Ancestral Grace: Meeting God in Our Human Story

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Overview

This fascinating account of humankind, from our beginnings in Africa seven million years ago to the present, blends history, anthropology, and spirituality to demonstrate that God has been and always will be with us. It's one of those rare books that can change the way we see the world.
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Ancestral Grace: Meeting God in Our Human Story

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More About This Book

Overview

This fascinating account of humankind, from our beginnings in Africa seven million years ago to the present, blends history, anthropology, and spirituality to demonstrate that God has been and always will be with us. It's one of those rare books that can change the way we see the world.
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Editorial Reviews

Library Journal

A member of the Sacred Heart Missionary Order, O'Murchu here offers one of the most intriguing rethinkings of Christian cosmology and theology since the death of his avowed model and inspiration, Teilhard de Chardin. For O'Murchu, Christian faith and the developments of science are not at war but working together toward a critical moment that may-if we do not destroy our planet-mean a kind of breakthrough rather than breakdown. "Incarnational becoming," in the author's view, may help us to see beyond our own or our species' survival, to something greater. For most collections.


—Graham Christian
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781570757945
  • Publisher: Orbis Books
  • Publication date: 8/28/2008
  • Pages: 270
  • Sales rank: 410,991
  • Product dimensions: 6.00 (w) x 9.10 (h) x 0.70 (d)

Table of Contents


Foreword xi Preface xvii Part 1 The Human as Human
1 By the Grace of God... 3 Dualistic Overtones 3 Grace and the Fundamental Flaw 5 Grace Revisited 6 Our Graced Story 8 Our Graced Orientation 9
2 Creatures of Imagination 11 The Cult(ure) of Rationality 11 The Suppressed Imagination 13 Invoking the Imagination 14 Imagination as We Trace Our Origins 15 Imagination and Paradox 17 The Wisdom to See Differently 19
3 Gazing into Deep Time 20 Chimp or Human? 21 Chimp or Bonobo? 22 The Counter-Culture of Deep Time 24 The Joy of Sex 25 Factoring in Another Time Scale 26
4 Interdependence and the Will to Life 29 The Urge to Explore 29 The Living Planet 30 The Tradition of Gifting 31 What about Sexual Interdependence? 32 Relating Nonviolently 34
5 Our Home in Africa 36 The African Connection 36 Walking on Two Feet 38 Africa: Our Collective Home 40 The Upright Stride 42
6 Creative Innovation and the Awakening Artist 44 Oldowan Technology 45 The Awakening Artist 46 The Cave Walls 47 Strange Statuettes 48 Art and Spirituality 48 Religious Endorsement of Our Creativity? 50 An Original Synthesis 51
7 Working Our Way with Paradox 52 Our Delight in Work 53 Man the Hunter 54 Befriending Ambiguity 56 Learning from Ergaster 58
8 The Wise Species 59 Intelligence Revisited 59 Humans Appropriate the Enveloping Intelligence 62 Enter Synaesthesia 63 The Communal Challenge 64
9 The Peril of European Promise 66 Developed Skills 66 Colonial Arrogance 67 Is There a European Archetype? 68 Can the Neanderthals Inspire Us Today? 70
10 The Discovery of Language 72 Proto-language 73 Theories of Language 75 Language and Social Bonding 76
11 Pagan Spirituality 78 Paganism Reinstated 78Ritualizing the Spiritual 79 Enter the Great Mother 81 Earth Spirituality Today 83 Wisdom from Deep Within 84
12 Agriculture and Its Discontents 85 Agriculture as an Axial Moment 85 The Rise of Anthropocentrism 87 Religious Validation 88 Agriculture and Ancestral Grace 89 Part 2 The Human as Christian
13 Jesus, Disciple of Ancestral Grace 93 Creatures of Ancestral Grace 94 Rescuing Jesus from Patriarchy 95 Jesus as Archetypal Human 97
14 The God Who Incarnates 99 The Divine as Spirit Power 99 The Divine as Creator 101 The Feminine Face of God 102 Jesus as a Model of Inspired Birthing 104 Wisdom Has Set Her Table 105
15 Jesus as an Archetypal Human 107 Reclaiming the Human Face of God 109 Soulful Living 110 Reclaiming the Dream 111
16 Jesus in Evolutionary Context 113 The Two-Thousand-Year Benchmark 113 Jesus in the Big Picture 115 Savoring the Enlarged Context 117
17 Humans at Home in God's Creation 119 Exile and Alienation 120 A New Metaphor 121 Coming Home to Our Human Story 122 The Kingdom Reenvisioned 123 Healing and Empowerment 125 Creation and the Kingdom 126
18 Jesus beyond Patriarchy 128 Dislocating Stories 128 Disrupting Regimes of Normalcy 130 Is Jesus Still a Dangerous Memory? 131
19 Being Human-Being Person 133 The Person in Aristotle 134 An Alternative Paradigm 135 What Kind of Person Was Jesus? 136
20 Incarnation Embracing Paradox 138 Naming Our Reality Afresh 139 Jesus Embracing Paradox 141 Humans Embracing the Paradox 142
21 Christian Incarnation and Other Religions 144 Parallels in Other Faiths 144 Commonalities Rather Than Differences 146 Jesus among the Religions 148 Through Religion and Beyond 149
22 Jesus as Ritual Maker 150 A Culture of Ritual 150 Ritualization in Word 154 Ritual in Our Time 155
23 Wholesome Holines-Incarnational Spirituality 157 Jesus: Religious or Spiritual? 157 Christian Spirituality and Ancestral Grace 159 From Orthodoxy to Orthopraxy 161 Part 3 The Human Lured Toward the Future
24 The Grace of Evolutionary Becoming 165 Beyond the Limits of Old 166 Enter Evolution 167 Human Emergence 168 Co-creating the Future 170 Adapting to a New Way of Being 172
25 Technology and the Protean Self 175 Mechanizing the Human 176 Artificial Intelligence (AI) 177 Altering Human Behavior 178 Posthuman, Protean, or Transhuman? 178 Transpersonal Wisdom 180 The Shadow Side 181 Conclusion 182
26 Toward Bioregional Networking 184 The Dwindling Nation State 184 Beyond the Nation State 186 Global Governance 188 When the Time Is Ripe 191
27 Embracing the Adult 193 The Adult in Creation 194 The Adult and the Inner Child 195 Beyond the Preoccupation with the Child 196 Being Adult for the Future 197 Learning and Transformation 198
28 Learning to Relate Laterally 200 Commonalities and Differences 200 The Identity Question 201 Relational Dislocation 203 Relating Laterally 205
29 Apocalyptic Cataclysm or Eschatological Breakthrough? 207 A Lurid Fascination 208 The Apocalyptic Mind-Set 210 The Eschatological Outlook 211 Christian Hope 213
30 The Spirit Will Lead You Forth 216 The Inspiring Life Force 217 Our Spirit-Filled Age 218 The Spirit That Lures Us Forth 219 Fulfilling the Promise 220 Dreaming an Alternative Future 222
31 Preoccupied with Death and the Afterlife 224 The Demonization of Death 224 Befriending Death 226 Death in the Cosmic Matrix 227 Death and Our Graced Future 229
32 Will We Actually Make It? 231 Possible Scenarios 231 Beyond Our Denial 233 Hanging On to Hope! 235 Notes 237 Bibliography 247 Index 259
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