Redeeming the Time: A Political Theology of the Environment - Hardcover

Scharper, Stephen B.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0826409350 ISBN 13: 9780826409355

Publisher: Continuum Intl Pub Group, 1997

Synopsis

A powerful challenge to current religious responses to the ecological crisis, this book discusses the principal answers. It assesses the new cosmology, ecofeminism, process thought, Gaia theory, and liberation theology. Each of these recognizes the role of the human in the present environmental crisis. But each of these also approaches the "human problematic" in incomplete or inadequate ways. Thus, this book is both an examination of the state of the question, and a constructive effort at building bridges among the various current paradigms and remedying, or redeeming, their inadequacies.

About this title

About the Author

Stephen Bede Scharper is co-author, with his wife Hillary Cunningham, of The Green Bible.

Review

"Prior to 1970, the Christian community was almost silent with regard to human abuse of the nonhuman world. Since then, there has been an explosion of theological work addressing this question. Scharper provides the most comprehensive guide available to this response. His work is readable and fair-minded."
—John B. Cobb

"Stephen Bede Scharper has added a significant new book to the growing collection of Christian ecotheological offerings....an admirable job of summarizing the main strands of Christian environmental theologies and highlighting the most valuable contributions of each....heartfelt...There is much to celebrate in this book!...presents a comprehensible and accessible guide to the major varieties of what Scharper calls 'Christian ecological theology.'...In this book he succeeds not just in coherently summarizing a number of the most important voices in ecotheology, but also in giving us a blueprint for the changed consciousness necessary to motivate a conversion from our destructive earth-damaging behavior to a more earth-friendly way of living." (Worldviews:Global Religions, Culture And Ecology)

"Does an admirable job of summarizing the main strands of Christian environmental theologies and highlighting the most valuable contributions of each. There is much to celebrate in this book! Scharper, like all of the best contributors to the conversation on religion and ecology, is motivated by a passionate concern for the "groaning" of creation; no less obvious is his urgent desire to include the downtrodden humans of the earth in his analysis. In this book he suceeds, not just in coherently summarizing a number of the most important voices in ecotheology, but also in giving us a blueprint for the changed consciousness necessary to motivate a conversion from our destructive earth-damaging behavior to a more earth-friendly way of living." (Barbara Darling-Smith Worldviews:Global Religions, Culture And Ecology)

"This is an excellent presentation of a liberation theology of the environment with a thorough assessment of its social and economic implications. Such a book has long been needed."
—Thomas Berry

"A thoughtful and interesting contribution of environmental theology literature."
—Choice

"A valuable survey of current Christian envrionmental thinking."
—Publishers Weekly

"Reedeming the Time is an important overview of the major expressions of ecological theology today, with an emphasis on the dynamic interrelationships of ecological and liberation theologies."
—Rosemary Radford Ruether

"Does an admirable job of summarizing the main strands of Christian environmental theologies and highlighting the most valuable contributions of each. There is much to celebrate in this book! Scharper, like all of the best contributors to the conversation on religion and ecology, is motivated by a passionate concern for the "groaning" of creation; no less obvious is his urgent desire to include the downtrodden humans of the earth in his analysis. In this book he suceeds, not just in coherently summarizing a number of the most important voices in ecotheology, but also in giving us a blueprint for the changed consciousness necessary to motivate a conversion from our destructive earth-damaging behavior to a more earth-friendly way of living." (Sanford Lakoff Worldviews:Global Religions, Culture And Ecology)

Edition details

• Publisher: Continuum Intl Pub Group
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0826409350
• ISBN 13: 9780826409355
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240