Darwin, Divinity, and the Dance of the Cosmos: An Ecological Christianity

by Bruce Sanguin

In March 2005, the United Nations released its Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Among the 2/3 of the world's ecosystems are seriously degraded; 90 percent of the world's fish stocks are depleted; and climate change is not just something that might happen, it is already upon us. Many people, including many Christians, will hear this and delude themselves into thinking that technology can and will save the day. A wiser and more helpful response, especially for Christans, is to find a way to step back into the flow of nature from which we have extricated ourselves. In Darwin, Divinity, and the Dance of the Cosmos, Bruce Sanguin shows us the way. Sanguin draws on the latest scientific understandings of the nature of the universe and weaves them together with biblical meta-narratives and frequently overlooked strands of the Judeo-Christian tradition to create an ecological and truly evolutionary Christian theology - a feat few theologians have even attempted. The importance of this accomplishment can hardly be overstated. As Sanguin writes, "It's time for the Christian church to get with the cosmological program. We need new wineskins for the new wine the Holy One is pouring out in the 21st century. Twenty-first-century science has provided us with new a new story of creation that needs to inform our biblical stories of creation. We now know, for instance, that we live in an evolving or evolutionary universe. Evolution is the way that the Holy creates in space and in time, in every material, biological, social, cultural, psychological, and spiritual. This new cosmology simply cannot be contained by old models and images of God, or by old ways of being the church." As his starting point, Sanguin encourages readers to rediscover awe - an attitude very much absent from the modern mindset. "We don't see what is before us," he writes, "and as a result, we are plundering our planet at an unprecedented rate." "If we could see what is before our eyes, day in and day out, the sacred radiance of creation would drop us to our knees and render us speechless." Central to this recovery of awe is the new Great Story, the 14-billion-year history of the cosmos. Into this Great Story, first told by Thomas Berry and by mathematical physicist and cosmologist Brian Swimme, Sanguin reintroduces the presence God. Heady as all this sounds, it has very practical implications for the mission of the church. Sanguin "In the first centuries after Jesus' death, his disciples looked around at their world and found that what was needed by way of response to the crisis of their age was hospitals for the sick and food for the poor. This is what compassion required of them. Mission is determined by the context in which the church finds itself in each new age. I am suggesting that, today, there is nothing more critical than a compassionate response to the plight of our planet. The church must be at the forefront of shifting human consciousness away from an ethic of domination for economic gain and toward a spirituality of awe. This book - and more importantly the work of integration it suggests - represents a fundamental challenge to our theological and liturgical models. But for those who are ready and willing to embark on an exciting theological journey of discovery, it also represents a rich opportunity to become reacquainted with the Spirit of God moving in and through the very dynamics of an unfolding universe.

Genres: Religion, Theology

256 pages, Paperback

First published February 28, 2007

Reviews

[Kellie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. Easy to read. Helping us to remember that we are stewards of this earth and that religion, the earth and spirituality are all inner connected. The next step is to "Be the change".

[Kate Belt · Rating 5 out of 5]

My immersion into Celtic / Ecological / Cosmic / Christianity began in my Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), which closed in 2023. At the Presbyterian church to which I transferred, spiritual formation opportunities continue this journey. We studied several books this year: Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul: Celtic Wisdom for Reawakening To What Our Souls Know by J. Phillip Newell and Healing the World; Church of the Wild and How Nature Invites Us Into the Sacred by Victoria Loorz; Darwin, Divinity. The pastor put me onto further reading in lieu of a class I couldn’t attend: Darwin, Divinity and the Dance of the Cosmos: An Ecological Christianity and If Darwin Prayed: Prayers for Evolutionary Mystics, both by Bruce Sanguin.

[Dave Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sanguin is passionate about this topic, and informed. For the most part I allowed myself to be taken on his journey, and really the book is an invitation to see the Christian metnarrative from a different perspective. And he has much to say on the relevance of grappling with an ever changing modern climate to which new challenges seem to arise every day. Thinkers and scholars, theologians and Christian philosophers who can engage in a proactive approach will no doubt prove to be some to which we will show much gratitude in the future, much in the same way that we hold for many of the great Christian thinkers of every age. Given all of this though, there were a few places that I felt Sanguin left me wanting, most notably in fleshing out the issue of theological anthropology and the question of consciousness and human differentiation. While he moves to connect us with a grand history of the spirits movement in the cosmos, he doesn't give due attention to fleshing out what it means to be human to begin with. When it comes to the question of differentiation, there tends to be a lot to be gained or lost depending on which direction you move with it.

There is a tension in these kinds of discussions, and it is the strength of this book to deal with that tension. It is the one that emerges in shifting our perspective or worldview from determinate to indeterminate, which ultimately stands in danger of moving us towards fatalism (the insignificance of all things in a determined or undetermined process, and the fading hand of moral and ethical foundation in a vast cosmos which relegates humanity to relative insignificance). He does a lot of work to center this on the emerging trend and study of dominator hierarchies and growth hierarchies and the cooperative nature of the growth of the universe itself. He also spends time on multi level influences that are showing to span much beyond genetic mutation. Given all of this, he nevertheless still fails to move us completely in a direction of hope that the presence of this indicates the potential of a reality that is more than what we observe in the function of nature. It is the observation, after all, of the function of nature through history that leads to fatalism, and it is hard to escape the fact of the deeply ingrained tendency and desire to pursue social Darwinism that it ultimately leads to. For me he fails to adequately give me hope that the trajectory is intentionally leading anywhere beyond this in a way that allows us to observe the higher moral and ethical examples that are required to avoid social Darwinism. In the vast majority of cases where moralism is exercised it appears to remain an anomaly, a truth that he admits to on a purely scientific level. And so he must prove a trajectory from what shows as a current minority towards a new and progressed form of evolved social morality. The problem remains in doing this in a convincing fashion, certainly given the necessary exercise of disassociating this with the general trajectory of nature itself. The only way to truly acknowledge morality and ethics is to observe it through the presence of an other, or a "spirit" which he concedes, which can operate outside of this nature. This is of course what Sanguin is alluding to, but since he does indebt his approach to science to such a large degree, his attempts to expose moral and ethical reality from within the process remain somewhat short handed.

Where Sanguin really loses me is in the last third of the book, which is dedicated to applying his new paradigm or metanarrative to a proper exegesis and reexaming of scripture itself. Operating under the admission of a viable "spirit" automatically challenges any humanistic approach on every level. I think he recognizes this, and takes great effort to reapply the scientific reality of such humanistic approaches with scripture itself in a way that gets us closer to what he believes it is actually saying (which he contends is a spiritual truth that defies humanistic tendencies). But I think in the process he dismantles too much, which in turn leads to some exegesis that sides more with popular theology than fair scriptural exposition, ultimately leaving himself without proper foundation to build from. This is particularly evident in his desire to explore the biblical narrative itself as "evolutionary", an effort Brian Mclaren also recently undertook in his recent book "A New Kind of Christianity". I understand what he is saying and why he needs to say it the way he does, but his approach gives too much weight to human understanding even despite the emphasis he gives to "spirit". One cannot isolate the revelation of God in such a way that it minimalizes this revelation as both historical and transcendent. This mindset I think actually works against his ability to intertwine the world of spirit and material. As well, his dealings with the concept of "Sophia" move the Christian experience towards the gnostic perspectives, a move that I think minimizes good academic work regarding the movement of the Christian story, particularly that of Christ as a Judaeo/Christ centric history and understanding.

Again, I think this discussion is an important one. I also think the discussion goes much broader than he proposes. I struggle with some of his conclusions, and certainly the relevance of moral and ethical realities left me wanting. That said, there is much that he does bring to the table as well that remains challenging and worth more thought.

[Blake Kanewischer · Rating 5 out of 5]

There were some wonderful "thin places" in this book, including a couple of prayers that I'll be adapting into my own life. It's really interesting to read this book as a sort of capstone to other books about the origins of the universe, evolution, and quantum physics--it synthesizes and pulls together a lot of ideas from a faith perspective.

[Jeff Reed · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overly simplistic and really nothing new. The author relies heavily on Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, so much so that I wondered why anyone would read this volume rather than going directly to those authors.

[Alana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful and thought-provoking. I happened upon this when we lived in Vancouver so we went to Bruce Sanguin's church a few times and had some amazing sermons. Wish we'd stayed in town to experience more. This is definitely a form of spiritual belief I can connect with.

[Carla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very timely! I liked the feminist inclusion of Sophia, hadn't heard about her before. Ecological Christianity's time definitely has come!