Earthspirit: A Handbook for Nurturing an Ecological Christianity [Paperback]

Michael Dowd (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Twenty Third Pubns (April 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0896224791
• ISBN-13: 978-0896224797
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,394,534 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Michael Dowd (b. 1958) has been called "America's Evolutionary Evangelist." His mission is to convey an inspiring "deep-time" understanding of our place in the Universe, based entirely on the evidential resources of mainstream science. Since 2001 he has been living on the road with his science writer wife, Connie Barlow, bringing this message to religious and secular audiences across the spectrum. Visit his websites and blog: thankgodforevolution dot com and MichaelDowd dot org.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars COSMOLOGY: IT BRINGS CHRIST ALIVE IN ALL BEINGS, September 19, 2002

By 

Lee Hogan, IT Change Management Consultant, T... (Topton, PA, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Earthspirit: A Handbook for Nurturing an Ecological Christianity (Paperback)

Michael Dowd wrote this book in exceptionally clear prose with dozens of biblical quotes and hundreds of references and quotes from world class authors who teach and preach the sacred Paschal Mystery as it is present in all of nature. We're challenged not to be environmentalists, although this comes through as a likely action out of this new vision, but to be embrace Christ in all of His creation and to continue that creation in everything we touch. We are His hands and feet and continue to redeem the earth and all of nature (the whole of cosmology) in Him and through Him. The Rev. Dowd speaks from his heart and has built into this book many rich devotions and prayers as well as meditations that can literally cause a spiritual transformation in anyone so open to seeing Christ in a new light. This book is something that any post modernist or Christian naysayer could easily live with and grow from.

Our prayer group used Michael's book for three months as our main teaching source for 'cosmology and a critical new source of modern Jesus theology.' No one ever got tired of reading his inspiring words and rich concepts of this new Jesus cosmology.
Michael turns traditional Christian theology on its ear and, without once disturbing the core truths of Christianity, he gives them an essentially new set of clothes and a much more disturbing kind of challenge to live our Christianity in all parts of our life and in all we see and do in the this world of splendor, death, suffering, joy, goodness and core freedoms in Christ Jesus.

I am sorry to see that this excellent book is out of print. It deserves to have greater readership and to become a best seller.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Earthspirit: A Handbook for Nurturing an Ecological..., June 14, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Earthspirit: A Handbook for Nurturing an Ecological Christianity (Paperback)

Michael Dowd has written a book that introduces one to many of the current day concepts in cosmology. He looks to the first point of humans being able to view the earth from outer space as a turning point in our view of our place in creation. He presents this information in an easy to understand format and includes many quotes to emphasize his points. The quotes are from authors in all walks of life and prompt one to think about the subject. By the end of the book, Dowd will have you seeing our natural environment in a new light and relating it to Christianity.

18 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, April 1, 2003

By 

Jedidiah Palosaari "Not My Real Name" (Fes, Morocco) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Earthspirit: A Handbook for Nurturing an Ecological Christianity (Paperback)

I read this book to determine if Dowd should come share The Great Story at my church, as he is in the habit of doing around the U.S. Dowd writes with a profound mixture of poetry and prose and philosophy. He uses many great quotes from a wide dispersal of fields to support his key contentions: that we need a new cosmology to describe our relationship to God and the planet. I appreciated many of the thoughts of those quoted, and some of Dowd's thoughts on the rethinking of who we are in the cosmos: we are the consciousness of the earth, the only part of the earth capable of self-reflection.

I wish he had pursued this line of thinking more. I was excited about this book, hoping for a look deep into biological evolution, and how it can show for us the nature of God in Jesus, as He created this very process. There is very little material out there about biological evolution as it relates to Christianity, and even less on how we can use it as devotion, teaching about who God is.

But unfortunately, after a promising start Dowd begins to develop more an understanding of evolution in the general sense- a common mistake of laymen, confusing the specific process of biological evolution with the larger word "evolution", describing a change or progression. Indeed, biological evolution is specifically not positive progression, but simply change, in continuous adaptation, as Stephen Jay Gould so convincingly shows us. Dowd however runs with the idea of evolution in a more metaphorical manner, suggesting that our ideas and understanding of who God calls us to be in relation to the earth need to change, become better, and "evolve". In doing this he relies on the common interpretation of scripture as a "schoolhouse of faith"- certainly a very helpful and acceptable exegesis of the Old and New Testament, but causing great confusion when combined with the idea that we are continuously philosophically evolving. For at that point, Dowd would call us to go beyond what we find in the Bible, to something better, while still not denying the Bible (in his words), for it is still our foundation, just as the Old Testament was the foundation for the New. It becomes then a clever way of denial of the truths in the Bible.

By the end of the book, Dowd is advocating that we are all part of God, and that God is all things. He moves from Panentheism (God in all things) to Pantheism, and from ecumenicalism to universalism. All ways are equally valid ways to God, for God is in all things, and all moments and places are God- we just need to see that. Such beliefs are not Christianity. Sadly, rather than using Christian beliefs and scriptures to bring us to a new understanding of what those beliefs and scriptures say, it seems more that Dowd seeks to use the beliefs and scriptures to prove his own points, as if he knows that there is a certain segment of society that will not believe what he has to say unless he uses these instruments. And so he subtly changes the meanings of some quotes- while Paul calls us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, Dowd calls us to *renew* our minds. While Athanasius would say "Christ became human that we might become divine.", Dowd quotes him as saying, "Christ became human that we might become God." There's a cosmos of difference in those two words. In the end Dowd seems much more comfortable with the Gospel of Thomas than with the actual Gospels, and indeed ends up quoting Thomas.

There is that to be said for this book- it gave me new insights, and provided me with a new cosmology, of thinking of myself more fully part of this planet, the thinking part, and not wholly separate. But Dowd goes too far off into netherworlds of belief and science to be all that his writing could be.