New Cosmology
While McFague, ever the teacher, gives the reader a road map in her Introduction, the book is less overwhelming than Body of God and much more accessible to high school readers. For lovers of literature, the liberal sprinkling of quotations from poets and prose writers is delightful. Emily Dickinson, Annie Dillard, John Donne and Alice Walker are a few of the featured writers in this book. Their diversity, despite a clear preference for women writers, surprises and delights the reader. This is not just a book about religious language; it is a call to a return to an ancient model of paying attention to the particular. McFague's selection of favorite writers helps us to do this - and to delight in the process of rediscovery, savoring the moment, the flower, the sheer joy of observation we remember from our childhood.

This is not a classical text with only well known and acknowledged theologians. By featuring twentieth century writers such as Annie Dillard, Shara Butala and Sue Hubbell in her penultimate chapter on Geography vs Autobiography, McFague, a sociological challenger, pushes us to explore other models of what it is to see and write about nature - and what theology has to do with our observing and reflecting. While she says it at the end as summary, this belief permeates the entire book - from her outline, to her writing, to the very examples she chooses to highlight the way in which Christian are inherently "super, natural."

McFague is a systematic theologian. She guides the reader through Super, Natural Christians in her Introduction, including again as with Body of God, portions that can be skipped without missing her main themes. The same helpful pattern of guidance is used in each chapter with a useful summary at the end of each chapter.

Super, Natural Christians begins with a chapter suggesting how Christians should love nature by defining three central terms: "Christian, "nature," and "spirituality." What would a Christian nature spirituality be? The second chapter presents an overview of the entire book. Most of the themes are touched upon here. So, by this point, you know the direction and main points of this book. At this point, you decide whether you want to keep reading or stop. Needless to say, I kept reading!

In Chapter 3 a "successful" functional cosmology (McFague's opinion) is set forth - suggesting the subject-subjects model might also be the one for our time. I found this concept a most intriguing way to view the Middle Ages, a time I had understood in an almost exclusively hierarchical model. Chapter 4 presents the breakdown of this medieval synthesis and the rise of post-Enlightenment predominance of the "arrogant eye," knowledge of the world based on subject-object dualism. The role of the eye is perhaps the strongest image in this book.

In Chapter 5 McFague turns to the subject-subjects model as an alternative, based on the sense of touch, issuing the "loving eye," knowledge of others that acknowledges them as subjects in their own worlds, not to be romanticized but rather respected by us. Chapter 6 makes some suggestions as to how we might integrate such an approach in our daily lives - the practical here is so helpful. McFague is very "hands-on" here. The last chapter
focuses on the practical implications of a subject-subjects relationship with nature.

McFague has ended her series on a very high note. Following her favorite St. Francis of Asissi, twenty-first century students of the cosmos may discover models that are really not "new", but rather ones that return us to a time and place that was simpler. These "old" models seem more focused on the relationship between one another and the creator, less caught up in a consumer, bottom-line age where the question still too often remains," What
is in it for me?"

I found this book readable, thought provoking, practical and hopeful. I highly recommend it for juniors and seniors in history, sociology, ethics, ecology and theology classes, as well as for high school, college and adult
study groups in churches. It is to be savored, and returned to often, both for its insight as well as for its practical suggestions for being a citizen of the cosmos in the twenty first century. This is a book that profoundly changed the very way in which I observe the world - which is precisely what McFague wants to happen by our return to a subject-subjects mode of existence with the natural world. It is fitting that I conclude with her concluding words:

A Christian nature spirituality is not nature romanticism. Nor is it very optimistic about the future (the planet may well deteriorate). It is, however, determinedly realistic: it begins and ends with a hymn to the things themselves. A Christian nature spirituality praises God for the wonder of the ordinary and promises to work on behalf of the sick and outcast wonderful, ordinary creatures. A Christian nature spirituality is also determinedly hopeful because it believes that the creator of these wonderful, ordinary creatures is working, through, and on behalf of us all. (page 178)

review ©2003 by Anita Schell-Lambert and RSiSS