Gaia and God: As Global Warming News Ramps Up

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday March 08, 2015 · 12:09 PM PDT

2015/03/08 · 12:09

I've spent the weekend feeling fairly depressed, much of which I think is a reaction to recent news about how imminent a real global warming catastrophe is, about the fact that for Brazil, it's already here. I think of my students, the future I am hoping to help them create, and everything that's coalescing to deny them that future.

Of course, depression is not going to do anything to stop this. And I think back to the wisdom of one of my teachers:

What we need is neither optimism nor pessimism ... but committed love. This means we remain committed to a vision and to concrete communities of life no matter what the "trends" may be. Whether we are immediately "winning" or "losing" cannot shake our rooted understandings of what biophilic life is and should be.

These words come from Gaia and God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing, by Rosemary Radford Ruether. Published in 1992, her argument followed the World Conference on Environment and Development in expecting that the trends of modern society give us until about 2030 to make major changes in how we live before a series of disasters forces changes on us.. In the meantime, the news from climate scientists has only grown more alarming. I reviewed this book some years back, but it's still pertinent. More on the flip.
Read More

Poll

97 votes Show Results

The world is in crisis, but polls are fun.

97 votes Vote Now!

The world is in crisis, but polls are fun.

Science is everything. Go away.

19 votes

We should find more ways to dialogue and find solutions.

34 votes

No getting out alive.

44 votes

Muslim Women in National Legislatures

dirkster42

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday December 15, 2014 · 9:43 AM PST

2014/12/15 · 09:43

One of the classic strategies of Western colonialism is "white men protecting brown women from brown men," in the words of post-colonial theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. (Handy discussion on PDF.) This strategy also is a staple of Islamophobic discourse.

One salient fact that flies in the face of the idea that Islam is a one-way ticket to women's oppression is that several Muslim majority countries have higher levels of female representation in national legislatures than the United States does.

The Interparliamentary Union has compiled the data.

Let's take a closer look on the flip.

dirkster42

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday December 09, 2014 · 9:52 AM PST

2014/12/09 · 09:52

"Relational theology" is a line of thought in contemporary theology. It has gone in a direction I am not very happy with. Steering the conversation back to one of its original voices, Carter Heyward, is one little thing I can do to resist things going in a wrong direction. I've published this diary in the past, but new people on the site might get something out of it.

Heyward was one of a group of eleven women who broke the barrier to women’s ordination to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church in 1974. Rather than wait for the church to “be ready” for women priests, these eleven women and three bishops proceeded with an “irregular” ordination that forced the issue. Heyward continued to take radical stands in the Episcopal Church, coming out as a lesbian in 1979. If you are going to read one, and only one, book of hers, I would recommend the collection of essays, Our Passion for Justice: Images of Power, Sexuality, and Liberation.

dirkster42

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday April 07, 2013 · 5:00 PM PDT

2013/04/07 · 17:00

Centering: Meredith Monk, Gotham Lullaby

Welcome to Brothers and Sisters, the weekly meetup for prayer* and community at Daily Kos. We put an asterisk on pray* to acknowledge that not everyone uses conventional religious language, but may want to share joys and concerns, or simply take solace in a meditative atmosphere. Anyone who comes in the spirit of mutual respect, warmth and healing is welcome.

dirkster42

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday December 19, 2012 · 8:59 AM PST

2012/12/19 · 08:59

I have been meaning to write a diary on Beverly Wildung Harrison's breathtaking - and inexcusably out-of-print - book Our Right to Choose: Toward a New Ethic of Abortion for some time now. I just learned that Harrison died on December 15.

Harrison was a Presbyterian feminist ethicist, who taught at Union Theologial Seminary for many years. Along with her life partner, Carter Heyward, Harrison forged a distinctly relational understanding of religious ethics. Harrison learned much of her relational approach from the works of the Reformed theologian H. Richard Niebuhr, on whom she wrote her dissertation. Harrison moved into more radical directions - embracing a socialist feminism as a necessary starting point for any adequate ethics - but always maintained a dialogue with her liberal Protestant roots. Her collection of essays Making the Connections: Essays in Feminist Social Ethics (also out of print), should be required reading for those who want to pursue a progressive political and ethical vision.

I do not have time this morning to lay out the details of her thought, but some links are here:
Mourning the Loss of Beverly Wildung Harrison
"God Bless the Revolution"

Sisters and Brothers: Invitation to Wisdom

dirkster42

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday December 02, 2012 · 5:00 PM PST

2012/12/02 · 17:00

Welcome to Brothers and Sisters, the weekly meetup for prayer* and community at Daily Kos. We put an asterisk on pray* to acknowledge that not everyone uses conventional religious language, but may want to share joys and concerns, or simply take solace in a meditative atmosphere. Anyone who comes in the spirit of mutual respect, warmth and healing is welcome.

dirkster42

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday November 30, 2012 · 10:43 AM PST

2012/11/30 · 10:43

Today is the release date of Voices of Feminist Liberation: Writings in Celebration of Rosemary Radford Ruether, which I co-edited with Emily Silverman and Whitney Bauman. It was very much a labor of love. It was released at a price meant for institutional buyers, so if you could ask your library to order a copy, I would be eternally grateful.

I've written previously about Ruether in my first diary in The Religious Left series, in a book review of her book of ecological theology and ethics Gaia and God, and for the My Favorite Authors/Books series. Cassiodorus reviewed her book America, Amerikkka: Elect Nation and Imperial Violence. A little overview of the contents of the book in her honor on the flip.

dirkster42

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday October 31, 2012 · 7:07 PM PDT

2012/10/31 · 19:07

Several months back, I tried to bash the historical reality of a pervasive theological affirmation of evolutionary theory into the oversimplified narrative of religion against science. I've seen little evidence that my efforts did much to change the discussion. Today, I came across another example that reminded me that this history can't be repeated enough - and maybe it's not a bad idea to reflect just a tiny bit on WHY this constellation of historical data doesn't make into the overall picture of the science/religion dialogue as generally seen in 2012.

The journey continues past the sqiggle.

dirkster42

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday September 16, 2012 · 5:00 PM PDT

2012/09/16 · 17:00

Welcome to Brothers and Sisters, the weekly meetup for prayer* and community at Daily Kos. We put an asterisk on pray* to acknowledge that not everyone uses conventional religious language, but may want to share joys and concerns, or simply take solace in a meditative atmosphere. Anyone who comes in the spirit of mutual respect, warmth and healing is welcome.

dirkster42

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday August 23, 2012 · 9:38 AM PDT

2012/08/23 · 09:38

In 2010, I earned a Ph.D. in theology. Within a year, I was on food stamps. I'm not alone. According to the latest records, there are 33, 655 people in my position.

In my case, the issue has been one of trying to break into a teaching profession. I recently signed up for a sequence of classes in professional editing because I'm not seeing it as a wise move to keep putting off work that actually pays to do the things I need to do to get a teaching job (I've been doing informal editing work to keep a roof over my head, which I'm now supplementing with petsitting - in the meantime, I have a few research projects to finish up). I've applied to private high schools and community colleges, everywhere the door is shut.

But, let's say I get that teaching position. The likelihood is that my financial situation would not change....

dirkster42

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday August 08, 2012 · 8:35 AM PDT

2012/08/08 · 08:35

A couple of years ago, I defended a dissertation in theology, and am struggling to establish a career as a professional theologian. I am also an openly gay man. Of course, many queer folk have vexed or even horrific experiences with religion. And there’s no denying that the strongest voices in the pushback against our full participation in society are religiously motivated. So, why in the world would someone gay bother with religion, much less choose to become a professional theologian? Join me on the flip.

This diary is a reprint of a 2008 contribution to the WGLB TV series, a LGBT (predominantly "G") community forum back in the day. I figure enough new people have joined since then to make it worth reposting.

dirkster42

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday July 27, 2012 · 3:08 PM PDT

2012/07/27 · 15:08

According to the NYT: Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos pledges $2.5 million for gay marriage in Washington State.

Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon.com, and his wife, MacKenzie, have agreed to donate $2.5 million to help pass a same-sex marriage referendum in Washington State, instantly becoming among the largest financial backers of gay marriage rights in the country.
With the gift, the couple have doubled the money available to the proponents of Referendum 74, which would legalize same-sex marriage in the state by affirming a law that passed the Legislature this year. Courts or lawmakers have declared gay marriage legal in six other states, but backers of such measures have never succeeded at the ballot box.

Come on over the jump, for why this gay man doesn't want it. Read More

Newer
Older

RSS

Gaia and God: As Global Warming News Ramps Up

Muslim Women in National Legislatures

Carter Heyward: Lesbian Relational Theologian

Sisters and Brothers: Prayers for the Evening

RIP Beverly Wildung Harrison

Sisters and Brothers: Invitation to Wisdom

Look, Everyone! I published a book!

MORE prominent Christians COOL with Evolution (and a little on why we don't hear about them)

Sisters and Brothers

Ph.D. to Food Stamps

So, how did a nice gay boy like you become a theologian?

Dear Mr. Bezos: Pay Your Workers Before You Support Me