Theologizing the World: A Reflection on the Theology of Sallie McFague

Abstract

Books Discussed:McFague, Sallie. Literature and the Christian Life. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1966.. Speaking in Parables: A Study in Metaphor and Theology. Philadelphia, Pa.: Fortress Press, 1975.. Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language. Philadelphia, Pa.: Fortress Press, 1982.. Models of God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age. Philadelphia, Pa.: Fortress Press, 1987.. The Body of God: An Ecological Theology. Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1993.. Super, Natural Christians: How We Should Love Nature. Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1997.. Life Abundant: Rethinking Theology and Economy for a Planet in Peril. Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 2001.. A New Climate for Theology: God, the World, and Global Warming. Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 2008.. Blessed Are the Consumers: Climate Change and the Practice of Restraint. Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 2013.Unless you are educated in metaphor, you are not safe to be let loose in the world. (Robert Frost)In a career spanning four decades years and encompassing nine monographs, Sallie McFague has pursued a consistent set of theological questions and critical social issues, articulating strategies for linking the study of religious language to contemporary political threats ranging from nuclear annihilation (Models of God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age, 1987) to environmental degradation (A New Climate for Theology: God, the World, and Global Warming, 2008) to economic collapse (Blessed Are the Consumers: Climate Change and the Practice of Restraint, 2013). While other contemporary theologians have responded to these challenges by arguing for environmental ethics, McFague reaches her conclusion (kenotic theology) from a very different intellectual trajectory.1For thirty years McFague taught at the Vanderbilt Divinity School, where she served as Carpenter Professor of Theology. For the past fourteen years, she has been a Distinguished Theologian in Residence at Vancouver School of Theology. Few scholars remain professionally active in their ninth decade of life, but blessed are the readers who have such a companion and guide.Her most recent work, Blessed Are the Consumers (2013), addresses not just theologians but clergy and fellow citizens who seek to understand how faith communities can engage with a broken world in ways that respect the gravity of the problems and the urgency of religious and spiritual convictions. While politics, economics, and ethics are never far from her purview, she avoids specific programs of reform a la Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, political parties, or the work of church organizations and NGOs. Her chapter titles are beguiling invitations to dialogue and reflection (see chapter 1, 'But Enough about Me:' What Does Augustine's Confessions Have to Do with Facebook? and chapter 6, 'It's Not About You': Kenosis as a Way to Live).McFague has devoted her career to asking hard questions about what early Anglicans called the godly, righteous, and sober fife and what modem Americans just call living well. Throughout her oeuvre she turns to the parable of the Good Samaritan to meditate on our relationship to the planet-to all of the people and forms of life on earth. Who, indeed, is my neighbor?When we consider the development and range of her scholarship, we see a theologian whose theology is grounded in timeless issues (the nature of God, creation, humanity, sin, salvation) but adapted to timely contemporaiy themes. With a finely nuanced, reflective voice, and deep sensitivity to the role of language in shaping and reflecting our world, she situates current political and economic crises in their inescapably theological context. Global warming is a theological problem; so are hunger and poverty. To borrow the tide of a recent book (2008), she has helped to create a new climate for theology. …