This dissertation explores relationships between Christian communities, ecological theology, food and meal patterns, and planetary wellbeing amid changing climates in the Plantationocene. The thesis is that a process theology of the Eucharist provides a framework for Christian sacramental theology to respond to the dynamic conditions of food amid changing climates on Earth by prioritizing processes of restoring and sustaining communion with God and all our creaturely kindred in ecological wellbeing. This dissertation presents and develops the process theology of Norman Pittenger, a Christian process theologian and theological interpreter of Alfred North Whitehead. By critically retrieving Norman Pittenger’s process ecclesiology, I aim to encourage Christian process theology to develop theological perspectives of sacramentality as celebrated through the church and Christian life for the wellbeing of the planet.
In addition to developing a process theology of the Eucharist, this dissertation also lays foundations for a broader process theology of meals that seeks to respond to the dynamic conditions of food in changing climates in modernity. Weaving together the work of Theodore Walker, Jr., William T. Cavanaugh, Catherine Keller, Nick Estes, S. Yael Dennis, Filipe Maia, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Donna Haraway, Anna Tsing, and William Cronon, I critique modernity as a paradigm of commodifying relationships that depend on isolating people from one another and dismembering ecosystems for capital profit. I identify modernity’s meals as products of and contributors to anthropogenic climate change in the Plantationocene that depend upon processes of commodification and dismemberment of ecological bodies.
How humans eat matters for the wellbeing of the world. For many Christians, the Eucharist meal is central to relationship with God and other people. The particularities of local eucharistic communities influence how the church experiences eucharistic relationships with God. Likewise, experiences of the Eucharist influence the particularities that characterize any local church. This dissertation contends that encountering cosmic Love in the Eucharist meal transforms the church to reveal and enact love in all our meals, promoting planetary wellbeing through food justice and ecological health.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/44952 |
| Date | 27 July 2022 |
| Creators | Hermans-Webster, Thomas Gordon |
| Contributors | Stone, Bryan P, Moore, Mary Elizabeth |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | Attribution 4.0 International, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
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