A New Climate for Christology: Kenosis, Climate Change, and Befriending Nature

By Sallie McFague

For decades, Sallie McFague lent her voice and her theological imagination to addressing and advocating for the most important issues of our time. In doing so, she influenced an entire generation and empowered countless people in their efforts to put religion in the service of meeting human needs in difficult times.

In this final book, finished in the year before her death in 2019, McFague summarizes the work of a lifetime with a clear call to live in "such a way that all might flourish." The way, she argues, is the "kenotic interpretation of Christianity: the odd arrangement whereby in order to gain your life, you must lose it. The way of the cross is total self-emptying so that one can receive life, real life, and then pass this life on."

A masterful and life-giving summing-up of a theology that makes a profound difference for us, our communities, and our planet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Release date: Nov 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781506478746

Book preview

Cover Page for A New Climate for Christology

Praise for A New Climate for Christology

The late Sallie McFague left us with yet one more amazing gift. In her usual inimitable, clear, and compelling prose, McFague offers Christians a response to the existential threat that climate change poses to our planet and all of its inhabitants. Science and theology share a common story, she demonstrates: that all of creation is relational and interdependent—in life and death. Dying gives rise to new life—at every level—and embodies the self-emptying love of the Trinitarian God. May we follow her exhortation to embrace our place in the cycle of life and love so that this vibrant world may flourish.

—Ellen T. Armour, associate dean of academic affairs; E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Associate Professor of Feminist Theology; director, Carpenter Program in Religion, Gender, and Sexuality, Vanderbilt Divinity School

"Sallie McFague—¡Presente! While she may no longer be with us, her words and her wisdom continue to challenge us in this posthumous book. Moving beyond the misused story of sinners before an angry God, McFague invites us to a relational dance with creation and divinity as the means of finding salvation not just for humanity, but also for our planet. Failure to live into this kenosis calling condemns us and the earth we occupy. The insightful challenge McFague gives in A New Climate for Christology demands our full consideration."

—Miguel De La Torre, professor of social ethics and Latinx studies, Iliff School of Theology

A breathtaking—and breath-giving—regeneration of the ancient symbol of kenosis as a rigorously ecological practice. In concert with postmodern relationalism and natural science, the troubling teaching of sacrificial love converges with the life-and-death cycle of evolution. A great parting gift to Christians confronting the current climate turning point.

—Catherine Keller, George T. Cobb Professor of Constructive Theology, Drew Theological School

"Sallie McFague’s last gift to theological discourse should spur Christians to think realistically about our relatedness to other species and systems of Earth and to act responsibly to mitigate the climate crisis. Culminating her impressive metaphorical efforts to replace the individualistic, anthropocentric, and power-controlling view of our species that has dominated some Protestant theologies, she proffers a poignant alternative—kenotic self-sacrifice. When sacrificing our desires so other people and species can secure their needs for survival, we become ‘truly adults’ who seriously consider the imperiled condition of Earth, love other creatures as friends, and participate in the life of God who is the ultimate loving friend of all.

"Not to be missed in A New Climate for Christology are McFague’s poignant interpretation of the doctrine of the Incarnation to include the entirety of creation and her turn from the Cartesian ‘I think; therefore, I am’ to ‘I relate; therefore, I am.’ Her message resonates with Pope Francis, who has been underscoring the interconnection of all creatures, the need for conversion from self-centered attitudes to acceptance of ecological responsibility, and the imperative to act locally to facilitate the flourishing of our common home."

—Jame Schaefer, professor of systematic theology and ethics, Marquette University

A New Climate for Christology

A New Climate for Christology

Kenosis, Climate Change, and Befriending Nature

Sallie McFague

Fortress Press

Minneapolis

A NEW CLIMATE FOR CHRISTOLOGY

Kenosis, Climate Change, and Befriending Nature

Copyright © 2021 Fortress Press, an imprint of 1517 Media. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Email [e-mail] or write to Permissions, Fortress Press, PO Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440-1209.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked (KJV) are from the King James Version.

Cover image: iStock 2021: Idyllic forest glade mossy woodland by fotoVoyager

Cover design: Joe Reinke

Print ISBN: 978-1-5064-7873-9

eBook ISBN: 978-1-5064-7874-6

While the author and 1517 Media have confirmed that all references to website addresses (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing, URLs may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

Contents

Publisher’s Note

Prologue: Jesus Christ and Climate Change

Introduction: Kenosis, Christ, and Climate Change

1. The Kenotic Stories of Jesus and God

2. Postmodern Insights for Climate Change

3. Divine and Human Relational Ontology

4. God as Friend and We as Friends of the World

5. Christian Theology in View of Kenosis, Theosis, and Postmodernism

Afterword: A Reflection on Kenosis and Christianity

Notes

Index

Publisher’s Note

Over the course of more than forty years, Sallie McFague published eight major volumes with Fortress Press, building in that time a rich legacy of thought that has challenged and changed generations of readers. Thus it is a special privilege to bring to the public A New Climate for Christology, the final manuscript Sallie completed before her death.

We are grateful for the support that Sallie’s family gave to this project and to Ashley John Moyse for his assistance.

Prologue

Jesus Christ and Climate Change

Our planet is certainly at one of its crucial turning points. Unless we wake up, spurn denial, and ready ourselves for serious kenotic (sacrificial) action, life on our planet will deteriorate at both human and other life-form levels. Human action is determined in part by the picture, the story, of our lives. Where we fit into the scheme of things is important because our actions are influenced by our beliefs. As Annie Dillard says, We wake up, if we wake at all, to mystery, rumors of death, beauty, violence. . . . ‘Seem like we’re just down here,’ a woman said to me recently, ‘and don’t nobody know why.’¹

The answer to the question of why we are here makes all the difference in how we live on planet earth. For several hundred years now, Western human beings have explained that mystery with a story in which we are at the top of the planetary scale, where the purpose of all other life-forms is to service and benefit us. It is a utilitarian, hierarchical worldview in which we are the only subjects and everything and everybody else is an object for our use. This picture has resulted in a lonely, dead world as our home and a deteriorating, lifeless world as everyone else’s home. Moreover, the future looks grim for everyone—human beings and the billions of creatures who serve us. This worldview as evident in one of its results—rampant, unregulated capitalism—has been tried, and it has failed.

We need a new story about who we are in the scheme of things. Such stories are the work of the world’s religions, and Christianity, especially kenotic Christianity, has an attractive, powerful story to offer. The present book is an attempt to sketch the main features of this candidate. Its principal feature—as is true of many religions—is a countercultural call to human beings to live for others as the only possible response in a world that is characterized by giving and receiving, symbiosis and sharing, reciprocal interdependence, life and death. What we see in evolution, a system of radical and total interdependence, is mirrored at all levels of planetary action, up to and including examples of self-sacrificial (kenotic) activity of some human beings that other life-forms may flourish. A grain of wheat does not fulfill its destiny until it dies in order to provide food for others. Self-sacrificial, altruistic action is in continuity with that grain of wheat, although at the human level, it must be a self-conscious decision as the way to live.

Hence what the religions have to offer are ways for human beings, the only self-conscious actors on the planet, to live in such a way that all might flourish. The picture of reality that the religions offer is not a spiritual, otherworldly one but a picture for living justly and fruitfully on this planet. Christianity underscores this perspective by its claim of incarnationalism—God present here and now. Hence most religions are not recommending ways to escape the pain of life on planet earth, but on the contrary, they are telling us that the only way to live well on this planet is by following its house rules: (1) take only your share, (2) clean up after yourself, (3) keep the house in good repair for future occupants. As obvious as these rules may sound, even fulfilling the first one implies something like the Golden Rule, which is a serious challenge for most of us.

However, Trinitarian Christianity and nature share a common characteristic—intrinsic relationality. At the quantum level, relationality is more basic than existence (substances): I relate; therefore I am. Trinitarianism says likewise: the activity of love among the persons of the Trinity means divine relationality is central. The evolutionary perspective is intrinsically protoaltruistic, displaying features such as give-and-take, sharing, symbiosis, and life and death. So at both the level of nature and the level of the essence of God (the Trinity), relationality is basic and central. It is impossible for an individual to exist alone. Hence our status is relational all the way down and up and in every way. Trinitarianism and nature are both radically relational.

Evolution claims that a grain of wheat does not nourish unless it dies, and the Trinity says that divine life (and love) is the dance of giving and receiving among the persons of the Trinity. All life and love (reality) is characterized by this pattern of neediness and giving/receiving; hence the fundamental posture of its self-conscious life-form (the human being) is one of daily radical gratitude. So faith is the willingness to lead a totally intradependent, receiving life from God and others, as well as passing that life along. In this paradigm, there is no stopping place where one owns or possesses oneself: the movement is a constant receiving life from others and passing it along. Hence what is practiced at the evolutionary level is a faint shadow of the only true life—a pattern of giving and receiving, but with the receiving more basic and coming first. We can give because we have received everything: our very life and all that we care about.

I want to think through the problem of how views of Christian salvation contribute to or hinder our crisis with climate change. Is there any relation between the way we think and the way we act? Especially I want to look at a kenotic interpretation of Christianity: the odd arrangement whereby in order to gain your life, you must lose it. The way of the cross is total self-emptying so that one can receive life, real life, and then pass this life on. Life is never to be possessed (the Christian understanding of sin). Most of creation abides by this rule through evolution—dying that new life might occur. It is a constant, continuous process of receiving and giving, in an unending circle of give-and-take. One sees it initially in the life and death cycles of evolution, and one sees it in the kenotic pattern of the Trinity: even God is this loving activity, not a being of any sort.