Scholar, eco-theologian, priest, teacher, Thomas Berry established the History of Religions Program at Fordham University and, with Wm. Theodore de Bary, founded the Oriental Thought and Religion Seminar at Columbia University. Before his death this year he spent the better part of five decades studying, writing about and lecturing on the intersection of the spiritual and natural worlds, specifically humans’ engagement with the earth. The Sacred Universe brings together 13 of his essays—published between 1972 and 2001—and represent the evolution in Berry’s thinking and his call for dialogue with the world’s religions, with science and with the modern world in general. He talks, often prophetically, of religion in the global human community, “the cosmology of religions,” and “the sacred universe.” Thought-provoking, passionate and filled with wisdom, Berry’s writing is a gift to everyone on the planet who seek “to create a new story of the universe” and locate “a spiritual vision that helps humans reclaim their place in the natural world.”
As a bonus this month, we also recommend a second collection of Berry’s writings: The Christian Future and the Fate of Earth, published by Orbis Books and edited by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim. Part of the publisher’s Ecology and Justice Series, The Christian Future is a series of (brief) essays written over past decades that distills Berry’s thoughts on—among other subjects—“Women Religious: Voices of Earth,” the role of the church in the 21st century and “The Universe as Cosmic Liturgy.” Drawing heavily on the insights of both Thomas Aquinas and Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Berry sought to lift the Christian tradition toward care for all of creation. This volume is a worthy companion to the compendium described above.
Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim are founders of the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale University and co-directers of the Thomas Berry Foundation and the American Teilhard Association.
Purchase The Sacred Universe: Earth, Spirituality, and Religion in the Twenty-first Century
Purchase The Christian Future and the Fate of Earth (Ecology & Justice)
This article appears in October 5 2009.
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