Of Gods and Minds: In Search of a Theological Commons. By James W. Heisig
Why have humans persisted in believing in gods throughout the ages, even in an era where scientific minds say we should know better? That is the single thematic question that winds its way through this book, first presented as the Duffy Lectures in Global Christianity at Boston College in 2019. But...
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| Format: | Electronic Review |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press
2020
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| In: |
The journal of theological studies
Year: 2020, Volume: 71, Issue: 2, Pages: 998-1004 |
| Further subjects: | B
Book review
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Why have humans persisted in believing in gods throughout the ages, even in an era where scientific minds say we should know better? That is the single thematic question that winds its way through this book, first presented as the Duffy Lectures in Global Christianity at Boston College in 2019. But that single question is played out in rich variation. The first signal of the plurality the author advocates is his decision to speak of ‘gods’ and not simply, as we might expect, of the one God of the Abrahamic religions. Even that difference takes multiple forms. Reminding us that the image of the ‘one God’ of biblical monotheism not only draws historically from multiple antecedents but also presents multifarious faces more consistent with polytheism, Heisig writes of God and gods sometimes in interplay, sometimes interchangeably, and sometimes to mark an untenable distinction (between God and gods) that has failed to meet the most pressing challenge of our age: the need for images of the divine that reconnect us to what traditional theologies have abandoned to the peril of every living being on earth. The challenge of Christian theology in particular is to reconnect its God to the earth. ‘No item of faith is more important than the survival of the earth’ (p. 104). Far from being an academic theology of religions, this book is an urgent call to take care of ‘the one thing that matters’ (p. 149) by rediscovering images of the divine in nature. |
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| ISSN: | 1477-4607 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The journal of theological studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/jts/flaa050 |