The Sacred Universe: Earth, Spirituality, and Religion in the 21st Century
Edited and with a foreword by Mary Evelyn Tucker
Forthcoming from Columbia University Press, September 2009
This series of essays represents a powerful commentary on some of the key issues facing religions in the 21st century. Ranging from the enduring problem of human alienation to future forms of religious experience the book covers a wide spectrum of religious issues.
Thomas Berry, a leading scholar of the world’s religions, reveals his immense erudition and sympathetic spirit. Composed over some four decades, the essays illustrate Berry’s early understanding of the need for interreligious dialogue and the study of other religions.
In addition, Berry’s prophetic insight regarding the rampant destruction of Earth’s ecosystems and extinction of species is evident. These essays illustrate his passionate concern for the fate of Earth and of future generations. They are a timely and urgent call for the world’s religions to respond to this growing ecological crisis.
His special insight into the need for a new story of universe and Earth emergence is one of his unique contributions to situating the role of the human in the 21st century.
Christian Future and the Fate of Earth
Edited by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim
Forthcoming from Orbis Books, September 2009
Thomas Berry, a prophetic voice on the environmental crisis for many years, calls on Christians to respond to this global crisis with utmost urgency and with a unified sense of the sacred community of life. These essays represent the most comprehensive reflections of Thomas Berry on the role of Christianity in our times. Berry challenges Christians to respond to the growing environmental crisis. He asks boldly why Christians have not been more consistently concerned about the destruction of ecosystems, the loss of species, and the fate of future generations. In powerful and poetic language he presents a compelling vision of the sacredness of the universe and the interrelatedness of the Earth community. Drawing on Thomas Aquinas and Teilhard de Chardin he brings the Christian tradition into a cosmology of care for the whole of creation. There is no other Christian thinker who, over so many years, has raised such a prophetic voice regarding Earth’s destruction and the urgent need for human response. These essays are Berry’s signature statement on the interconnectedness of both Earth’s future and the Christian future. Berry calls for both Christian theology and liturgy to open up for reflection on this issue. He makes important correlations between some of his key ecological insights and Christian doctrine, such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, and Christology. He observes that some ecological movements are emerging within Christian communities, especially among religious women. The epilogue is his signature statement on the comprehensive new role of the human in responding to the environmental challenge.
Evening Thoughts: Reflecting on Earth as Sacred Community
Edited by Mary Evelyn Tucker
Published by: Sierra Club with The University of California Press
Among the contemporary voices for the Earth, none resonates like that of noted cultural historian Thomas Berry. His teaching and writings have inspired a generation's thinking about humankind's place in the Earth community and the universe, engendering widespread critical acclaim and a documentary film on his life and work. This new collection of essays, from various years and occasions, expands and deepens ideas articulated in his earlier writings and also breaks new ground. Berry opens our eyes to the full dimensions of the ecological crisis, framing it as a crisis of spiritual vision. Applying his formidable erudition in cultural history, science, and comparative religions, he forges a compelling narrative of creation and communion that reconciles modern evolutionary thinking and traditional religious insights concerning our integral role in Earth's society. While sounding an urgent alarm at our current dilemma, Berry inspires us to reclaim our role as the consciousness of the universe and thereby begin to create a true partnership with the Earth community. With Evening Thoughts, this wise elder has lit another beacon to lead us home.
- ISBN: 1578051304
- To Order: 1-800-777-4726
Dream of the Earth
Published by: Sierra Club with The University of California Press
This landmark work, first published by Sierra Club Books in 1988, has established itself as a foundational volume in the ecological canon. In it, noted cultural historian Thomas Berry provides nothing less than a new intellectual-ethical framework for the human community by positing planetary well-being as the measure of all human activity. Drawing on the wisdom of Western philosophy, Asian thought, and Native American traditions, as well as contemporary physics and evolutionary biology, Berry offers a new perspective that recasts our understanding of science, technology, politics, religion, ecology, and education. He shows us why it is important for us to respond to the Earth's need for planetary renewal, and what we must do to break free of the "technological trance" that drives a misguided dream of progress. Only then, he suggests, can we foster mutually enhancing human-Earth relationships that can heal our traumatized global biosystem.
- ISBN: 1578051355
- To Order: 1-800-777-4726
The Great Work
Published by: Harmony/Bell Tower; November 2000
The future can exist only if humans understand how to commune with the natural world rather than exploit it, explains Thomas Berry. "Already the planet is so damaged and the future is so challenged by its rising human population that the terms of survival will be severe beyond anything we have known in the past."
- ISBN: 0609804995
- Buy it from: Amazon
The Universe Story (with Brian Swimme)
Published by: HarperSanFrancisco; March 1994
Physicist Brian Swimme together with Thomas Berry fashion a new cosmology from the "Primordial Flaring Forth" at the beginning of time through the successive stages of the universe culminating with the emergence of consciousness.
- ISBN: 0062508350
- Buy it from: Amazon
