, must address global constituents and claims. Recent scholarship on Christianity and food moves from the usual markets of textual research, socio-cultural histories, and ethnography to more interdisciplinary approaches stirred by global Christian communities and concerns. This article highlights shifts in more traditional, field-related scholarship about Christianity and food while demonstrating why global Christian perspectives not only build from that research but also push beyond it. The field-related scholarship is reviewed using four frames or categories, offered as organizing and heuristic help. They are the following: socio-cultural and comparative; lived religion and ethnography; feminist, womanist, and liberatory; and global. Two types of material broadly inform these frames: historical and textual, and ethnographic and lived or practiced religion. The current and future diversity, needs, and claims of global Christian communities and contexts cannot be contained or wedged into scholarship traditionally bound to these field-situated approaches. Scholarship related to Christianity, and food must embrace interdisciplinary and innovative strategies shared among world-wide scholars and practitioners. From questions about community identity, to celebratory feasting and observant fasting during, cultural and seasonal cycles, including Eucharist and earth care, the future of research in global Christianity and food promises a feast of possibilities. Scholars will find a rich range of challenging issues involving faith and practice tuned to global viewpoint on ritual and performance, theologies, colonial resistances, and global alliances and politics.
The liturgy ought to sensitise believers anew to glorifying God as the Creator and the Recreator of the universe. The Book of Psalms may be used to great effect to sharpen the ecological awareness of believers. The topic is investigated on the basis of three creation psalms, namely Psalm 19, 104 and 148. In particular, it asks how the praise of the so-called creation psalms serves to alert believers not only to conserve nature in their own context, but also, together with nature, to praise God in word and deed? The fact that the ecological crisis directly concerns our earth, air and water, that is, our basic sustenance ought to lead worshippers in the worship service to serious reflection. The destruction of ecological systems has a direct effect on every other problem faced by plant, human and animal. The focus of Psalm 19 on the heavens puts air pollution, global warming and damage to the ozone layer on the agenda of every worship-service participant. In the songs of praise in Psalm 104 and 148, humans are seen as part of the artistic creation web which ought to be conserved.
Recent crises associated with food safety issues in the affluent world are bringing about profound changes, temporary or permanent, in attitudes about food, selection patterns and food production.
While experts evaluate risks using various probabilistic tools, for example epidemiological data (mortality and morbidity rates associated with a given occurrence or practice), lay people, rather than evaluating risk in a probabilistic fashion, perceive it in ways that are often described as «irrational» by experts, industry and authorities. This is particularly true when it comes to possible dangers associated with food.
Perception of risk by the consumer can at least in part be predicted. Relevant dimensions include risk configuration; certain types and configurations tend to increase fear and outrage. Other factors are associated with psychological and cognitive features, what anthropologists call «magical thinking», social and cultural factors. Not all groups and cultures are equally fearful or worried, and not about the same risks.
This article examines the spiritual and moral significance of foodways to a growing movement of ecologically minded Roman Catholic women religious (green sisters) in North America. The author contends that, despite their exclusion from official positions of leadership within the hierarchical church, green sisters demonstrate their efficacy as active producers and shapers of religious culture at the grassroots level. Drawing ‘ingredients’ from cultural movements in American environmentalism, feminism, and social reform, adding to these heritage elements from Catholic vowed religious life as well as elements from their own creative theological imaginations, these women are devising recipes for a more ecologically and spiritually nourishing religious culture. Ultimately, green sisters’ decisions about appropriate food choice, the rituals of food preparation, and the rituals of honoring and consuming food bring the sacred vows of religious life into a new context—one in which mindful cooking and eating become indispensably part of a daily ecologically sustainable spiritual practice. This practice is premised on a vision of the human as not separate from but fundamentally a part of the larger life community.
E : CRI : R : CA : Th, Repr. de 2004 à Bossey: 189.2 KEL 2004 (il y a aussi, sous la c 189.2 KEL, un autre reprint de la même éd.: 5th rev. ed. [reprinted], London : Adam and Charles Black, 1980). A FR BCU: 5th, revised ed, London : A. & C. Black, 1980., S'il y a un numéro ci-après, c'est le champ Number, i.e. le vol. de la série (livres) ou le fasc. (revues): Kelly, John Norman Davidson
Includes index.; At foot of title page: The right of Translation is reserved.; Advertisements on p. [1]-32 (3rd group); Freeman, R.B. Darwin, 112, variant b.; Electronic reproduction Canberra, A.C.T. : National Library of Australia, 2009.; One of the earliest known surviving copies of the first ed. to arrive in Australia.; The first edition of Origin was published on November 24, 1859. This copy is believed to have arrived in Australia by March 10, 1860.; Inscriptions on front end paper: "Parramatta N.S.W. William Woolls, March 17/60, H.S. Mort, 2/10/00. 1250 copies printed with the misprint "species" on page 20. 2 sets of last half on Murray's General list of works, pp 17-32 bear story on page 184". This copy has been extensively annotated by Woolls. Some of the annotations are faded and rubbed.; Includes book plate of previous owners, H.S. Mort and Robert L. Usinger.; Condition: Some foxing to text, a good copy in original publisher's blindstamped green cloth, spine lettered and decorated in gilt, binder's ticket of Edmonds & Remnants on rear paste-down, minor repairs to joints, a little worn. The binding is in Freeman's variant b. In this copy there is an unrecorded anomaly in Murray's advertisements at the end.The 'c' gathering has been duplicated in error replacing the 'b' gathering, so that the pagination of the advertisements runs 17-32 ;17-32. On the origin of species Preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life
On the Incarnation: De Treatise Incarnatione Verbi Dei, new revised edn. (trans. Penelope Lawson)
- Athanasius
Athanasius. 1996. On the Incarnation: De Treatise Incarnatione Verbi Dei, new revised edn.
(trans. Penelope Lawson). Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary.
A Study in Magic and Religion. Originally published as Th e Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion, 2 vols
- Th E Golden
- Bough
Th e Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. Originally
published as Th e Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion, 2 vols. New York &
London: MacMillan & Company, 1894; new abridgement from the 2nd and 3rd edns.,
Robert Fraser (intro. and ed.). Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Models of the Eucharist
- Kevin Irwin
Irwin, Kevin. 2005. Models of the Eucharist. New York: Paulist.
Metaphorical Th eology: Models of God in Religious Language
- Sallie Mcfague
McFague, Sallie. 1982. Metaphorical Th eology: Models of God in Religious Language. Philadelphia: Fortress.
- Gregory Palamas
Palamas, Gregory. 1983. Th e Triads Classics of Western Spirituality (ed. John Meyendorff,
trans. Nicholas Gendle). New York: Paulist.