{"id":18886,"date":"2020-05-21T09:38:04","date_gmt":"2020-05-21T13:38:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18886"},"modified":"2020-05-21T09:38:04","modified_gmt":"2020-05-21T13:38:04","slug":"loving-god-by-loving-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18886","title":{"rendered":"Loving God by Loving the World"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Franciscan Ecological Wisdom<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Loving\nGod by Loving the World<\/strong><br>\nThursday, \u202fMay 21, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/p-T6aaRV9HY\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p><em>I have often wondered what might\ncompel more Christians to take personal responsibility to mitigate climate\nchange. With all the scientific evidence we\u2019ve been given, it doesn\u2019t seem to\nbe a head issue but a heart one. Scholar Sallie McFague (1933\u20132019) offers both\ntheological and ethical reasons for us to make some much needed changes at an\nindividual level. She writes:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As St. Augustine [354\u2013430] puts it, sin is \u201cbeing curved\nin upon oneself\u201d [1] rather than being open to God. In our ecological age, we\nnow see that being open to God means being open to the other creatures upon\nwhom we depend and who depend upon us. We do not meet God only in Jesus of\nNazareth, because God is also incarnate <em>in\nour world <\/em>as the universal Christ. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To love God by loving God\u2019s world has meant different\nthings to different people in different times. For us . . . it is epitomized by\nclimate change . . . the central crisis of the twenty-first century. Put\nsimply, climate change is the result of too many human beings using too much\nenergy and taking up too much space on the planet. Through excessive energy use\nand its accompanying greenhouse-gas emissions, we are changing the planet\u2019s\nclimate in ways that will make it uninhabitable for ourselves and many other\nspecies. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is a strange \u201ccrisis\u201d to face: It does not have the\nimmediacy of a war or plague or tsunami. Rather, it has to do with <em>how we live<\/em> on a daily\nbasis\u2014the food we eat, the transportation we use . . . the luxuries . . . [and]\nlong-distance air travel we permit ourselves. We are not being called to . . .\nfight an enemy; rather, the enemy is the very ordinary life we ourselves are\nleading. . . . Yet, for all its presumed innocence, this way of life lived by\nwell-off North Americans [<em>and\nprosperous people in other countries <\/em>\u2014<em>RR<\/em>] is both unjust to those who cannot attain\nthis lifestyle and destructive of the very planet that supports us all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What, then, would be [an appropriate] ethic for\ntwenty-first-century people and especially for well-off, religious people? One\nof the distinguishing characteristics of many . . . religions is some form of\nself-emptying. Often it takes the form of ego-lessness, the attempt to open the\nself so that God can enter. . . . In the Christian tradition, <em>kenosis<\/em> or self-emptying is\nseen as constitutive of God\u2019s being in creation, the incarnation, and the\ncross. In creation, God limits the divine self, pulling in, so to speak, to\nallow space for others to exist. . . . In the incarnation, as Paul writes in\nPhilippians 2:7, God \u201cemptied the divine self, taking the form of a slave,\u201d and\nin the cross God gives of the divine self without limit. Likewise, one\nunderstanding of Christian discipleship is [as] a \u201ccruciform\u201d life, imitating\nthe self-giving of Christ for others. . . .\n\nCould\nwe live and move and have our being in the universal Christ, participating in\nthe insight and power of God incarnate in the world as we deal with . . .\n&nbsp;the basics of existence\u2014space and energy\u2014so we can live in radical\ninterdependence with all other creatures? We are not alone as we face this\nchallenge\u2014the universal Christ is in, with, and for the world as we struggle to\ndeal with climate change\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Franciscan Ecological Wisdom Loving God by Loving the World Thursday, \u202fMay 21, 2020 I have often wondered what might compel more Christians to take personal responsibility to mitigate climate change. With all the scientific evidence we\u2019ve been given, it doesn\u2019t seem to be a head issue but a heart one. Scholar Sallie McFague (1933\u20132019) offers [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18886"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18886"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18887,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18886\/revisions\/18887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}