The purpose of the present study is to discuss which relationships and images of God exist between the Lovers in the Song of Songs. Theologian Sallie McFague's thoughts on the image of God as lover from Models of God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age form the framework from which I conduct my analysis. Since my primary material is of a biblical historical nature, my method is to read the texts with both modern idea-analytical methods, but also to read the narrative with a dialogic interpretation of history that enables a conversation with our contemporaries. Being that the Song of Song is a poetic text; questions of form and content are also applied as they are suitable for analyzing poetic philosophical texts. To nuance my discussion, I also bring in the feminist theologians Janet Soskice and Marcella Althaus-Reid as interlocutors. My essay shows that the relationships between the Lovers are egalitarian and poignantly sexual and include God in a triad of love. It also shows how images of God can become bigger if we dare to mirror both bodily and spiritual love not only horizontally towards each other, but also vertically towards God. This gives us the opportunity not to reduce or limit God, and neither ourselves as beings in reflection of Imago Dei.

En studie av föreställningar om det gudomliga inom ekofeministisk teologi. Uppsatsen behandlar teologerna Rosemary Radford Ruether, Carol Christ och Sallie McFague. Frågeställningen besvaras med hjälp av en innehållslig idéanalys bestående av två analysfrågor med en rad följdfrågor. Den första analysfrågan söker hur det gudomliga förstås hos de olika teologerna, följdfrågorna behandlar begreppen immanens-transcendens, teism-panteism-panenteism samt könsroller. Den andra analysfrågan söker vilken relation mellan det gudomliga och skapelsen som beskrivs, följdfrågorna söker om relationen är intern eller extern, om det är en personlig eller opersonlig gudomlighet samt om människan har något särskilt ansvar inför det gudomliga.

Thesis (M.A. in Theological Studies)--Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, 2003. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [103]-111).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Northwestern University, 1997. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 58-04, Section: A, page: 1336. Adviser: Rosemary Radford Ruether.

This thesis examines ecotheology in liturgy. In light of an increasing awareness of the seriousness of the climate crisis and the consequences for all living beings on earth, it investigated whether and how communion prayers in handbooks of Church of Sweden from 1986 and 2017 have changed towards becoming more ecotheological. The focus of this study has been how God is described in the use of God's names and metaphors, God's relationship to the world, and God's mission to people. These were analyzed using a qualitative content analysis. Two metaphorical models, a monarchical model and a God-body model, taken from ecofeminist theologian Sallie McFague were used as the study's ecotheological approach. Through the analysis, it has been shown that the communion prayers have become more ecotheological. The prayers have more often features the metaphor of "creator" for God and descriptions of an actively creating, loving, and present God. God's relationship with the world now also includes the entire universe that God carries and fulfills. God meets people more often through the risen Christ and God's incarnation and salvation can also be interpreted as concerning of all creation. God's mission to human beings is more directed outward to the world, but there are still no explicit missions towards other living beings or all of creation.

The purpose of this essay is to examine how Christians can and should speak about God if they take feminist criticism seriously. This purpose concerns two problems: the first starts with the proposition that God is essentially different from humans and things and at the fact that the language that we use to describe and speak about God is a human language. God is infinite, incorporeal, and timeless, while the human language normally is used to apply to finite, corporeal, and temporal things. How – if ever – can this language apply to God? To examine this problem further, I present four different theories of religious language. The second problem is actualized by feminists who criticize the standard within the Christian tradition to characterize God in predominantly masculine terms. Feminists have criticised religious language for being oppressive in several ways, and particularly to establish and maintain hierarchical structures in which women are subordinated men. In this essay I present and discuss feminist criticism of religious language and then distinguish four different strategies for feminists. I further examine three of these strategies, represented by Sallie McFague, Gail Ramshaw and Janet Soskice, dealing with the problem of religious language within the Christian tradition. In all three of these feminist strategies metaphors are found to be of great importance. Finally, I promote Soskice metaphor theory combined with an apophatic theory of language. Soskice stresses the importance of anthropomorphous metaphors and offer the possibility of using both male and female images when speaking about God. This strategy positively handles the proposition of God as essentially different but makes it possible for believers to refer to God (through metaphors). This is also the preferable strategy in line with feminist criticism.

In order to further explore the significance of McFague's thoughts, this thesis will compare her theology with some other theologians with quite different ideas on ecological theology or understandings of the relationship between feminism and Christianity. Furthermore, this thesis will also adopt McFague's approach to metaphorical theology to evaluate the merits and shortcomings of the theories advocated by the contemporary Sino-Christian theologians such as Liu Xiaofeng and He Guanghu, especially their approaches to the relationship between the Christian tradition and the contemporary Chinese context. / McFague believes that all Christians may have their own working theologies one that can actually function in their personal, professional, and public lives. Hers is merely one of the possible options. Again and again she expresses that what she has done is merely to share her theological model with the others and see if it can help others to work out their own. / McFague defines her theology as a post-modem theology because its assumptions are radically different from those of the Enlightenment or Modernity. For her, the traditional language of Christianity that supported the hierarchical, dualistic and deterministic ways of thinking is no longer appropriate for our time. However, this does not mean that one should totally deny the Christian tradition or our religious heritage. What we have to do is to "revitalize" the religious language through employing new metaphors which may become gestures to the unknown God. This approach of employing metaphor as a means to convey theological truth is not only in line with Jesus' own way of communication and the Protestant tradition of anti-idolatry, but also appropriate for the postmodern sensibility and capable to address the contemporary issues. / McFague proposes that Christian theology should adopt "mother," "lover," and "friend" as the key metaphors for the doctrine of God and "the body of God" as the central metaphor for the model of God-world relationship. This metaphor or model, which highlights the interdependence and unity between us and everything else on earth, represents McFague's rather distinctive contribution to ecological theology and her imaginative attempt to contribute to the rescue from nuclear nightmare or ecological disaster. / Sallie McFague (1933- ) is one of the most famous eco-feminist theologians. Her theology is very influential within the theological circle of liberal Protestantism in North American. She regards her metaphorical theology as thought experiment in response to the challenges Christianity encounters in the modem world, including particularly the criticisms of Christianity from the perspectives of feminist liberation movement and ecological concern. When facing these challenges or criticisms, whereas some Christians may attempt to repeat the same traditional expressions of Christianity or abandon the Christian tradition entirely, McFague attempts to employ some new metaphors to express the Christian tradition in order to make Christian theology meaningful and appropriate for the contemporary context. / The thesis will conclude with a summary of the significance of McFague's metaphorical theology for the critical reflection and positive construction of contemporary Sino-Christian theology, including: (1 ) being respectful to the Christian history and orthodox tradition; (2) being sensitive to the contexts, including spatial, temporal and cultural contexts, of theology; (3) being methodologically sound in theological thinking; (4) being open to the non-Christian resources and affirmative to the adoption and integration of the resources in the Chinese language. / 高健群. / Advisers: Pan Chiu Lai; Chi Tim Lai. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 73-06, Section: A, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 114-133). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / Gao Jianqun.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains x, 431 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 416-431).

The industrial food production system is a head-on collision of ecology, morality, and human health, and their respective bodies of earth, animal and human. This thesis is an attempt to grapple with that damage from a theological perspective. What would it mean for a theology to answer to the degradation of American soil that sustains nothing but oil-drenched monoculture? to the horrifying conditions under which we as a nation raise, feed, and slaughter the animals for our consumption? to the dizzying array of food-related diseases that now affect our country in staggering frequency, particularly among lower socioeconomic classes? And what would that theology look like in the real world? The first chapter of this thesis surveys the damage done to earth, animal and human bodies by the industrial food system. A discussion of corn, the backbone of the entire system, and its effects on the land leads into a discussion of corn-fed animals and the conditions under which they live. In the final section, some of the health effects directly traceable to eating industrial food are overviewed. The second chapter highlights and examines three groups of people who, often for theological reasons, are growing food in alternative ways: ways that not only do not harm bodies, but sustain them and help them to thrive. The third chapter is a set of theological reflections on the first two, in which I try to pin down some essential theological differences between the first two chapters, and bring in theologians who are helpful in this enterprise. The four theological points I discuss are taking bodies seriously, a panentheistic approach to the world, interrelatedness and the presence of complexity, and mutuality and relational power.

The aim of this study is to explore how the concept of sin, guilt and responsibility can be used in the contemporary discourse of the climate catastrophe. In a comparative textual study on Sallie McFague’s A New Climate for Theology and Richard Bauckham’s Bible and Ecology these concepts are analyzed. The conclusion is that McFague and Bauckham both uses “responsibility” frequently, but neither “sin” or “guilt” are well used in there works. Yet, when they reflect on “sin”, both of them abandons the (in the western theology classical) Augustine theology on sin. McFague when she argues that “evil” is a perversion of good rather than a consequence of an external reality, Bauckham when he claims that the fall of sin is an ongoing process rather than a momentary event.   Hannah Arendt and Alistair McFadyen are used as an interpretative and theoretical background to the conclusions of McFague and Bauckham in the discussion that follows the comparative textual study. Arendt and McFadyen reflects on sin, guilt and responsibility with the Holocaust as context. In the discussion, their thoughts on the Holocaust are essayed to apply on the contemporary climate catastrophe. Hannah Arendt talks about “collective responsibility” and “personal guilt”, concepts that in the discussion part, when applied on the climate catastrophe and in a better way fits the contemporary situation, inverts to “collective guilt” and “personal responsibility”. The talk of collective guilt tangent the Augustine teaching of original sin where sin is a common heritage from the fall of sin. McFadyen uses original sin to explain the mechanism of the German people during the Holocaust which in many ways are similar to the processes of the climate catastrophe of today.    In the discussion of this study, original sin is used as a model to better understand the fact that people cannot escape guilt in the contemporary situation and to comprehend why people act as they do. The study intends accordingly to in a constructive way contribute with new perspectives on sin, guild and responsibility to the ecological theology of today.