Inspiring women for the earth

Sallie McFague, Climate Crisis Prophet and the Boston Consulting Group may not appear to have much in common at first glance.

When we add the concern of Pope Francis for the care of the world, as expressed in Laudato Si, there may be some common connections that can be a structure for making progress with the goals of all three.

In the absence of unified, global action on climate change, companies, governments and investors need to wake up to the likelihood of a hotter planet, and factor that into assumptions about the future. https://t.co/TPugtLWhT5 pic.twitter.com/QcaT7Yvx2r

— BostonConsultingGrp (@BCG) January 5, 2018

 In a report by Philip Pullella and Sarah Marsh for Reuters, Pope Francis calls for a new economic order and criticises capitalism.

Pope calls for new economic order, criticises capitalism https://t.co/QvtWW2NoLo via @canberratimes

— Dave Macpherson (@davmacit) January 5, 2018

 "Let us not be afraid to say it: we want change, real change, structural change," the Pope said, decrying a system that "has imposed the mentality of profit at any price, with no concern for social exclusion or the destruction of nature".
"This system is by now intolerable: farm workers find it intolerable, labourers find it intolerable, communities find it intolerable, peoples find it intolerable. The earth itself - our sister, Mother Earth, as Saint Francis would say - also finds it intolerable," he said in an hour-long speech that was interrupted by applause and cheering dozens of times.

  Leah D. Schade explores the work of Sallie Mc Fague on the models we use to try and understand our responsibilities for our home, the earth.

In her book The Body of God, McFague dedicates her efforts to exploring the thought experiment of the body as a model for an ecological theology.  She is quick to point out that this model is not based on the human body, lest it inadvertently reinforce the patriarchal assumption that the head has a privileged position over the rest of the body, which would reinstate yet another problematic hierarchy. Instead, she is envisioning this body to be that of Earth itself and inclusive of all other “bodies”: mountains, oceans, forests, insects, birds, and humans, to name a few. More importantly, she argues that Earth is God’s chosen embodiment, which has ethical implications for how humans relate to Earth itself and how it is treated.
For example, a recent study on the state of the planet’s oceans by the Georgia Institute of Technology reveals that rapid warming due to climate change is leading to deoxygenation.

In her book The Body of God, McFague dedicates her efforts to exploring the thought experiment of the body as a model for an ecological theology. This theology integrates the human experience of life on the planet into the science of climate change and the economics of a resource based system of production and distribution.

References

(n.d.). Preaching the Body of God: Exploring the Work of Sallie McFague for .... Retrieved January 5, 2018, from https://theotherjournal.com/2017/11/06/preaching-body-god-exploring-work-sallie-mcfague-homiletics-creation-care/