With the somewhat playful opening question, “Are Gaia and God on speaking terms with each other?”, Ruether sets out to provide an ecofeminist critique of the Western culture of domination. Her belief is that a truly just and wholesome society is “possible only through recognition and transformation of the way in which Western culture, enshrined in part in Christianity, has justified such domination” (pg 1). The structure of the book follows this pattern of recognition as the doorway to transformation, organized into four major sections: Creation, Destruction, Domination and Deceit, and Healing.
“Creation” opens by weaving together three classical creation stories which Ruether views as formative in Christian consciousness: the Babylonian epic Enuma Elish, the Genesis account from Hebrew scripture, and Plato's Timaeus. Though she ably points out differences in the stories, she is aiming at generalized themes of duality, which include division, hierarchy, escape, enslavement, and exclusion. Her explanation of the later Christian synthesis of these stories highlights the profound ambiguity that emerges: on the one hand, the Fall comes to signify human guilt for the utter corruption of all nature, and, on the other hand, animal and plant life have no soul or ultimate meaning, and can therefore be exploited without consideration. The second chapter in the “Creation” unit is a concise and refreshing summary of the major elements in the “creation accounts” that have emerged through science, beginning with the revelations of Copernicus. Ruether effectively describes the threat that discoveries posed to rigid Church patriarchy, while also noting the failure of scientific reductionism to provide lasting satisfaction for the deepest longings of the human spirit. This observation serves as a springboard for a facile and compelling presentation of what today is often called The Universe Story - a mytho-poetic style that reintegrates wonder, reverence, and love into the scientific mode of knowing.
“Destruction” begins with the piercing question, “Why have narratives of world destruction played such a large part in religious consciousness?” (pg 61). After treating the obvious (the physical perils of ancient life), she moves into a discussion of divine punishment and apocalypticism, with the attendant categories of the righteous and the wicked. After noting how historically prone English and American Protestants have been to apocalyptic thinking, Ruether raises two fascinating points: “good and evil need to be seen as different kinds of relationships, rather than different kinds of beings” (pg 82); and the fantasy of escaping death through rapture reinforces the inferior and corrupt life that we currently occupy. The latter chapter in the “Destruction” unit lays plain the “four horsemen of destruction” - human population explosion, environmental toxicity, the misery of the poor, and global militarization.
The next unit, “Domination and Deceit”, focuses on “the three traditions of naming evil that have shaped the Western cultural tradition” - the Hebrew perspective, the Platonic-Gnostic view, and the Pauline-Augustinian view. Revisited in greater depth here are themes of purity and pollution, human sexuality, menstruation and childbirth, mortality, and matter and spirit - all of which historically contributed to a divided self that finds ultimate satisfaction shedding this mortal and corrupting body. Included in this section are Pelagius' heretical challenges to this view, and a discussion of the scapegoating of women for both sin and death. The next chapter (“Paradise Lost”) is a powerful survey of contemporary anthropology and the matricentric cultures that apparently flourished before the extinguishing rise of patriarchy, and the unit's final chapter (“Constructing Systems of Domination”) discusses the history of women in detail, including powerful critiques of witch-hunting and colonialism. A fascinating presentation of the three mythic patterns that underlie systems of dominance is amongst the book's finest contributions.
The concluding unit, “Healing”, is Ruether's response to the damage patriarchy has wrought. She anchors her ideas in explicitly religious concepts (sabbath, sacrament, covenant), as well as environmental ethics, and suggestions for reforms in land use, transportation, food production, parenting, and militarism. She concludes with a timeless ecological spirituality that is as relevant today as the day it was penned.
Ruether's book would be a welcome addition at the late high school or college level. Its intellectual rigor will require a degree of historical awareness in readers. There is a great deal of useful vocabulary to unpack, especially for those new to ecofeminism (but this is half the fun). Since the four units have an integrity of their own, the text also lends itself to use in parts. The chapter on science, for instance, could be a freestanding introduction to both historical scientific developments and emerging cosmologies. Given the strength with which she presents information, the contemporary need to intelligently critique debilitating social structures, and the inclusion of plan of action, Ruether's book is a landmark in theology.
Review © 2004 by Eric Mayer and RSiSS
Westtown School