August Eliot 2015 "Paradise Spirituality: Reimagining Divine Creativity and Reweaving Sacred Community for the Liberation of All Life" with Rev. Rebecca Parker
Saturday, August 08, 2015 at 06:00 AM
Rev. Rebecca Parker, President Emerita of Starr King School for the Ministry, returns to Eliot to lead us in an exploration of emerging and ancient concepts of the Divine that inspire eco-justice and offer a new vision for our life together in sacred communities.
"God is so tender, sometimes she is called Green," Parker recalls dreaming as a young minister. She will work with us on how each of us may find ourselves struggling to move beyond oppressive concepts of God and embrace new approaches to sacred source, life-giving Spirit, or the power within and among us that offers liberation and hope. Such struggles take on special importance as we face the collective threats to life generated by global climate change.
A prolific author and leading theologian, Dr. Parker weaves feminist, process, counter-oppressive and multi-religious sources into her work -- and draws on music, poetry and visual art for theological reflection and spiritiual practice.
The theme talks for this week will build on her ground-breaking work, co-authored with Rita Nakashima Brock, Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire (Beacon Press, 2008); her work in A House for Hope: The Promise of Progressive Religion for the 21st Century (Beacon Press, 2011) co-authored with John Buehrens, and her current work in progress based on "A Course on God," which she taught in the spring of 2014 at Starr King School for the Ministry.