After having read the article entitled “A necessary conversion”, I salute the initiative of the Catholic world to establish a prayer (mass) specially dedicated to the safeguard of nature, which can only strengthen the necessary ecological concern that has imposed itself on all decades.
The Christian tradition (which is based on biblical texts) recently remembered that the relationship of domination of nature is not to be understood in a sense (precisely criticized here) which would aim to crush it, to violate it but that there is also a second sense of the verb which means to dominate. He then refers to a progressive and positive transformation, to a set of care that will grow animals and plants. The latter will produce, for example, fruits that will feed human beings. The example cited is that of the vine which forms fruits (grapes) whose processed juice can become wine.
And then, it is interesting to note that the idea of harmony with all creatures is already indirectly expressed in certain formulations of the prophets of the Old Testament which associate elements of nature: islands, waves, winds, trees, rainbow with the expression of their message. But it is true that this trait has long been underestimated, even passed over in silence. It is not uncommon either that in such texts, certain animals (dog, whale, donkey, etc.) transmit the message of God when humans do not want to hear anything from Him. This example of the participation of elements of the cosmos in communication with God brings a certain support to the aim of eco-theology, to the creation of a language to express it and to account for his practice.
That at the heart of Christianity, for a few decades, a more inclusive, less hierarchical, less guilty, attentive to human creativity, is a great thing! And I also contributed a little by my research relating to the representation of God “as wisdom” in the feminine in the Old Testament.
Which also joins the language and thought of the genre. Now, today, the meaning of this term seems more and more obscured by the various interpretations which are made of it. They were added to its primary sense, that which refers to the sphere of social sexualization by differentiation from that which concerns private, intimate sexual life. Two dimensions of existence which sometimes disagree causing trouble or creativity, but in any case, reflection and adjustment. In popular language, the term “genre” applies more and more often to everything and anything and especially everything that is hated: “It is gendered …” often means less quality or poorly oriented … This happens to the detriment of the positive meaning of this term (that is to say the chance that it offers to integrate more people into the social life of all). The article you publish precisely includes one or the other of these uses which are, in my opinion, questionable. For example, one cannot link the expression “unrealed” to a symbol which is in itself one of the only female specificities: the matrix. And which is precisely one of the terms available to designate God by feminine. As for the continuation of the text: “Life, movement, being”, are they really “not gendered”? Or does their status condition like and not like? Let’s not forget that any vocable has a genre …
But resuming distance from these particular points, I am sure that the new eco-theologians who have joined the feminist theologians cited in this text (Sölle, Ruether, etc.), will be able to give its fair weight to this perspective incorporating all the living.
In view of the above, should we therefore not reconsider the report established with Christian tradition – This imaginary concretion, fantasized from several traditions and which serves as a guilty when something disturbs, disturbs, questions?
Michèle Bolli, theologian (DR), Lausanne