Ancestral Grace: Meeting God in Our Human Story
When an Irish Catholic priest sets out to reconcile the theory of evolution and environmental bioregionalism with Christian tradition while opposing patriarchy and social injustice, you know you’re in for an exciting journey. O’Murchu doesn’t mince words about the defects of earlier theologies, saying that those that “defined revelation exclusively in a male context” are guilty of fostering a “preposterous myth,” instead of which he presents a renewed, nondualistic spiritual vision that embraces the “suppressed imagination” of the arts and intuition. Like the great “geologian” Fr. Thomas Berry (with Brian Swimme, The Universe Story, 1992), O’Murchu finds there is much to learn from science. In this book, such learning comes from paleontology, which shows the basic humanity behind apparent differences between people and peoples. With “religious endorsement of our creativity,” he believes, we can find reason for optimism about humanity’s future. And indeed, optimism is served out in great helpings in this inspiring book, which should appeal to both Christians and skeptics. --Patricia Monaghan