Ecofeminist McFague

I’ve been reading some of Sallie McFague’s writings lately, all relating my current studies in contemporary theology.  There are some things that McFague and those of her ilk have to say that I think is probably important that evangelicals hear.  But for the most part, what I’ve read of hers has been sad, frustrating, erroneous and irresponsible.

 

One of the last things of hers that I read was in her book, “The Body of God.”  In that book –page 32, she makes this statement: “…some early theologians did, however, speak of the world as a body filled with and ordered by the Logos in a manner similar to the Platonic World-soul: the Logos as the intermediary between mind (God) and matter.  Origen, for instance, wrote, “The cosmos is a ‘huge animate being’ held together by one Soul.”

 

She gives you the impression that she is quoting Origen – but she’s not.  She’s quoting what her husband says (it’s footnoted) in an article he wrote entitled “Divine Action.”  Now, to find out if he quoted Origen correctly (looking for “huge animate being” as what he says Origen said) I went to the writings of Origen was have in “Ante-Nicene Father”; part of a collection of 38 volumes containing the writings of the early Church Fathers.  Searching through Origen’s writings (using a digital copy of the book) i did not find that quote nor anything similar to it.  What I did find, however, is that Origen wrote against this kind of thinking in his writings “Against Celsus.”

 

One of the chief problems I have had with McFague and many of the feminist theologians (indeed, with most of the liberation theologians) is that the foundation on which they build their theology does not begin with the scriptures or Church tradition but with their own experience.  Their experiences are used to explain the scriptures instead of vice versa.   McFague goes beyond the pale, though, by pulling out ideas that have no anchor in anything but her own mind.

 

Well, I guess I haven’t left too much room for anyone to wonder how I really feel about this…