What do you think?
Rate this book
Modern Spiritual Masters
Thomas Berry: Selected Writings on the Earth Community
Thomas Berry (1914-2009), a Passionist priest, was a geologian, historian of religion, philosopher, and the single most important Catholic voice on the link between faith, reverence for all life, and the environmental crisis. Particularly well-known for his work in popularizing the universe story and exploring the religious implications of the new cosmology, Berry pointed the way to a spirituality attuned to our place in the natural world, and an ethic of responsibility and care for the earth. This work, timed to mark the centenary of his birth, will offer the best guide to one of the true prophets and spiritual masters of our time."
224 pages, Paperback
First published November 10, 2014
25 people are currently reading
158 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 7, 2019
Don't get me wrong, Thomas Berry was one of the coolest cats ever and his core ideas in this book are fantastic. The only problem is these ideas are slathered in abstract, vague language, making it a real chore to read. Parts of it are redundant and come off as a bit pretentious.
October 14, 2017
Check out my favourite quotes from this book HERE - https://goo.gl/6WavCT
2.5
I brought this book because I read a quote by Thomas Berry that I really liked and wanted to know more... unfortunately I was rather disappointed. Firstly, I should point out that this is a collection of snippets from various essays and I just found it very repetitive and at times a little pompous. I agree with Berry's points about the environment and the fact that humans are doing little to save it (Berry died in 2009 and things have only gotten worse since then), however, all this book says (continually) is that humans need to change how they think about the earth and to work with it instead of trying to dominate it, which is true, but it was said so many times that it got boring and I wanted more in-depth thinking - to me the fact that humans need to change their way of thinking is obvious.
I will say though, I'm not religious and I've never really considered the church's (or other religions) roles in stopping climate change, but this book made me really think about it. I think it's so strange that the church doesn't do more about it... surely they should want to protect and preserve the planet they believe God created? Personally, I think if the church was more focused on climate change and consumerism a lot more would be done - like I said, I'm not religious, but even I can see the power and influence that the church and other religious have. Berry also saw how powerful the various religions could be if they joined the cause and said, 'The Church could be a powerful force in bringing about the healing of a distraught Earth.'
This book also made me consider - does humans even deserve to be saved? Yes, many people are now doing a lot to preserve the planet, but it's not enough. To save the planet everyone needs to be doing their part and maybe it's too little too late. As I've already said, Berry died in 2009, obviously these essays were written before then, yet since his death the problem has only gotten worse and people are still blatantly ignoring the writing on the wall. Besides, even if we weren't pushing other species to extinction and rushing ourselves toward the brink, why wouldn't you want to make our planet better?
All in all, although it really made me think, I wouldn't actually recommend reading this book. If you're interested, read my favourite quotes (on my blog, link at the top) or read the snippets that are already online, since the book doesn't add much more to them...
2.5
I brought this book because I read a quote by Thomas Berry that I really liked and wanted to know more... unfortunately I was rather disappointed. Firstly, I should point out that this is a collection of snippets from various essays and I just found it very repetitive and at times a little pompous. I agree with Berry's points about the environment and the fact that humans are doing little to save it (Berry died in 2009 and things have only gotten worse since then), however, all this book says (continually) is that humans need to change how they think about the earth and to work with it instead of trying to dominate it, which is true, but it was said so many times that it got boring and I wanted more in-depth thinking - to me the fact that humans need to change their way of thinking is obvious.
I will say though, I'm not religious and I've never really considered the church's (or other religions) roles in stopping climate change, but this book made me really think about it. I think it's so strange that the church doesn't do more about it... surely they should want to protect and preserve the planet they believe God created? Personally, I think if the church was more focused on climate change and consumerism a lot more would be done - like I said, I'm not religious, but even I can see the power and influence that the church and other religious have. Berry also saw how powerful the various religions could be if they joined the cause and said, 'The Church could be a powerful force in bringing about the healing of a distraught Earth.'
This book also made me consider - does humans even deserve to be saved? Yes, many people are now doing a lot to preserve the planet, but it's not enough. To save the planet everyone needs to be doing their part and maybe it's too little too late. As I've already said, Berry died in 2009, obviously these essays were written before then, yet since his death the problem has only gotten worse and people are still blatantly ignoring the writing on the wall. Besides, even if we weren't pushing other species to extinction and rushing ourselves toward the brink, why wouldn't you want to make our planet better?
All in all, although it really made me think, I wouldn't actually recommend reading this book. If you're interested, read my favourite quotes (on my blog, link at the top) or read the snippets that are already online, since the book doesn't add much more to them...
Read
September 8, 2018I found that the author provides a refreshing perspective on ecological issues. He intertwines history, religion, and ecology with commanding knowledge leading the reader to understand how we got here to this tipping point of ecological disaster as a civilization without promoting any specific theology.
May 17, 2015
A good introduction to Thommas Berry's thinking - though it really is a collection of excerpts, so reading it will only make you want to pick up more of his books. Quiet, unassuming, yet revolutionary in its offerings. Certainly contributed to refining my worldview.
July 18, 2018
A collection of excerpts from one of the most important scholars of ecological ethics in the past 100 years, perhaps ever. Edited by two of my favorite professors, I'm a tad biased when it comes to the book and its contents. I will say it is hard to read straight through and shouldn't necessarily be approached as such. It should be thought of more as a gateway and offering into Berry's more robust work. That said, once you have internalized what Berry calls "The New Story", it is hard to forget. Advocating for a functional cosmology that fortifies us to transition from the "Anthropocene" to an "Ecozoic Era", Berry believed that all institutions - law, economy, religion - should be judged insofar as how they help foster a mutually enhancing relationship with the earth community. If they don't facilitate that relationship, as they currently do not, then they are broken and dysfunctional. One of Berry's most memorable quotes is that "the earth is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects." If everything else is forgotten, this is what I will remember from my time reading his work.
April 23, 2023
A call to restore the numinous to our scientific inquiry, be joyful of our universe, be humbled!
Thomas makes an emotional and cogent call, to restore the numinous in scientific inquiry. Bringing humility, diversity into communion with our subjectivity. Deep respect for nearly 14 Billion years of Universe, over 4 Billion years of our home the planet Earth, life over 3 Billion years when compared to our species Homo sapiens of 200,000 years. An integral ecology that acknowledging continental integrity, language, culture and spiritual development maintains Earth's capacity to sustain an ecosystem of land, air, water that supports all microbe, plant, animal, oceanic life, birds of the air, and the diversity of humanity.
Thomas makes an emotional and cogent call, to restore the numinous in scientific inquiry. Bringing humility, diversity into communion with our subjectivity. Deep respect for nearly 14 Billion years of Universe, over 4 Billion years of our home the planet Earth, life over 3 Billion years when compared to our species Homo sapiens of 200,000 years. An integral ecology that acknowledging continental integrity, language, culture and spiritual development maintains Earth's capacity to sustain an ecosystem of land, air, water that supports all microbe, plant, animal, oceanic life, birds of the air, and the diversity of humanity.
January 27, 2023
The editors of this selection opted for very short excerpts, organized by topic, such that there is a large amount of redundancy and choppiness in how it reads. It could be useful purely as a reference document, but in my opinion, it does not serve well as an introduction to Berry. In addition, while Berry is a key trail-blazer in the realm of eco-theology, the generation of theologians who have built on his work have, I believe, been able to say more and say it better: Why not just start with McFauge, Baker-Fletcher, Wallace?
October 29, 2015
Ecology and religion...much more to come...
"Thus the scientist seeks to understand Earth in all its geological and biological forms, to examine the inner realms of the atomic and subatomic worlds. Even recent concerns for understanding Earth as a living organism arise not from an arbitrary feeling that it would be an interesting venture of the human mind. We are, rather, impelled to this inquiry through our efforts, at our own self-discovery. It is a mystical venture, for its ultimate purpose is to achieve a final communion with that ultimate reality whence all things come into being. The dedication of personal effort, he life discipline, the excitement of the discoveries made, the differences, the identities, the coherences, the moments of intellectual impasse - all these reveal a new form of religious enchantment and a quest for further revelatory experience. For the universe whence we emerged is constantly calling us back to itself. So too Earth is calling us back to itself, and no only to us but to all its components, calling them into an intimacy with one another and to the larger community within which all earthly realities have their existence."
"Since religious experience emerges from a sense of the awesome aspects of the natural world, our religious consciousness is consistently related to a cosmology that tells us the story of how things came to be in the beginning, how they came to be as they are, and the ole of the human in enabling the universe in its earthly manifestation to continue the mysterious course of its creative self-expression."
"The deep mysteries of existence are manifested more perfectly in accord with the greater diversity held in the greater unity."
"While ur own experiences can never again have the immediacy or the compelling quality that characterized this earlier period, we are experiencing a post-critical naivite, a type of presence to Earth and all its inhabitants that includes, and also transcends, the scientific understanding that now is available to us from these long years of observation and reflection."
"There is now a single issue before us> survial. Not merely physical survival, but survival in a world of fulfillment, surivival in a living world, where the violets bloom in the springtime, where the stars shine down in all their mystery, survival in a world of meaning. ll other issues dwindle in signidicance - whether in law, governance, religion, education, economics, medicine, science, or the arts. These are all in disarray because we told ourselves: We know! We understand! We see! In reality what we see, as did our ancestors on this land, is a continent available for exploitation."
"Thus the scientist seeks to understand Earth in all its geological and biological forms, to examine the inner realms of the atomic and subatomic worlds. Even recent concerns for understanding Earth as a living organism arise not from an arbitrary feeling that it would be an interesting venture of the human mind. We are, rather, impelled to this inquiry through our efforts, at our own self-discovery. It is a mystical venture, for its ultimate purpose is to achieve a final communion with that ultimate reality whence all things come into being. The dedication of personal effort, he life discipline, the excitement of the discoveries made, the differences, the identities, the coherences, the moments of intellectual impasse - all these reveal a new form of religious enchantment and a quest for further revelatory experience. For the universe whence we emerged is constantly calling us back to itself. So too Earth is calling us back to itself, and no only to us but to all its components, calling them into an intimacy with one another and to the larger community within which all earthly realities have their existence."
"Since religious experience emerges from a sense of the awesome aspects of the natural world, our religious consciousness is consistently related to a cosmology that tells us the story of how things came to be in the beginning, how they came to be as they are, and the ole of the human in enabling the universe in its earthly manifestation to continue the mysterious course of its creative self-expression."
"The deep mysteries of existence are manifested more perfectly in accord with the greater diversity held in the greater unity."
"While ur own experiences can never again have the immediacy or the compelling quality that characterized this earlier period, we are experiencing a post-critical naivite, a type of presence to Earth and all its inhabitants that includes, and also transcends, the scientific understanding that now is available to us from these long years of observation and reflection."
"There is now a single issue before us> survial. Not merely physical survival, but survival in a world of fulfillment, surivival in a living world, where the violets bloom in the springtime, where the stars shine down in all their mystery, survival in a world of meaning. ll other issues dwindle in signidicance - whether in law, governance, religion, education, economics, medicine, science, or the arts. These are all in disarray because we told ourselves: We know! We understand! We see! In reality what we see, as did our ancestors on this land, is a continent available for exploitation."
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews