Eco-economics

Life Abundant: Rethinking Theology and Economics for a Planet in Peril. By Sallie McFague. Fortress, 251 pp., $18.00.

Insanity has been defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results each time. Why does nothing change when Christian preachers and teachers keep talking about ecological responsibility and social justice to congregations whose members love nature and care about the plight of the poor? Could it be that there is something fundamentally awry with the preaching and the teaching, on the one hand, and with the love and the care, on the other hand?

Sallie McFague believes that our planet is in such peril that doing the same thing over and over again is no longer acceptable. In this stunning volume, perhaps her best book in a line of distinguished studies (most recently: Metaphorical Theology, The Body of God and Super, Natural Christians), she argues insightfully that we must be liberated from both our economic and theological assumptions if we are truly to love nature and care for the poor.