- Hardcover: 328 pages
- Publisher: OUP USA (5 May 2011)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0199755086
- ISBN-13: 978-0199755080
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 14 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,067,594 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
Ravished by Beauty
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Review
"Lane scores on every shot . . . In addition to rich quotes from others, Lane offers his own memorable thoughts, his words elegant as brocade in color and texture, scholarly but never stultifying."--Publishers Weekly
"I love this book--a serious work of theology whose language celebrates and mediates the ravishing beauty of a world shot through with the glory of God."--Marcus Borg, author of The Heart of Christianity and Speaking Christian
"Belden Lane has provided a contemporary spiritual theology perfectly suited to the restless longings of our consumer culture. Rereading Calvin and Edwards, he finds neglected (and surprising) resources in the Reformed tradition for seeing creation as a rich and wild theater of fulfilled desires. In the process he teaches the reader to share creation's passionate and conflicted yearning for God, and to join its praise of God's loveliness."--William Dyrness, Professor of Theology and Culture, Fuller Theological Seminary
"Exemplary! Christianity's ecological phase requires Earth-honoring retrieval and recasting of its deep traditions. Lane brings to the task a good historian's unflinching honesty as well as the pilgrim's personal passion. The result is Reformed spirituality transformed by its own strong sense of God's presence amid streams of earthly beauty across 'landscapes of desire.' A timely ecumenical gift."--Larry Rasmussen, Reinhold Niebuhr Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics, Union Theological Seminary, New York
"[A]n informative and thought-provoking work about how we treat nature." --Library Journal
"In this splendid book Belden Lane has made a double contribution-to the reordering of our perspectives on creation and to our understanding of the Reformed tradition as a contributor to this reordering. A nature lover, hiker and camper as well as a first-rate scholar, he combines a passion for sensitive stewardship of creation with profound insight into the nature perspe
Product Description
In this novel exploration of Reformed spirituality, Belden C. Lane uncovers a "green theology" that celebrates a community of jubilant creatures of all languages and species. Lane reveals an ecologically sensitive Calvin who spoke of himself as ''ravished'' by the earth's beauty. He speaks of Puritans who fostered a ''lusty'' spirituality in which Christ figured as a lover who encouraged meditation on the wonders of creation. He presents a Jonathan Edwards who urged a sensuous ''enjoyment'' of God's beauty as the only real way of knowing God. Lane argues for the ''double irony'' of Reformed spirituality, showing that Calvinists who often seem prudish and proper are in fact a people of passionate desire. Similarly, Reformed Christians who appear totally focused on divine transcendence turn out at times to be closet nature mystics, exulting in God's glory everywhere. Lane also demonstrates, however, that a spirituality of desire can be derailed, ending in sexual excess and pantheism. Ecologically, holy longing can be redirected from a contemplation of God's splendor in the earth's beauty to a craving for land itself, resulting in disastrous misuse of its resources. Between the major chapters of the book are engaging personal essays drawn from the author's own love of nature as a Reformed Christian, and providing a thoughtful discussion of contemporary issues of species diversity and the honoring of an earth community.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Even for me it is not natural to link the words, Reformed, Environment and spirituality, but this book does exactly that. In going back to sources Calvin, Puritan writers and Jonathan Edwards, no less, Belden C Lane explores the understanding of nature through the environment.
Some of it was not a surprise to me, I am used to the idea that creation is not just created by God but is being created or sustained by God. That is God's relationship with creation is not linear, it did not start at the Big Bang and proceed from there, it is continually and four dimensional. God created all time. Therefore nature is suffused with the existence of God.
What was new to me is the way he was able to link this understanding to Calvin and Edwards, the way he draws on Calvin's use of the creation as the theatre of Gods performance, or Edwards wanting to develop understanding of God through the countryside of New England. The way they both saw Christians as needing to learn from God's other book that is creation.
Also what surprised me was his argument that desire is at the core of Reformed Spirituality, that discipline is rather to train desire than an end in itself. That to be a Christian is to be a desirer of God and it is important to develop that desire, in this nature is one of the school masters. Desire learnt from nature only becomes problematic when we let the desire remain with nature and not point to him who is its creator.
Belden D. Lane is honest enough to tell us that the desire is also one that is not satiated in this life, if we desire God then it will never be fully filled, nature will tantalise, but also will bring times when we experience the absence of the desired as well as the desired.
He shows quite fully that this tradition has existed alongside the ideas that the earth was given to humanity to be subdued, that the desire for God through nature, has turned rather to the desire to control nature for our own ends and we have grasped at what we should have blessed. The Reformed tradition is no innocent here and he does not seek to make it so.
As such he does successfully in my opinion what so many have done in the Reformed tradition from Calvin on and that is return to the sources and find a new, fresh reading that has implications for today.
Some of it was not a surprise to me, I am used to the idea that creation is not just created by God but is being created or sustained by God. That is God's relationship with creation is not linear, it did not start at the Big Bang and proceed from there, it is continually and four dimensional. God created all time. Therefore nature is suffused with the existence of God.
What was new to me is the way he was able to link this understanding to Calvin and Edwards, the way he draws on Calvin's use of the creation as the theatre of Gods performance, or Edwards wanting to develop understanding of God through the countryside of New England. The way they both saw Christians as needing to learn from God's other book that is creation.
Also what surprised me was his argument that desire is at the core of Reformed Spirituality, that discipline is rather to train desire than an end in itself. That to be a Christian is to be a desirer of God and it is important to develop that desire, in this nature is one of the school masters. Desire learnt from nature only becomes problematic when we let the desire remain with nature and not point to him who is its creator.
Belden D. Lane is honest enough to tell us that the desire is also one that is not satiated in this life, if we desire God then it will never be fully filled, nature will tantalise, but also will bring times when we experience the absence of the desired as well as the desired.
He shows quite fully that this tradition has existed alongside the ideas that the earth was given to humanity to be subdued, that the desire for God through nature, has turned rather to the desire to control nature for our own ends and we have grasped at what we should have blessed. The Reformed tradition is no innocent here and he does not seek to make it so.
As such he does successfully in my opinion what so many have done in the Reformed tradition from Calvin on and that is return to the sources and find a new, fresh reading that has implications for today.
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